Day 42 - A trip to the seaside

Today was more driving as we made our way down from Kildorrery to Tramore. The distances are not so great, but it is often the intensity of the driving that becomes exhausting. Apart from the motorways and a few other major roads, roads are not divided and are just narrow enough for two cars to pass by with reasonable caution. But often the roads are more narrow and blind so you are always “on” making turns and looking out for on-coming cars racing towards you. I think the easy pace of Ireland has now gone, at least when driving. I was pretty knackered when I arrive at Tramore, a drive of no more than 200Km.

Anyway, today was always going to be an amble. First of all we headed to Cashel and the Rock of Cashel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_of_Cashel). It was an interesting place and full of Irish stories. Afterwards it was just an amble drive that made a way over the mountains and down to the coast which we then followed till we reached Tramore.

We are staying in an Airbnb and I said to Lee-ann as we arrived, I hoped that we are not staying in the caravan parked out the front. After meeting our host (Alex) he said he would show us to our room and proceeded to go out the front door. Well it all turned out ok and the accommodation is very nice (their daughter’s old bedroom). After a chat we headed off to Tramore town centre.

Tramore is at the south east corner of Ireland and in the past and still is a summer holiday town. However you can see the effect that cheap european airfares have had on places like these. In the past these towns thrived because they represented a cheap location for locals to go to have some fun on the beach as part of their summer holidays. Now they can just as easily go to Spain (€59 from Cork) and will be guaranteed a hot dry summer experience. Today on Tramore beach it was a chilli wind that blew the penny arcades were mostly empty of children and the amusement park was mostly idle. So it is a fairly depressing scene if you are a young teenager forced to come here with your parents and then having to amuse yourself in what struck me was a throw back to 1960 Brighton Beach.

The reason we came here was because it was another possible location for my GGGM Mary Flynn. However I don’t put too much emphasis on this Mary being “the one” so I just wanted to say that I had been here.

Tomorrow, we will possible go to Dublin a day early. I only have one more family history place to visit and that is near Dublin. So if there is room at the inn we will head there.