About

Irish Thymes is a scrapbook of information, photos and links about Ireland and its culture, history, music, dance, movies, and recipes. The perspective is that of an American of Irish descent with a curiosity about all things Irish.

About Irish Thymes

This website is about Ireland as it is connected to our family of first generation Irish-Americans. Our ancestral home on both sides of the family is Bere Island, a three mile by seven mile island off the southwest coast of Ireland. I used to say it was in Bantry Bay thinking everybody would know where that is; but I am learning there is so much more to Ireland than our little corner of the Beara Peninsula. Many of the family have moved to Cobh (pronounced Cove), famous for where many of the ships departed for America and other destinations with Irish emigrants.

Our Family Story

We grew up, a large family, hearing stories of the cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents who were still living on the island. My first visit to Ireland was in the late sixties and I was fortunate to make the trip with my parents and our Uncle John, and I got to experience a little bit of what life might have been like for my mother growing up there. It seemed so strange to have all the characters in the stories we heard over the years literally come to life. There was Uncle Bernie and Aunt Nan and all the cousins who were now living in the old family homestead. We visited neighbors and had tea and a chat. We went to the local pub where we sat in “the room” where we were served tea and port wine, as ladies didn’t usually go to the pub – oh, but they do now; and Desi and Mary, the owners, were related to us somehow.

The Old Schoolhouse

The one room schoolhouse still stood and there were dances on the weekend to which it seemed the whole island came, young and old. And they danced the old fashioned waltz, more like our country-western waltz, around the room. They played the Irish tunes on a fiddle and did those special Irish dances that I am only now learning how to do, except for “Shoe the Donkey,” which my mother and Aunt Elizabeth taught us in the front hall of our big Victorian house on the hill.

Bere Island Experience

On that trip, we fetched water from the well for tea and washing up. The water in the rain barrel around the back of the house on the rocks, near the “outhouse,” was for bathing and shampooing. There were no streetlights on the island and I was loathe to go ’round the back after dark because the cows usually wandered outside their fields to munch on the lawn and might greet me face to face on my way.

A Step Back In Time

It was a step back in time, but it was not so strange, as we had experienced much the same in our old farmhouse we bought for a summer house in Georgetown (Massachusetts) when it was already one hundred years old. At various times, I recall, we got ice from the iceman or at the icehouse down by the pond to keep the old Frigidaire ice chest cold. We pumped water into the kitchen sink with a red-handled pump, pushing it up and down to prime it before getting a stream of water from the well. We had an outhouse, too, a two-seater, that we used before we turned the water on in the house for the summer or on our weekend trips. We used the fireplace not only to take the chill off the air but sometimes to heat the kettle or boil some potatoes. No kidding. The stove in the kitchen of the house in Georgetown was a black pot-bellied stove and we cooked with wood or coal and warmed the flat iron to press our clothes. I say we, but mostly I was an observer of the chores, except for weeding the garden and such. Many summer “camps” were like that and maybe some of the more rustic ones still are. But we had all the modern conveniences we needed in the city.

Nostalgia

My brothers and sisters and cousins in America have grown up with somewhat of a nostalgia about our ancestral home and we have managed to keep in contact with most of our Irish cousins, although the distance and the expense of traveling have limited our visits.

This Website

This is my scrapbook but a very modern one! I have links to other websites that have information and pictures about Bere Island. I want to learn more about Irish culture and Irish history and so I am researching those and posting links to sites of interest to me and to my heritage. I love to dance and am learning set dancing, somewhat like our American square dancing, but to Irish jigs, reels, hornpipes and polkas. It’s great exercise and fun. So, if you’re a family member, welcome and enjoy the site, the photos, stories, and all the links. If you just happened by, you’re welcome, too. Drop me a line, if you have anything to add.

Eileen

[Originally posted when this website was set up – approximately 2003]