Letter of the Month, 2007 - World Cultures European

Letters - 2007
Next Page: Letters 2006

We receive many lovely letters from visitors to our web site and subscribers to our newsletter. As we’re fond of saying, your feedback helps to make all of the time and effort worth while. While we have a Readers Write Page where we post comments from time to time, we’ve decided to also select a Letter of the Month - one that for whatever reason, tickled our fancy. So,

December, 2007

Happy New Year Bridget and Russ,
Thanks to both of you for keeping the Irish in the Irish. I look forward every month to your newsletter.*

I must tell you there has been many a day while sitting at my desk and reading your letter that my head would take off and start day-dreaming about walking the streets of Ireland. Well, this past September my wife and I spent two weeks driving from Dublin to Waterford to Blarney Castle to Killarney back to Dublin and then took the train to Belfast. It’s great to know that we were two of the record 7.8 million visitors that went to Ireland in 2007.

While I was driving I would think about those days sitting at my desk day- dreaming and would pinch myself to make sure I really was there. It was a time we will never forget.

Thanks again for all you do and God Bless,

Glen and Michele Whelan

*ED. NOTE: Our newsletter is actually published two and sometimes three times a month, depending on how heavy our schedule is. If you’d like to take a look at past issues, please click Public Archive.
Photo Credit: 123 Travel

November, 2007

Oh, it's glad I am to have stumbled upon your web site.

I really enjoy the less commercial Christmas music, and Wexford Carol is one of my favorites. Wanting to know more about its history, I googled the name and thus found your page.

I am of Irish ancestry (my great-grandparents immigrated from the southwest of Ireland) and I've convinced my husband that we need to visit Ireland - we'll be going for our 25th anniversary in a few years. If you've suggestions about places we absolutely must see, I'm listening!

My father taught me to be proud of my Irish background - not by talking, but by being so himself. I enjoy learning what I can, and your web site is one to which I'll be returning.

So - just to say thank you.

Maureen (O'Connor) Smith
Great Falls, Montana

October, 2007

Jane Brackman had written to us asking about an Irish bloodhound. We weren’t familiar with the breed so we asked Jane to look into it. Here’s what she came up with - a story so interesting, we’ve chosen it for our letter of the month. Go raibh maith agat, Jane!

Charles Dickens had what he called, as have all his biographers after John Forster, an Irish Bloodhound. According to Forster who wrote The Life of Charles Dickens (1872-74), Sultan was actually a cross between a St. Bernard and a Bloodhound, about the size and reddish color of a small lion, given to Dickens by one of his literary protégés, Irishman Percy Fitzgerald. Dickens loved the dog even though Sultan was so bad tempered that he had to be muzzled unless chained. Mamie wrote, “His pet aversion was anything red; and when we met on the highroad a company of [British] soldiers marching from Gravesend to Chatham he used to dash into the midst of them and scatter them all over the road, though, being muzzled, he did them no harm. It was in consequence of this propensity that my father dubbed him ‘The Fenian.’” A Fenian is an Irish nationalist who opposes British rule. Perhaps this is where the moniker “Irish” came from – the bad tempered red head – and it stuck. After severely biting the little sister of one of the servants, Dickens, to his great grief, had the dog shot. The heartbreak he suffered is perhaps best reflected in the lines from Our Mutual Friend (1864-65), published about the same time as the dog’s untimely demise, “Meanness on four legs never attains the perfection of meanness on two.”

September, 2007

Hello!

What a wonderful website you have! So lucky I am to have found all this. Absolutely love all the content and links. So beautifully written & informative. While searching for your lovely music was how I have been so lucky to have found this treasure trove. ..all the recipes...books... ..so much. more. And I would very much appreciate a newsletter.

Thanking you from way over here in Western Australia.

Kindest Regards,

Wendy

August, 2007

Thank you so much for the ecard!* It just so happens that Glendalough is my favorite place in Ireland. Also, when we last visited there, I placed my mother's ashes into that very river pictured on the card! She always wanted to go to Ireland and I never got to go there with her while she was living; but I went four years after she died with my fiance, now husband, and was finally able to take her home where she always wanted to be! Thanks for the sweet memory!

