July 3, 2001
A special hello to the Porter girls (Ada, Maisie, Ruth and Janice) from Edith's
side of the family. Their ancestry, by blood or marriage, is Scottish and
English with Irish influences. I think of them when I meet the people of
Ireland, particularly David, our driver. They speak in a gentle and quietly
convincing manner. Qualifiers and conditional statements are used generously as
they express their point of view in due course with humor and conviction. I
contrast this to the Germans who I better relate to. One could say the Germans
are more direct, less compromising and rules-oriented, but they are generally
honest, hard-working and display some measure of friendliness. I guess that
after all of these years of my German vs. Irish comparisons, I must reluctantly
admit that the Irish are a loving, compassionate people, and I am a better
person by having known the Porters (although I do suspect that Janice may have
some measure of German feistiness in her).
We learned some new definitions today, and I want to share them to avoid future
confusion. The words are solicitor, hooker and good crack. A solicitor is an
attorney. A hooker is a fishing boat. (Some of you may have predicted other
definitions.) Good craic (pronounced crack) is a good time usually centered
around music, drink, lively conversation, and laughter (end of lesson.)
We arrived in Galway this afternoon. We are housed in the Radisson hotel, again
in a nice new facility. Galway has 65,000 people and it is an easy walk through
the main part of town with its many stores. I now call Edith the pied piper of
shoppers. She led a small band of people from our tour through the shopping
district in such a fashion that the helpless husbands could not react fast
enough to the ever increasing collections of filled shopping bags. Barbara, also
on our tour, didn't shop until later. When I saw her at the pub that evening
with her bags of bargains, she told me how she admired Edith's ability to spot
buys and how Edith inspired her to go out and shop. I guess that I should feel
proud, but somehow I feel empty.
Brendan and Mary Rita are brother and sister and are members of our tour.
Brendan was in the Korean War, uses a cane, but is very friendly and has a lot
of energy. Brendan and Mary are from Boston and I love her accent. The driver
left them off the bus about 10 miles from Galway where we had stopped to look at
a church. They were met by two cousins, and it was a very touching scene when
they hugged and greeted each other. This was the first time that Brendan has
seen the family home and graves. They arranged transportation and caught up with
our tour group later in the day. Mary said that Brendan cried the whole time
they were there. They're such wonderful people!
Ireland Main