.

It's a long long way to Tipperary
But for her ability to let rip with volleys of profane language from time to time, it would be hard to believe anyone less likely to have descended from a transported criminal than Kaelene. But it is true, her great-grandfather was dispatched from Tipperary to Tasmania in 1851 for the crime of sheep stealing. Three years incarceration in the North Tipp (as we locals call it) prison at a town called Nenagh, from1848, was followed by seven years in Australia, ten years in all was the punishment meted out at that particular time for that particular crime.
Such was the calling of family history that we found ourselves in County Tipperary looking for signs of the past, and we found some. One wing remains of what was originally eight wing gaol built in 1840 to accommodate the rapidly increasing number of those imprisoned mainly for petty crime during the great famine. The gaol's structure is fascinating, its wings fanned out around an octagonal shaped Governor's house which allowed the Governor direct access to all of the wings from his living quarters. At the gaol's entrance still stands a gatehouse with cells for condemned prisoners and a balcony facing the street which, at the time, allowed locals to gather and watch the hangings. The local courthouse was reached from the prison by way of an underground passage. These days, the Governor's House is used as a visitors' centre, complete with museum relics and a genealogy specialist who, at 50 Euro a time, will search for your family records, success not guaranteed.
Later, we toured back country roads successfully finding, with the able assistance of SatNav Ken, Toomyvara (or the Tomb of the O'Mearas), where Kaelene's great-great grandparents are reportedly buried (yes, we think we found the actual graveyard), and farmland which is all that remains of a settlement called Garrane, the area from where that line of the family hailed. We stopped and took photos of an empty paddock, probably to the amusement of a nearby farmer, and marvelled at the wonders of technology which allowed us to find this spot down an old country lane so little used that the grass was growing down its centre.
If we had been unimpressed with the food and service at the Hard Rock Cafe in Dublin, the same could not be said of Pepe's Restaurant in the Ormond Hotel at Nenagh. An Italian restaurant within this classic old-style Irish pub, the food was simply magnificent and of international several-star quality. So delicious were our chicken salads, we indulged in sharing a Toblerone cheesecake for desert, and while Nenagh might still be a small Tipperary town with a population of only 7,000, not even it has escaped the influence of the European Union, the waitress was Latvian.
En route to Nenagh we stopped by the Cahir Castle which dates back to 1142 and is said to be one of the largest medieval castles in Britain and then to the unusually named Swiss Cottage (it is correctly called a cottage orne - a result of the picturesque movement of the late 18th, early 19th century, usually refers to smallish houses built in a somewhat artificial rustic manner. Characterised by thatch much use of timber features etc. Popular for estate buildings) which in true Irish fashion is not Swiss at all. It was built by the First Earl of Glengall as a country cottage where he could pretend to slum it on summer holidays and idle weekends. The story goes that the servants were all stationed downstairs below ground so the family could pretend that they were roughing it by tending to themselves. Somehow because you couldn't see the cooks actually working it meaning that the owners could imagine and convince guests they had done the cooking themselves. Curious, but an interesting house nevertheless where nothing quite matches and the windows and doors are all of different shapes and designs, apparently to show that nothing in nature is symmetrical.
Post Nenagh it was back on the tourist trail: the Rock of Cashel, the ruins of an 11th century abbey; Galway and Galway Bay; little coastal towns including the port of Rosseval, the bleak landscape and peat bogs of Connemara, and a pretty little town called Oughtercard.
We were often credited with bringing the good weather to Ireland and initilly this was much to our amusement. The first few times we were puzzled as, although it was warm enough, the skies were grey and there was little sign of sun. As it turns out, as long as is not raining then it is good weather and we were happy to tak the credit. But then it did turn properly sunny and any credit turned to blame. "Oi'll not be takin' any more of this heat, so I won't, so I won't" the common refrain.