Dennis Deery

In Ireland there is no Thanksgiving… Well okay, they may give thanks, but they haven’t built a ridiculous shopping holiday around it. Thankfully, they’re willing to celebrate it on our behalf. We had friends from the States visiting over the holiday week. Since they were here to work, Thanksgiving Day was a work day for all of us. But, Thanksgiving night we went out to dinner with the board of the Dunhill Multi-Education Centre, where Kathleen works.

On November 4, Connie Loden, from the Heart of Wisconsin Business and Economic Alliance in Wisconsin Rapids, arrived in Dublin with a group of people from the Wisconsin Rapids area. Their purpose was a tour of Ireland looking at regional branding and marketing initiatives in communities, and other types of small-community and rural-area economic development. I’ve known Connie for some time through my involvement with the Wisconsin Rural Leadership Program and Wisconsin Rural Partners.

We’ve been making the rounds doing a lot of sightseeing and Christmas shopping the past few weekends. As you might guess, the lovely old downtowns with so many historic buildings are quite lovely when decorated for Christmas. I’ve been doing a lot of night-shooting, and I can tell you walking the streets with a tripod after dark certainly attracts a lot of attention - see the drunk pic below. Many thanks to our friends John and Kat, who on their recent visit lugged my tripod over here so at least some of my Christmas pics wouldn’t be fuzzy.

We’ve had some amazingly windy days here recently. Last Sunday we had some friends in from the U.S. and were touring down the coast during a windstorm - sustained gusts of 50-60 MPH. I shot a short video of the waves crashing on shore. You can play it below. It doesn’t really do it justice, but it’s kind of cool. Those are 50-foot cliffs the waves are blowing up and over.

This past weekend brought us a 3-day weekend because Halloween provides a bank holiday in Ireland. With our typical forethought, we made no plans and instead hopped in the car Saturday morning and headed to Galway, tourist Mecca of Ireland. It’s only 150 miles from Tramore to Galway, but given the Irish roads that’s nearly a 4-hour drive, though a very lovely one. We got to Galway and spent most of the day sightseeing before dropping in to a Failte Ireland office to check on accommodations.

A few weeks ago we headed to the Ring of Kerry on the southwest coast. We’d heard from several people, Irish and American, that this area is one of the most beautiful in Ireland, and they were right. We got pretty lucky with the weather and had sun for most of the day we were down there. However, we were a little early for the fall color, which was a little disappointing.

A couple of weeks ago we went down to Cork for the UCC graduation ceremony. A number of students who take classes at the Dunhill Multi-Education Centre, where Kathleen works, were graduating, so we tagged along to take pics. One of the grads was our friend Katherine, wife of Willie Moore, who is the board president of the organization Kathleen works for. Congratulations Katherine! After graduation we spent the day wandering around Cork, Ireland’s second largest city.

Well, we’ve survived Halloween in Ireland. We’ve learned that here in the land where they invented it, Halloween is a big deal! We were greatly disappointed to not have any trick-or-treaters stop. We saw very few out wandering around the neighborhood. The bigger thing here is to have fireworks and bonfires, so we did get to watch (illegal) fireworks all around the neighborhood for a good share of the night. This time of year there are lots of references to the ancient Celts floating around, and that’s intrigued me to do more reading about them.

Friday night Kathleen and I attended a black-tie charity ball in support of a sports center for a public-housing neighborhood in Waterford. It was a good networking opportunity for Kathleen, as it was sponsored by the Waterford Local Economic Development Company. And so, in Ireland, Kathleen finally got me into the tux she couldn’t convince me to wear for our wedding.

Or so the song goes. Having now been to Tipperary I can report that it’s not all that far, but thanks to the windy Irish roads it will take you a while to drive there. But it’s a lovely drive, and if you happen to be coming back from Tipperary at midnight you can see the beautifully-lit site of Cashel Castle atop the Rock of Cashel.

Well okay, we flew into Dublin, so I’d been there before, but we didn’t see anything. So technically, this was my first visit to Dublin city center. Last weekend we headed to Dublin to visit our friends Alan and Bre and their daughters, Orla and Ciara. Alan has worked in the past for the Dunhill Multi-Education Centre where Kathleen works, and he was the first connection Kathleen and UW-Stout had to Dunhill.

Last Friday Kathleen had a meeting in Kilkenny, a little over an hour north of here. We had decided to head for Dublin for the weekend, so I took the day off to save her driving back down here to get me. While she had her meeting, I did some sightseeing in Kilkenny, especially around the grounds of Kilkenny Castle. Pics are below. Click here for slideshow

Two weekends ago we headed to the World Ploughing Championships in Tullow, County Carlow, about 1.5 hours north of here. It was a 4-day long event, with the Irish Ploughing Championship the first two days and then the World Championship. In addition to the plowing, it was a big farm show along the lines of our Farm Technology Days. Let me say that it’s a really big show. Over the four days they had a total attendance of around 220,000 people.


We discovered a new beach just a couple of miles down the road from Tramore this past Sunday. This I think is the prettiest beach we’ve found yet. We’ve been there a couple of times now, at low tide and with the tide coming in. We’ll have to time our visits to low tide though, as there’s not much beach left to walk on at high tide. Click here for the self-running slide show.

With our friend Bruce in town, we headed up to the Comeragh Mountains on last Sunday and hiked up to Mahon Falls. (I wrote a bit about Mahon Falls and the Comeragh’s here.) On this trip we had considerably better weather, as you can see from the pics. To view the pics below, you can click on the thumbnails, then navigate through by hovering over the pic and clicking Next or Previous.

We had our first visitor from the States the last few days. Our friend Bruce found his way from Seattle for a short visit. Last Saturday we headed down the Cork area to visit a couple of small towns, Cobh and Kinsale. Cobh’s claim to fame is being the last port visited by Titanic on her first and final voyage. It’s still a maritime port today. We were dogged by rain and fog while visiting Cobh, but still had time to check out the incredible St.

Last weekend we decided to head for the town of Lismore and the famous Lismore Castle. We hadn’t gotten very far down the road before I saw a sign for “Mahon Falls” - given my penchant for following interesting signs, it was time for a detour. We live within sight of the Comeragh Mountains, but hadn’t ventured that direction yet. A short drive brought us to the Comeragh Drive, which very shortly had us parked near the top of the mountain overlooking a waterfall, fogged-in mountains, sheep everywhere, and an incredible view of the Mahon Valley.

Kathleen and I managed a short trip to Seattle last month. You can find the story and pics here.

 Near Hixton, WI