Lucky Dunnigan

Cohen on the Outlaw

Kyle — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 22:45:17 +0000

Mom gave Cohen a kids electric Polaris Outlaw for his birthday a couple months ago. This was received with screaming and crying. Not the hoped for reaction.

After a couple months of warming up to it, we finally got him riding it today! Yay!

Our home is for sale

Kyle — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:45:01 +0000

Well, the house Collin and I bought together a little over 2 years ago is for sale.

http://www.craryrealestate.com/search.cfm?func=details&ID=15758

Since that link won’t be around forever I am going to copy some of the details over here:

Country living only 5 mins from Grand Forks!! Beautiful split level on 2.5 acres.Very open floor plan w/vaulted ceiling.Htd sunrm w/slider to Lg deck. Beautiful open kitch. Lg master bed w/pass thru bath. Lg family rm w/gas fireplace. Lg foyer w/big closet and 1/2 bath. Lg insulated & htd garage w/built-in storage closet. Lg shed. Storage under sunrm. EFA heat(offpeak)w/GFA back up. Lg paver patio

And some of the photos:

It has been pretty much the perfect house for Collin and I, but we had to break up eventually. It had to happen.

Here are some pictures of Molly I took while doing house photos to server as an end of post upper, enjoy!

Still marbles champs

Kyle — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:10:26 +0000

This is what I call a bad beat:

Collin and I have had our moments of brilliance, but this one was special. In a remarkably uncompetitive game of marbles Collin and I got all of our balls home while our cousins Grayson and Erica could only get 4 home between them, and Erica’s wasn’t even all the way home…

The other weekend Chris and I meandered our way down to a bar in Hillsboro to see Collins band play. They may have gotten a little over zealous with the fog machine:

Either that or they were trying to hide an acne outbreak or something.

The bar made some space by moving a freezer into the men’s bathroom:

Glad I never had to deuce.

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Ireland Revisited – And finally, Dublin

Kyle — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 16:00:14 +0000

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.

Ireland Revisited – Cobh

Kyle — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:45:48 +0000

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!

Ireland Revisited – Cork 3

Kyle — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 23:45:38 +0000

Ireland Revisited – Cork 2, Family ties

Kyle — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:45:19 +0000

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:

Ireland Revisited – Cork

Kyle — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:45:25 +0000

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.

Ireland Revisited – Blarney Castle, part 3

Kyle — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 21:30:57 +0000

This staircase comes out right at the back of the waterfall from my other post. I don’t know who tunneled a staircase through the rock, but it is really cool. We just happened to be there right when the sun lined up with the staircase:

The back of the waterfall:

Slower shutterspeed:

The witches stone, don’t really remember the story behind this one, but people left a ton of change on top of it:

The change:

This tree has a branch that grows from the trunk into another branch. Pure craziness:

Ireland Revisited – Blarney Castle, part 2

Kyle — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 23:43:22 +0000

From the top of the Blarney Castle you could see this mansion. That was when I realized that there was probably a bit more to see on the grounds.

I had to lift her up here, but it was worth it!