Lucky Dunnigan

Ireland Revisited – And finally, Dublin

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Kyle

Happy New Year!

What better way to start the new year than to finish what I had been working on at the end of last year?

Dublin was the last stop on mom and my trip to Ireland. I didn’t take as many pictures here, in part because we did a lot of walking, and I didn’t feel like hauling my Canon around with me, and also because it seemed like Dublin was a lot more to do, and less to see. There really isn’t anything that I think, man I wish I had gotten a picture of that, but the city was a lot of fun to visit.

In Dublin, you can take street/river tours! This thing would be fun to drive around I would imagine:

A display at the Guiness brewery:

All in all this was a fantastic trip. When I failed to make it to Ireland on my first try, my Mom and Dad asked if they could go with when I said that I planned on going the following year. I was pretty excited for that prospect, but unfortunately my Dad passed away before he could make it over there. It was great having my Mom along after that, but I really wish Dad could have been there with us.

Sure, there were things he absolutely would have sucked the fun out of. He would not have put up with all the walking we did in Dublin, but there are a lot of things I wish he would have seen/taken part in. My Mom was pretty much the perfect travel companion for this whole trip though. I still consider myself a pretty lucky Dunnigan.

Tags: dublin, dunnigan, ireland | 1 Comment

Ireland Revisited – Cobh

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Kyle

One of the days we spent in Cork, we drove to the nearby Cobh after reading that it was worth the visit. I would have to agree with that assessment. Cobh was one of the main ports of emigration for Ireland, and has a really incredible little museum that shows what people leaving the country went through, especially during the potato famine era. This was also the last top of the Titanic on it’s only voyage.

It was also home to this absolutely ridiculous cathedral, St. Colman’s Cathedral:

I probably should have just named this post – Holy crap look at that church!

Tags: cathedral, cobh, cobh cathedral, dunnigan, ireland, queenstown, st. colman's cathedral | 2 Comments

Ireland Revisited – Cork 3

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Kyle

Tags: cork, dunnigan, ireland | Leave a comment

Ireland Revisited – Cork 2, Family ties

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Kyle

Like I said in my previous post, from what I have been able to trace back on my Dunnigan namesake, it looks like Cork is where my family came from. The farthest back I have been able to trace the Dunnigan family tree back is to Charles Donegan/Dunnigan in Quebec, born in Ireland around 1805. I was able to find a Charles Donegan baptised in Cork in 1809, the only birth record of a Charles Dunnigan (of any spelling) anywhere near that time frame in Ireland. A few other people on Ancestry.com have tied Peter to this Charles, but it is tough to say for certain that this is the correct man though because so many church records have been lost through the years for various reasons.

I found this Charles Donegan through a baptism record on a website where all Irish churches have been organizing their historical documents into a database for people to search. After finding this record I was thrilled to find that the church that this baptism took place at, St. Finbar’s (South), was still standing, and not far from where we were staying:

It doesn’t look like much on the outside, its age really shows. The inside was pretty contemporary though, except for one very old piece:

This baptismal font has been in the church since 1629, so if that Charles Donegan is indeed my Great-Great-Great Grandfather, this would have been the very font he was baptised in. Having pieced all this together that day and then finding the church and font was awesome.

Here is the newer font the church now uses:

The church had a pretty sweet altar:

Tags: ancestry, cork, donegan, dunnigan, ireland | Leave a comment

Ireland Revisited – Cork

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Kyle

The third city we stayed in was Cork, which is on the south coast of Ireland. I really didn’t have any idea of what we were going to do or any real plan for this stop exactly. The hotel I had reservations for just happened to be in the perfect location, which was very nice. We did a lot of walking around Cork, trying different foods and hitting tons of little shops. We even went to a couple movies.

Cork really wasn’t a very touristy city, which was nice. There is a ton of history and lots to see though. We kind of took our time just mellowing out for a bit in Cork compared to the bustle we had trying to get around to see the areas around our previous two stops.

I also did a bit of family history while here, and I wish I had done it before we came so I wouldn’t have been so into it while on vacation, but found that Cork is likely the Dunnigan’s most recent connection to Ireland, but I’ll get more into that in my next post.

Wish I could remember what this monument was for!

A replica of the city. Was nice to see it layed out like this, because I found the city a little confusing at first.

There was an area where a couple of the buildings had images cleaned into their surface! It was really cool to see. I can’t imagine the years of grime that had built up to make the contrast of the images possible.