St. Stephen's Day Extravaganza

As many of you may have already known, or even guessed, I've got roots in this country. Unfortunately, most of them (namely my entire dad's side) are from the North, so there's not much to be found in the way of geneaology around here.

Fortunately, my Aunt Patty married my Uncle Sean, who emigrated from the Emerald Isle and still has family here. Namely, his sister Jetta and her husband Jimmy. They graciously invited us for St. Stephen's Day lunch (it's what they call Boxing Day, 'round these parts) and we accepted. I was keen to see them after only meeting them once a number of years ago.

They live in Dún Laoghaire (pronounced "done-leery"), the major port out of Dublin and also a very well-to-do neighbourhood these days. Supposedly Bono of U2 lives somewhere around town...

We had quite a lovely time, drinking tea and cookies. Then Jetta's sons took us for a pre-lunch drink (quel bonne idee!), which turned out to be a lovely country drive (We even passed by Enya's castle. That's right, she lives in a castle.) all the way up to "undoubtedly the highest pub in the country", Johnny Fox's. A delicious two pints of Guinness later, I was ready for lunch. They fed us very well and it was great to hang out with a family and drink tea and wine, since I can't remember the last time I got to do that! We'll probably get the opportunity to meet with them again and I hope we do, because for me it's important to have family as well as friends.