Ireland Is the Greenest of Greens
Green Ireland including sheep, trees, grass, stone walls
Marygray and Me - And The Challenges We Faced In Ireland The Summer of 1972
A few of you have been curious about what it was really like when Marygray Proffitt and I were in Ireland back in 1972. These photos give you a glimpse of what we were dealing with during our time there - this was just 5 months after Bloody Sunday happened.
Let me tell you, being in Northern Ireland during that period was genuinely scary.
Ireland is absolutely beautiful, but the situation up North was anything but peaceful. It was dangerous most of the time, and we had to be really careful about where we went and what we did.
We were so grateful that we’d started our work down in The Republic of Ireland first - it gave us a chance to get our bearings before facing the more intense situation in the North.
I’ve got more stories and photos to share, so keep an eye out for my next post!
Bloody Sunday Ireland January 30, 1972, “We Fired Only At Attacking Gunmen & Bombers”
Photo of Protests Following Bloody Sunday in Ireland 1972
Rick Steves Is Wrong About Killarney
I don’t care what Rick Steves says about Killarney. To quote him directly: “Killarney (Ireland): This is a place where most tourists wear nametags — a traffic jam of tour buses. If you have the misfortune to spend the night in Killarney, you'll understand what I mean. The town is a sprawling line of green Holiday Inns and outlet malls littered with pushy shoppers looking for plastic shamrocks.”
Rick, I don’t know what side of the bed you got up on when you wrote that, but you obviously don’t know your shamrock from a bowl of shite. Get up and see the real Killarney. Take some time to know the people. Have a Guiness or four. And believe in the fairies!
And I promise you, you will fall in love with the place just like I did over 53 years ago.
Killarney and Ireland forever!
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I don’t care what Rick Steves says about Killarney.
To quote him directly: “Killarney (Ireland): This is a place where most tourists wear nametags — a traffic jam of tour buses. If you have the misfortune to spend the night in Killarney, you'll understand what I mean. The town is a sprawling line of green Holiday Inns and outlet malls littered with pushy shoppers looking for plastic shamrocks.”
Rick, I don’t know what side of the bed you got up on when you wrote that, but you obviously don’t know your shamrock from a bowl of shite. Get up and see the real Killarney. Take some time to know the people. Have a Guiness or four. And believe in the fairies!
And I promise you, you will fall in love with the place just like I did over 53 years ago.
Killarney and Ireland forever!
***
by Edmund O'Rourke
By Killarney's lakes and fells,
Em'rald isles and winding bays,
Mountain paths, and woodland dells
Memory ever fondly strays;
Bounteous nature loves all lands;
Beauty wanders everywhere
Footprints leaves on many strands,
But her home is surely there.
Angels fold their wings and rest
In that Eden of the west,
Beauty's home, Killarney,
Ever fair--Killarney.
Running From Ballyseede Castle
I’ll never forget that dark red door to Ballyseede Castle, or the stone lions that guarded it.
When my best friend, Marygray Proffitt and I showed up to work there in May of 1972, it was raining so hard we could barely make out its shape, much less its color.
It was miserably cold, wet, and dank when we arrived that afternoon. We’d traveled day and night on a plane from Knoxville to New York City and then on to Shannon Airport. We’d hoped once we got there that we’d have a chance to shower and rest before our employers put us to work.
It was not to be.
Ballyseede’s English proprietors, the Devlins (a pseudonym), made it perfectly clear that our wet hair and damp clothing were “not suitable.” When I dropped my heavy Samsonite on the tiled floor, I was reprimanded for being disrespectful, or as Mrs. Devlin had put it, I was a typical “spoiled rich American” who showed no respect for the property of others. (Me rich? Nothing could be further from the truth. I had barely been able to afford my airline ticket to Ireland.)
So, as “spoiled American girls,” Marygray and I were not afforded the opportunity to rest, but were to report to work in less than two hours so that we could begin to learn the Silver Service method of etiquetteone.
Just before our work shift, we were dispatched to our rooms in the dungeon, (you heard that right - the dungeon) where the “filthy” Irish employees lived.
We became skilled at Silver Service, but our short skirts and friendly smiles we shared with customers were too much for the Devlins, who turned us out into the rain in less than 3 weeks (without paying us, I might add.)
In the end, we found ourselves thumbing in the lashing rain, hoping to find new jobs.
We were broke and discouraged, but our adventure had just begun. We wound up running as fast as we could from Ballyseede Castle.
I’m not free to share more about our experience there. You’ll have to wait for my book, Searching For Danny Boy to come out. You won’t believe what we went through there.
Today, the modern Ballyseede Castle in Tralee, Ireland, is under new ownership, and has become a well known Irish Castle, reknowned hotel and cherished wedding venue. I would love to visit one day,( under different circumstances, of course.)
For wonderful photos and more information about staying at historic Ballyseede Castle, go here.