We woke up to a gray rainy morning, but set out on the DART train to Greystones in County Wicklow nonetheless. I have some family records that say that the Doyles and Connors (my great-grandparents' people) lived near Greystones - in Kilquade, Kilcoole, and Delgany. The Connors, according to Aunt Kitty, lived and worked on a place called Spring Farm. I didn't set out with a clear goal of finding anything specific, just wanted to "walk the ground" on my first visit to Ireland...and wanted to attempt the "Cliff Walk".
We wandered around the town a bit, and I bought a lovely green dress from Deirdre in the "swapshop" and a super-cool soccer (football) sticker book for Torben. Had some coffee in the Starbucks of Ireland, Insomnia (good coffee though). As we wandered, I asked whomever we chatted with about Spring Farm, to little avail. I noticed that we'd wandered ourselves right in front of the Greystones library. Feeling a bit shy, I poked around a bit, and seeing a poster about the Greystones "historical and archeological journal", I asked one of the librarians where I could get a copy. She suggested a grocery shop (Leo Ireton's) and also said that the librarian who best knew the history of the town would be in shortly. We puttered around a bit, using the internet and looking at the La Touche family exhibit, but were about to give up and head to the bookshop when Helen arrived. Oh, I think we have some things about Spring Farm in the files, says Helen.
No, I didn't find ancient photos of relatives or a map to buried Doyle treasure. But she did have contact with a woman named Eve from the UK whose family owned Spring Farm when my family worked there. She'd visited last year and had found her way to the grounds and managed to get in and take some pictures (the current owner being notoriously private). She also had a copy from the Irish Times archive of an auction of Spring Farm - and Eve's emails suggested that the estate had been "stolen" from her family. I'll be emailing her shortly! We also found some maps and old book about Kilquade that mentions Spring Farm. Not having a car, we couldn't journey out to search, sadly, but there will certainly have to be a return trip with the family.
After my lovely chat with Helen, we headed off to the Happy Pear for a veggie lunch, and then on to the Cliff Walk.
Here are some pictures (more to follow but this is all I can upload tonight). There's so so much I didn't get to see, but the grass, ferns, flowers, cliffs (and snails) were just amazing.
We ended our hike at Martello's in
