Serendipity

Each day we’ve set out with an idea of what we wanted to see and where we wanted to end up. We generally call ahead to find a bed & breakfast sometime early afternoon; we’ve not really researched B & B’s but do have along a Fodor’s Travel book. Friday night we lucked into an extraordinary farm house B & B just west of Cork City. And boy, did we need it. We had been in search of the Heritage Center in Cobh where the famine ships left for America and we got turned around several times. Cork is a city of many inlets and harbors and if you get off in the wrong direction it’s hard to recover. We kept good spirits and finally found Cobh fairly late in the afternoon. An extraordinary place from which at least a million Irish sailed away to escape poverty, famine, and religious repression. It’s also where the survivors of the Lusitania were brought after it had been torpedoed by the Germans. The Heritage Center had oral histories of townspeople remembering the day and the event- compelling listening. After spending time there we headed west into the Town of Macroom looking for a place to rest. We decided on Findus House, a working farm and B & B and felt very blessed by our good fortune. The place is run by Mary and Michael O’Sullivan, the farm being in Michael’s family for many generations. Michael, who appears to be in his late sixties, looks like every kindly Irish priest you’ve ever met, and when we got back from dinner on Friday night, he invited us to sit with him to listen to “Irish songs.” Although you’ll not hear him singing with the Irish Tenors on TV, there was a heartbreaking directness, depth, and clarity in his voice as he sang songs about loves lost, tragedies lived through, and the great enduring sadness of the Irish diaspora. When he finished each song you felt like you’d taken a journey. An unexpected highlight of our trip so far. The pictures are of Findus House, the view out our window, and our closest neighbors. We woke to the sound of these fine Irish cattle lowing in the misty valley meadow. Mary cooked a wonderful breakfast, with everything having been produced on her farm - warm, feather-light scones; hearty Irish brown soda bread; rashers of bacon; freshly squeezed orange juice; and the freshest eggs I’ve ever tasted.