Sue and Jerry in Ireland

There are three places in the world I'd love to visit (in alphabetical order): Ireland, Israel, and Italy (and it is totally random and coincidental that they all begin with the same letter,) so yeah, I'm green with envy that Sue Carroll and Jerry Grant recently spent a week in the first of my three choices.

Sue writes, "Reading our favorite newspaper [my competition] on the stone wall at Slea Head Farm which is the westernmost farm in Europe on the end of the Dingle Peninsula. Mollie is the dog - she wasn't interested in having her picture taken...In the background are the Blasket Islands. They were inhabited until 1953 by a small group of rugged souls who have left behind a wealth of written memoirs. So interesting. This is an area of Ireland where the Irish language is still spoken at home. Everyone is bilingual except for our three year-old neighbor. He hasn't started speaking English yet, but he wants to."

Coumeenole Cottage"This is the 200 year-old cottage we rented for the week - as they say in Ireland, 'Pre-famine.' The owners are from Massachusetts and rent it out by the week. Ryan's Daughter was made on the beach in front of the house right around the same time Jaws was being made here. There was a book in the house about the making of [Ryan's Daughter] - we could relate.  Many of the people from the Blasket Islands emigrated to the Springfield area - connections everywhere we look." Photos courtesy of Sue Carroll.