How about a walk on the beach? We have been thrilled with the weather here in Ireland. We packed for cool, rainy weather, but my rain pants and fleece are at the bottom of my bag unused. This morning we walked on Downhill Beach near the tiny town of Downhilll along the top edge of Northern Ireland. Kids were swimming. It was mostly cloudy, but a break in the cover brought a shaft of light onto a peninsula in the distance. Later, at lunch with my Irish cousins, Jim explained that the peninsula was what they call "Southern Ireland in the north", and the one place where the Republic of Ireland is north of Northern Ireland.
On the cliff above us was Mussenden Temple. Both the Mussenden Temple and Downhill Beach were used in Game of Thrones as the location for the Dragonstone exterior. We walked around the ruins of the temple and enjoyed the views of the beach and the Atlantic Ocean below. The house was built in around 1780 by the Earl Bishop. The Temple, purched beautifully on the edge of the cliff was his library. What a beautiful place for a cozy read.
The Waring family, my local cousins, graciously invited us to join in their Father's Day celebration and took us to lunch. We talked about Ireland and the US. We mentioned that we had enjoyed "Derry Girls" on Netflix. We all agreed that it was both funny and poignant. Especially for Stephanie and Dave who, like the Derry Girls, were school aged when it takes place.
We said our goodbyes to our new Irish family and headed out to explore the Antrim coast. We stopped at Dunluce Castle perched high on a cliff. The walk through the castle was neat with signs explaining what each room and chamber was used for.
We drove south hugging the shore through cute little villages and beach towns. In Larne we drove past land that, based on the information from our meeting with the genealogist in Dublin, may have been close to where my great, great, great grandfather, Joseph Robinson, had farmed. We also stopped at the oldest and nearest church to that spot to see if we could find any graves. Outside the church was a war memorial from WWI and WWII. We quickly found listings for Robinson boys who died in these conflicts. The church was very old and many of the tombstones were worn and unreadable. We didn't find either William, my great, great grandfather or his father Joseph Robinson, we did find a Thomas Robinson who died in 1886 at age 84. A ripe old age for back then.
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