Sarah and Scott's visit to Ireland

My apologies for not getting this posted sooner. Sarah (Jonas) Przybylowski (I always cut and paste that name; never try to spell it cold!) and her husband Scott went to Ireland in 2006. These are their stories:

We had a wonderful two weeks there and put almost 4000 Km on our little rental car. (Scott called it the roller skate).
We started in Dublin and met Patrick McCorry. He decided to meet us at a pub that used to be an old church, we knew we were in good hands. He sounded a little nervous to be meeting his father's cousins, and when we finally met he told us that he was expecting someone much older, and his plan was to meet us and then go out with his mates to see a band. I felt great that after talking for an hour or so, he invited us along to meet this friends and hang out in his favorite Dublin pub, The Stag's Head. We had a grand time, good music and company; he was a gracious host.

On to Newry and Mayobridge the next few days, We saw Mary and Malachy Smith in Newry. They took us out to dinner and we had a chance to talk for a few hours and shared some pictures of the "American side" of the family. Mary said that she remembered my mother when she visited in the late 1970's. I got to see pictures of Damian (her nephew) who visited the U.S in the late 1990's (who we all met at a picnic at Mary (Jonas) and Mike Groth's home). Damian is doing well. He lives in London and now has two children. Mary and Malachy are both in good health and are a joy to talk with; we had some good laughs. They helped us with the directions for the next day's trip to Mayoridge to see the McCoys.

On our way to see the McCoys we got lost a few times, driving back and fourth on one particular road that was about 10 inches wider than our roller-skate car. I remembered the post office that was one of the "markers" that Joe and Betty Mullins mentioned when we chatted about their trip. We passed the post office and drove a bit further, still no luck. We stopped to ask a local farmer who happened to know Joe and Alice McCoy. He pointed his finger west and spoke so fast in a mixture of Gaelic and English, we just nodded and thanked him. As he walked back to his barn, we started the car and tried to pull away but were stopped by one of his dogs (a border collie) who was trying to herd our car (we knew the car was small but never thought it would be mistaken for a cow!). After several attempts to move the car, (the dog stopping and staring us down each time) Scott had to get out and shoo the dog away so we could avoid hitting it. A few minutes later trying to follow the farmer's instructions and driving slowly as to not miss anything, we saw two little girls down a long narrow driveway, we waved , they immediately smiled and started waving and jumping up and down. We knew we were in the right place. As we pulled in we saw the wonderfully kind faces of Alice and Joe McCoy, and his brother Dan and wife Teresa. The little girls were the grandchildren of Dan and Teresa. We were greeted warmly and seated in the living room. We shared our photos and stories. I gave the two youngsters some Lulu t-shirts and stickers (told them if they ever came to the states they had to look us up). Next, we went into the kitchen for high tea (which basically means lunch). We had sausage biscuits (made by Teresa), ham, roast beef, stewed tomato and, of course, tea. We had a great time, took some photos, chatted and before we left we went outside for a special treat. The grandchildren did an Irish dance for us in the driveway. They were fantastic and we felt that we were given a great sendoff .

We had a great time meeting our relatives and would recommend visiting to any and all who would like to visit Ireland. Beyond meeting our grandparents family, all of the Irish people we met on our journey were kind, quick witted and gracious people. Which leads us to believe that Ireland's greatest gift to the world is her people. It makes me very proud to be a part of that, if only in a small way.