Dublin, 24.9.2025: Oscar Wilde and Chicken and Ham Pie

Steve has gotten sick, just as he did when we went to Lisbon in December — a hacking cough, constant sneezing and sore throat, fever in the afternoon and evening yesterday. So we slept as long as we could this morning and when we got up with plans to go to the chapel at Dublin Castle so that I could see and photograph the carving of Brian Boru at the chapel entrance, he insisted we take a taxi.

Limerick and Ennis, Ireland, 18.9.2025: Abbey Ruins and Beware the Bull

Thursday (the 18th) was quite a day. I’m writing now on Saturday. It was the day I’d made plans to go to the County Clare Library in Ennis to visit its Local Studies Centre. For some months, I’d been in touch with the librarian who oversees that Centre, Michael Talty. We exchanged emails back and forth as I explained to him my interest in seeing if any archival sources might have information about my Clare-rooted Linchy/Lynch/Lindsey family, whose DNA profile (among male descendants) shows that we belong to the Dalcassian families centered in Clare and related to Brian Boru. FTDNA reports to me that Brian and I share an ancestor about 650 CE.