We arrived and looked around at this mansion built in the 1700s and refurbished several times, most recently in the 1980s. A young couple runs the place, the daughter and son in law of the former owners who still live on the property. (Obviously they weren't the original owners.) They were quite welcoming, though it was a little odd to be staying in someone else's house with no locks on the bedroom doors.
After settling in, we were ready to begin the highlight of our trip - spending time with family we had never met. I called my cousin Canice from the inn and he came to meet us at 5:30 and took us on a tour of the surrounding area and sites of significance to my family. First, we stopped at Aghaboe Abbey, orginally built in the 6th century and destroyed in 1346. The present day building is a ruin of a Dominican friary that was built in 1382 and has been preserved by the local community.
The adjacent cemetery is where many members of the family are buried.
Next, Canice drove past a small dirt road where my great great grandfather, Ned Brennan, lived in 1860, before he came to America. There are no houses there now, but Canice said there once were 14 homes on the lane, probably the simple stone houses whose remains dot the landscape of rural Ireland. .JPG)
We also drove past a slight mound on a local farmer's property. It was overgrown with foliage. Canice identified it as Kyletabreecheen (or what a cousin, Father Bob Brennan, called Killabrigeen in his book Irish Diary), the abandoned cemetery where many of my Brennan ancestors are buried. I wanted to explore the area, but Canice said there was nothing to see as there are no headstones.
Our next stop was the Chapel of Clough, or Aghaboe Chapel, where my great great grandparents, Ned and Mary, were married in 1860. The building is no longer a chapel and is now a community center. The only hint that it was once a chapel is the graveyard adjacent to it.
The final stop on our evening tour was the home where Canice grew up, and the house and barn owned originally by his great grandparents, James and Mary Brennan Clooney. (Mary was the sister of my great great grandfather, Ned.)
He even took us on a tour of the interior of the house, where we saw an old turf-burning stove downstairs and four poster brass bed upstairs. 
The home is on Canice's farm, and his own bungalow, where he lives with his wife, Maura, is just down the lane. He took us there to meet her and she fixed us a nice tea. We had a lovely visit.
The next morning, Tony and I visited Kilkenny and toured its castle.
We also drove around the area to see the many towns and villages whose names I've seen in census records as I've worked on my genealogy. That evening, we joined Canice and Marua and about 50 members of the local community at a mass at the Abbey, said for those who are buried in the cemetery.
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We were told by a local that at this time of the year, masses are said in cemeteries throughout Ireland. Here, they really remember those who have passed on, and every tiny village seems to have its own cemetery, which is a continual reminder of the connection between the living and the dead.
Afterwards, we joined Canice and his family for tea at the house. Maura insisted everyone sing a song, so each of us had to think of something to sing. Tony and I sang a duet, but everyone else sang alone, mostly 20-verse Irish ballads they've been singing for years. It was wonderful to feel a part of this large and thoroughly Irish family.
The next day, our final day in Ireland, we drove to Rathdowny, home of my great great Grandmother, and Castlecomer, a Brennan stronghold to this day.
Then it was time to return to Canice's house for lunch, but we were distracted by the sight of what could only have been a workhouse, set up during the time of the famine. Sure enough, it was a workhouse that had been made into a museum and it was grim. Men, women and children were housed separately, all slept on straw on the floor and worked very hard for very little food. It was a gruesome existence, but it was the only thing between some of the starving population and death.
We spent about 20 minutes at the museum, and then got lost on the way to Canice's. There are no street signs and you simply have to know the lanes and roads, which we don't. Finally we arrived and had a lovely visit where I gave Canice a copy of my book and some family pictures and family history. He showed me the letters he had kept from my father. Sooner than we knew it, it was time to leave, which wasn't easy. Canice and Maura invited us to return, and we said we would. Hopefully we'll be able to keep that promise.
Ellen and Canice at the Abbey
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