Kilmallock-Cappamore

So this is how the conversation went with JJ, the service station owner:
“Yes sir, how can I help?”. “May I camp for the night on your lawn? I promise not to leave any mess”. “Ah, so now tell me, where would you be from?”. “From near Cambridge”. “Ah, so just from across the water, then”. “But both my parents have roots here in Ireland”. “Ah well, you are indeed most welcome then…..”.

When I arrived in Kilmallock, I never realised this small village of just 1500 people had so much history. It has an Abbey, a Collegiate church, town walls and gates, and even its own castle, and some of its housing dates from the 1400s. But all to be undone by Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries.

My route took me through the village of Bruff, seat of the ancestral home of the Fitzgerald’s, the forebears of John F Kennedy’s mother

…and monuments like this demonstrate the pride still held for their revolutionary heroes in the wars for independence.

And so to Cappamore, seat of the O’Connell ancestral home, to spend a few days amongst cousins, and catch up with the last 25 years of family history.