Cork and the Butter Museum

We did diverge a bit from just visiting family townlands on our trip to Ireland last September.

We spent a few days in Cork exploring such things as the  English Market and the Butter Museum.

I didn't know there was so much to know about butter, but the cute little museum was really fascinating.  We learned about the butter trade, the Butter Exchange and saw the 1000 year firkin of  bog butter.





From the butter museum we wended our way back down to the river and on to the English Market,
Irelands most famous covered Market.




 It was an interesting mix of local and exotic foods.  William sought blood sausage, but only found blood pudding, not the same as he remembered from an earlier trip to Ireland.  I have to say I think the market in Philadelphia was more impressive.

The city is situated on the River Lee which splits into two channels at the western end and divides the city centre into islands. They reconverge at the eastern end where the quays and docks along the river banks lead outwards towards Lough Mahon and Cork Harbour, which is one of the largest natural harbours in the world by navigational area.^[Wikipedia]

The city's charter dates back to 1185, but the city itself dates at least a few centuries earlier.  Purportedly founded as a monestary by St. Finbarr in the sixth century it was expanded by the Vikings as a trading post in the 10th century.

Today, new and old are interwoven throughout the city.




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1977 - Tim & Denise

One of the family gatherings that I didn't make was the wedding of Tim and Denise. 

But the rest of the family was there, although it is hard to prove it  

from the pictures I have. I found Sean, Maura, and Erich.  There was one picture of Pat that was so bad I didn't dare put it...and no Mom or Dad to be found.

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Kilconnell Abbey (Cill Chonaill)

Figuring out how to get to the ruins of Kilconnell Abbey took us a bit of contemplation and further consultation at the local pub. Between the buildings and through the fields?  Through the gardens and by the sheep?  That turned out to be the easiest way. A well maintained path took us to the Abbey where we thoroughly examined the seemingly locked gate before realizing we just had to open it!

Located in Kilconnell, a small rural village, in County Galway, the Franciscan Abbey was founded in 1353 by William Bui O'Kelly, Lord of Uí Maine.  It was renovated by his grandson, William Mór O'Kelly in the early fifteenth century.  William Mór died in 1420 and is buried in the friary.  It is a major burial place for the O'Kelly Sept.

Although it lacks a roof (some sources state it was deroofed by Cromwellian soldiers, others that it was abandoned by the Franciscans as vocations fell) it is amazingly intact considering it has been unoccupied for hundreds of years.


As we continue to explore our Kelly heritage, it is exciting to know that is was our ancestors that built some of these wonderful ruins.  As I wandered through this and others, I did think that I probably like them best in this "ruin" form.  With roofs they would have been dark and cold.  Open to the air with sunlight...well daylight anyway.. pouring through they are places of great beauty and wonder.

More Pictures

Read more on the history of Kilconnell

Kilconnell - Monastic Ireland - History, a tour of the site, footprint....wish I had found this site before we visited!
History of Kilcennell Abbey - Schools Collection  - dúchas.ie
The Irish Aesthete - Where there is Darkness Light
Ireland in Ruins
Kilconnell - Wikipedia

More Family Art

Madi's contribution to the family art collection.

Madison Carbullido (age 12)

Galey Castle

Lying on western shores of Lough Ree, near Knockcroghery, Co. Roscommon, the ruins of Galey castle are just across the road from Galey Caravan Park. But bring your wellies if you want to see the actual ruins.  In this picture it is the dense green just left of center.  





Galey Castle "...was once the stronghold of the O'Kelly clan and was instrumental in the naming of the nearby village of Knockcroghery. The name change of the village occurred in Cromwellian times (17th century) when Sir Charles Coote laid siege to Galey Castle. The garrison resisted and for their defiance were taken to Creggan (The old name for Knockcroghery) and hanged on the hill just north of the village, now commonly known as Hangman's Hill. To mark this, the name of the village was changed to "Cnoc na Crocaire," the Hill of the Hangings, or in english - "Knockcroghery"." Galey Bay Camping

According to historical resources, Galey Castle was built in 1348 by our 17th/18th g.grandpa, William McDonagh Moynach O'Kelly (William Bui O'Kelly / Uilliam Bui Ó Ceallaigh). In 1351 he held a great feast at the castle, inviting all the poets, brehons, bards, harpers, gamesters or common kearógs, and jesters and other of their kind of Ireland.  A month long party resulted in verses extolling William for his bounty. 

This is the translation of the O'Kelly Welcome purported to have been written at the feast. 

A blessed, long living, great, courteous welcome,    
An affectionate, charitable, just, proper, true hearted welcome,    
A welcome and twenty, and I add, hundreds to them,    
Like the surge of the stream is, my welcome to you.  

The website  Ó Ceallaigh - The Noble Clan of Ui Maine gives the translation of Filid Erin Go h-Aoin Teach (The Poets of Ireland to One House Are Coming) a product of the party.

The view from the castle must have been spectacular, it certainly is today!

• More Pictures at Galey Bay

Family Gatherings - Vancouver Island 2009

The Pictures

Buchart Gardens

High Tea at the Empress Hotel

Cnoc an Mhóicléaraigh

an update to Mocklershill

Maigh gCorbáin/Magorban
An Trian Meánach/Middlethird
Tiobraid Árann/Tipperary




The last family townland we visited in Sept 2017 was Mocklershill.  Well, kind of sort of.  We found no signs for the townland, but the GPS brought us here.  The weather cooperated, giving a sense of the true beauty of the area.  Mocklershill sits near the eastern end of the Golden Valley just a few kilometers from the Rock of Cashel and the town below it.

The Rock of Cashel is the traditional seat of the Kings of Munster, in use from at least the 5th century AD.  The oldest building on the site dates to about 1100 AD.

View of Hore Abbey

Sitting so close, it seems likely the Dunn family would have visited the ruins of Cashel through the years.

Mocklershill was in the parish of Killenaule, the town of Killenaule today is further from Mocklershill than Cashel, but as the crow flies, and as man was likely to travel in the 1830s Killenaule was closer.

Looking towards Mocklershill from Rock of Cashel

The church in Killenaule today was built about 1860, so it was not in place when the Dune family was baptised. According to the parish website a church located there in 1754 and dedicated to the Virgin Mary was T shaped with a thatched roof.   The website doesn't indicate whether the church was on the same grounds.  The burials in the cemetery all seemed to be after the new church was built.

Logainm - Mocklershill
Pictures of Mocklershill
The Rock of Cashel - Wikipedia
The Rock of Cashel -
Pictures of the Rock of Cashel
Hore Abbey
Killenaule
Pictures of Killenaule