We are just back from our final trip to Donegal. We left on Saturday the 4th and returned on Monday (yesterday), so it was a quick trip. We did see most of the people we wanted to see, visited my mother's grave every day and had two very nice side trips. I was sorry to miss my cousin Mary Boyle but we saw the extended Flynn (Burke) family during a lovely dinner at Teresa and Seamus Flynn's house. They are such a delight, I'm so happy to have gotten to know them better.

Our two side trips included one to Lissadel in Sligo, a grand house that I'd wanted to visit during our trip to County Clare last month but proved too far a drive then. The second was to the Glenveigh National Park, and castle in Donegal. The former was the home of the Gore-Booth family, a large ruling class family before independence. The most famous member of the family was Constance, the Countess Markevitz, a commander in the Irish Republican Army during the Easter Rebellion of 1916. She was quite an interesting person, uncommon for her class in sympathy with the aims of the Irish struggle for independence. She was also great friends with both Yeats brothers, the poet William and the painter Jack B. and the exhibition at the house covered all those connections, as well as the eccentric Gore-Booth family in detail. The house is just ugly, although situated in a beautiful setting on the Atlantic with a great view of Ben Bulben, a noted tabletop mountain in Sligo. Glenveigh on the other hand, was amazingly beautiful. Situated in the northern part of Donegal, it's the last inhabited place in Ireland. It was purchased after the famine by a rich man from County Laios (pronounced Leash) who apparently evicted everyone and build a castle for himself for the summer. He seemed like a real rat, but after several owners in the early part of the century, the land and castle were given to the Irish government and they made it a national park. Except for the castle, it's just miles and miles of beautiful mountains with not a structure of any sort in sight. Just fabulous.

Our trip to Ballyvaughn and subsequent sightseeing around Dublin with friends Linda and Bob was all we expected. We did several good walking tours in Dublin with them before we left for our weeklong stay in County Clare. I learned some new things about the wonderful city we've adopted during our time here. I really tried hard not to feel sad and note "this is the last time..."at every turn.

Ballyvaughn is just outside the Burren, an area of stone mountains in the west. We toured every day and saw quite a number of ring forts and other antiquities. We also visited the Father Ted house for tea. Father Ted is a television series that was filmed in Ireland from 1997-1999 but still plays regularly in reruns. Alan and I really enjoy it and we showed Linda and Bob several youtube episodes before we went to the tea. It was fun. We had some great meals, including a nice lunch in yet another great house (now hotel) Gregans Castle Hotel. We all enjoyed the meal but were shocked to learn that a glass of wine was 14 euro. Good thing we didn't have two! Still, it was a very nice place to spend a few hours. We had two more days in Dublin before our guests left and I was happy to introduce my good friends here (Mary and Deirdre) to Linda on a very nice walk from Greystones to Bray on a warm Sunday afternoon. On the last evening I took Linda to set dancing (the men didn't go). She dispatched herself really well, I was impressed and hope she's caught the bug and will find a set dance group in Virginia.

The next few weeks will be devoted to tying up loose ends here and saying our goodbyes. I will take an overnight trip with Mary and Deirdre to Rosslare and Mt. Usher next week and will have lunch with another friend Mary this week. We are hoping to see our other friends Sarah and David for dinner sometime next week and have someting in the works planned with John and Mary, friends we've known for many years predating our sojourn here in Ireland. I'm still working on not being depressed about our departure. Although there's not much to do in preparation for the move, since the shipment is gone, we have our return flights booked and a place to stay in Bloomington, I continue to keep busy with dance, bridge and walking.

I'm going to start really thinking about that book now...