Humbling Homestead

The ancestral home of the Lynches in Roads (or Rhodes), Cahersiveen, County Kerry, sits low against a dip in the hill – allowing me to look down on the stone ruins to draw. On the horizon are Dingle Bay and the Dingle Peninsula. Where I live, it would cost a fortune for waterfront property like

Between the Mountains and the Sea

The Lynches lived between the mountains and the sea in the remote townland of Roads, in Cahersiveen, County Kerry, Ireland. It’s isolated — the end of the road. While some may follow “The Winding Way Down to Kells Bay,” few carry on still further — behind the mountains to this hidden landscape. Perhaps that’s why

Workhouse II

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”-W.B. Yeats Irish poet.  The workhouse at Bahaghs, in the southwest corner of Ireland, is even more gloomy inside than out. And that’s saying a lot. The roof is gone. There are no floors. And trash is thrown around

Burial Ground

There are over 1200 small, nameless stone markers in the ancient burial ground at Srugrena, County Kerry, Ireland. They represent a fraction of the poor farmers and their families who died nearby, including my ancestors. Some of the newer graves of Lynches, O’Sullivans, Sheehans and more, are probably related to me as well. This has

Rock Pile

In a sloping, rocky field in southwestern Ireland, off the Ring of Kerry, lie the crumbling remains of three stone cottages. To the four sheep who currently live there, they probably hold little interest. But to me, they are everything. Finding them was like discovering Pompeii, or finding the Rosetta Stone, or perhaps the Dead