deannews0607

DEAN'S QUARTERLY NEWLETTER, Vol. 10, No. 4, 06/01/2007

HIGHLIGHTS OF SPRING 2007:

Trip to Ireland: My mother and I traveled to Ireland for a brief one-week trip that was in part a genealogical expedition to learn whatever we could about her great grandparents, John Murphy and Mary O’Malley, who immigrated to the United States during or soon after Ireland’s potato famine of the late 1840s. During previous journeys, we traveled to Germany, Poland (the portion of which that had been Germany), and Switzerland to discover what we could about two other sets of her great grandparents. We didn’t learn much this trip, but there’s a small chance we stumbled upon a great find. Although O’Malley is a common name, and was also during the first half of the 1800s, it was quite uncommon at the time in the county from where Mary O’Malley came. During the entire early 1800s, we could find only one record for an O’Malley in the region around Athlone, in the center of Ireland. That was for the marriage of David O’Malley and Francis Cusack in 1839, four years before Mary O’Malley was born. We wonder if David and Francis were Mary’s parents, but we haven’t been able to confirm this so far, and nobody in our extended family knows who Mary’s parents were. It may turn out that there’s no connection, or we may not be able to confirm anything.

In any case, as far as I was concerned, the detective work of genealogy was just a good excuse to take in the Irish coastline, castles and cask ales and stouts, and we managed to take in our fair share of each of those. Every night we visited pubs and listened to traditional Irish music. We also visited an archeological site called Newgrange, a large burial mound with a narrow passage angled precisely to permit light to enter on the winter solstice, and with much of the magic and mystery of Stonehenge, only 1,000 years older (and 800 years older than the pyramids).

The so-called “Celtic Tiger” has had Europe’s fastest growing economy in recent years, and the face of the country has changed substantially since I was there 20 years ago. Part of the boom has been fueled by being the only English-speaking country with the Euro – attracting a lot of U.S. investment. Modern housing developments are popping up everywhere across the famously green landscape. Dublin has become substantially more international in its flavor, with numerous immigrants and temporary workers, particularly from Eastern Europe, but also from as far away as Asia and Africa. The Irish are mostly welcoming, but there’s an ongoing debate about how many more immigrants to let in – this from a nation that has produced the largest number of émigrés per capita of just about any nation.

The high-flying economy has made for a bit of wild-west mentality, and prices have become downright obnoxious, particularly with the devalued U.S. dollar. We had a hard time finding restaurant lunches for less than the $20 to $30 range and dinners at many restaurants were often higher than that. Aside from breakfasts included in our B&B price, we averaged around $60 per person per day on food (excluding alcohol). An Irish friend Catherine warned me ahead of time that there are many overpriced rip-offs now, and she wasn’t kidding. For just one day of car rental, I paid $170 ($125 plus $45 for insurance), what I might pay in Minnesota for one week!!! I might not have rented at that price except that we had missed our long-distance bus and needed to get to a B&B we had booked. Anyway, we made the most of a day of driving, visiting the spectacular Irish coastline south of Galway, driving on the left along narrow country roads, avoiding closely lining hedgerow edges and errant livestock.

My mother has slowed down a bit, but her spirit was still primed each day. One good thing I did was to get her on video tape answering questions about her youth and her recollections of her parents and grandparents. I had her repeat for the camera stories she’s told me over the years, because I would never be able to recount them as well as she can.

Other notes from the springtime: Aside from Ireland, I also had an enjoyable visit in March with friends in Boston, who gave honor to my 50^th birthday, which occurred in April. Local friends took me out for a burlesque show in honor that auspicious day. During the spring, I also enjoyed what I would describe as a not-quite romance with a pleasant and interesting woman named Karen, but we both seem to have moved on.

Movies:

Into Great Silence *1/2, French documentary. Follows the lives of monks in a French monastery. Unusual for its lengthy periods of silence and incredibly slow pace. More useful for meditation than entertainment, and I enjoyed it for that purpose.

Knocked Up **. Silly, profane, but mostly kind-hearted comedy about a mismatched couple dealing with pregnancy. Abundant adolescent toilet humor, but occasionally more thoughtful than one might expect.

The Lives of Others ****, German. Best Foreign Film Oscar. Highly recommended. Surveillance in Communist East Germany of playwrights suspected of publishing forbidden plays in the West. Frightening, touching, very well acted.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley ***1/2, Irish. Highly recommended. Set in the early 1920s during the struggle for Ireland’s independence from Britain. Extremely brutal, heartbreaking, and at times painfully torturous to watch, but thought provoking.

COMING UP NEXT QUARTER (Spring): Trip to New York City

Check in and let me know what’s up with you.
You can contact me by clicking on this E-mail address: mailto:%20mail@deanoman.com.

My address in Maryland: Telephone numbers:

Dean Oman Home: 301-931-1144

10405 46^th Ave., Apt. A204 Work: 301-504-2317

Beltsville, MD 20705

Review previous newsletters:

AutumnWinter 07 – Dean’s News Vol 10, No. 3, 03/01/07 – Colorado, Arizona, New York City

Autumn 06 – Dean’s News Vol 10, No. 2, 12/01/06 – Western Europe

Summer 06 – Dean’s News Vol 10, No. 1, 09/01/06 – Minnesota and San Diego

Spring 06 – Dean’s News Vol 9, No. 4, 06/01/06 – Hanging around Beltsville, MD

Winter 06 – Dean’s News Vol 9, No. 3, 03/01/06 – Minnesota and Arizona

Autumn 05 – Dean’s News Vol 9, No. 2, 12/01/05 – Minnesota, Toronto, Boston

Summer 05 – Dean’s News Vol 9, No. 1, 09/01/05 – Washington, Oregon and Northern California

Spring 05 – Dean’s News Vol 8, No. 4, 06/01/05 – Joshua and Dean’s Great European Adventure

Winter 05 – Dean’s News Vol 8, No. 3, 03/01/05 – Minnesota and Bahamas

Autumn 04 – Dean’s News Vol 8, No. 2, 12/01/04 – Boston, Orlando, plus new digs in Beltsville, Maryland

Summer 04 – Dean’s News Vol 8, No. 1, 09/01/04 – Toronto, Minnesota, San Diego, Chicago

Spring 04 – Dean’s News Vol 7, No. 4, 06/01/04 – Italy, Switzerland, Eastern Europe, New York City

Winter 04 – Dean’s News Vol 7, No. 3, 03/01/04 – Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, Arizona

Autumn 03 -- Dean's News Vol 7, No. 2, 12/01/03 -- Minnesota

Summer 03 -- Dean's News Vol 7, No. 1, 09/01/03 -- California and Toronto

Spring 03 -- Dean's News Vol 6, No. 4, 06/01/03 – Minnesota, Boston

Winter 03 -- Dean's News Vol 6, No. 3, 03/01/03 – Arizona, California and Colorado

Best wishes to all,

Deano

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