I love your web site. I visit often. We are huge Celtic music fans.
I'm Irish with my dad's family originating from Cork.

Cindy Stewart Birdwell

*ED. NOTE: We send an Irish Corner card to all new subscribers. To see more cards from the Irish Corner web site, please click Irish Corner.

July, 2007

Dear Bridget and Russ:
First off, thank you so much for the Trivia Contest and opportunity to win such lovely prizes. I would like the Bewley's Tea Pot.
I just want to tell you how much I love your site. It's nice to know that I'm not the only everything-Irish fanatic out there, as Utah has very little connection with the Irish.

Thanks again very much,
Amanda

May - June, 2007

Dear Bridget & Russ

I particularly like your site as it really appeals to my interest in anything Irish but with the notice of the interest as well in a spiritual sense. Briefly, my background is of a third generation Canadian. My name alone began my interest in Irish roots. Call it old-fashioned perhaps but I have a strong feeling from times of old that one should do nothing in this life to bring shame on the name of O'Rourke. Last year, I retired from the work force and since it has been my life long dream to physically go to Ireland I put all fears behind me and headed off to Ireland, having never gone across the ocean. I'm glad I decided to take an escorted coach tour (12 days) and saw the whole perimeter of Southern Ireland. I looked on it as a 'spiritual journey' and the pull to 'go back' seems very strong in our Celtic souls. I wasn't disappointed. I particularly like your book section as it makes me aware of what is going on in Irish literature both old and new. I now have the time to study my Celtic heritage. So, I do thank you for your wonderful site, it is one of the positive aspects of having a computer.

God bless,

Maureen O’Rourke

April, 2007

Good morning Bridget & Russ,

I just had a moment to go over a recent Irish Culture & Customs newsletter and saw the news item about New Ross.
My family emigrated from New Ross in 1906 and the story always was that we are related to the Kennedy's of Dunganstown. During his visit to New Ross, JFK visited with his cousin, Mary Kennedy Ryan (who had indoor plumbing installed for his visit). While it may be a bit of story-telling involved in my family history, it is true that Mary Kennedy Ryan is also a cousin to my Gran. In 1964, my mom & Gran visited New Ross and Mary. True or not, it always makes for a good story! Thank you for sharing the news of New Ross.

Best
Baidra Prochnow Murphy

March, 2007

Hello Bridget and Russ,

I found your site today and enjoyed browsing through it very much. I, too, went to Ireland a few years ago and fell in love with the land of my ancestors. I was happy to see you had links to foodireland.com, one of my favorite shopping sights. I don't know if you have Market Basket supermarkets where you live, but they carry Kerrygold cheeses for just under half of foodireland's price and no shipping costs involved. If not, take a vacation to the New England area and bring a bunch back with you. Keep up the good work on the web site and I really enjoyed the jokes.

Best regards,
Fred Sennott (Sinnott in County Wexford)
Nashua, NH

Ed. Note: We are very familiar with Food Ireland where you can buy a wide variety of genuine irish favourites, from bacon and sausages to cheeses and Taytos - yes, real Taytos!

February, 2007
I just wanted to thank you for the information you sent for my daughter's trip to Ireland. She and her friends just returned home yesterday after a week of exploring the beautiful southern part of the country. They got to see the Cliffs of Moher on what they were told was the windiest day ever known there! It was truly a week none of them will ever forget.
My husband and I are starting to plan our trip for our 25th anniversary next year. I can't wait! I've wanted to visit my grandfather's homeland for as long as I can remember. Maybe I'll actually be able to speak a few words with the help of your website, too! Thanks again for your help.
God Bless. Sue Johnson

Photo Credit: Bally-Vaughan Cottages

January, 2007
Irish Culture and Customs is my personal fave ... you are doing such a wonderful job. I'm not even sure how I found you, but I've shown the site to my family, and we're very happy. I was particularly tickled with the photographs of various places. I am a second generation US citizen, my grandfather from Lynn's Cottages, Annagassan, Louth, serving in the Belgian Navy before he came here to enlist in the USMC (1918), and was later decorated in WW I and II. Family records were lost in a church fire some remote time ago, and our remaining relatives there were disinterested when we visited in 1998. Your site has made it easier to connect with lost family history.