My Dating Life? I Date Back to 1650!

My family. We are a strange band of characters plodding along through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of ours rooms, yelling at each other to empty the dishwasher or answer the phone (or heaven forbid - the door!)...and trying to find the common thread that binds us all together. You'll often find that the informality of family life is a blessed condition that allows us to become our best all the while looking our worst. And God bless my poor family who had to put up with me whilst I was going through my angst-ridden teenage years. That must have been the absolute worst.

Thankfully, we all made it out in one piece and I have developed a stronger appreciation of family and the unconditional love, support and acceptance that comes with it. Although as a typically Irish family, we wouldn't be huggin' or kissin' or shit. My sweet (and sometimes sour - she's 15) sister is an avid history lover and has put lots of time into researching our ancestry. Before now I had only a passing interest in it, impressed that she managed to get back 6 generations to the year 1790. Hours spent scouring Irish Census Records and pestering our 4 (sadly now 3) beloved grandparents really paid off. Maybe I'm just a visual soul but the efficient spread sheet she had produced wasn't really hitting the spot for me. On a side note; I really enjoyed seeing the censuses (or is it censi?) with my ancestors actual handwriting - penmanship sure isn't taught the way it used to be! Here is the 1901 census for the Nolans of Kilconnor House. Thomas Nolan was the head of the family at the time. He was 63 and he was my Grandad's grandfather. His son Nicholas, who was 26 at the time of the census, was my Grandad's dad. You can check out the whole thing right here.

Anyway, whilst procrastinating recently, I typed the name of my maternal grandparents old farmhouse into Google. Low and behold, I have a picture of the estate as it was in all its former glory dating back to 1650. Suddenly, I'm entranced.

Kilconnor House Originally

The Watsons came from England and settled in County Carlow where this stately home was built. They lived there for many generations until it was eventually sold to a local, Dr. Nolan (no relation to me I don't think). My great grandfather, Nicholas Nolan eventually bought the house. By the time he had bought it however, the house had become so expensive to run that lots of it had already been knocked and remodelled. The back portion of the right hand side is all that is standing today. You can still see the Gothic-style five bay window at the end of the house. 

Kilconnor House Today

That photo was taken in 1999 but it's remained largely the same, down to the white fence out front. My Godparents, Eddie and Angela, are raising their two girls there now and are doing it up bit by bit. When I can't sleep at night and I'm staring at the ceiling, I can see the crown mouldings. However, they don't stay within the confines of one room. You can follow them from one room to another, where the walls are partitions of the originally grand and glamorous rooms. I can't help but imagine lavish 18th century balls with horse-drawn carriages out front. Gentlemen in green velvet coats and ladies with corseted small waists and ribbons in their hair. Jane Austen - come at me, bro.

Strolling around the yard some of the ruins from the original house can be seen. I never paid heed as a child that the now glassless window frames we were jumping through might have actually been part of something. As I'm still in Spain I don't have any photos to add at the moment but I'll try and get an update when I get back. The land is extensive and to the front of the house lies a massive field with what has come to be an iconic tree in the centre. There is nothing better than waking up and looking out the window to see the sprawling branches loom above the yellow flowers of oilseed rape in bloom. For all my love of the internet it is so nice to not have wifi there, to be free for just a few days (before the cabin fever sets in), to breathe in the distinct scent and recover for a while.

I remember my poor ole Granddad chasing us with his stick to strike the fear of God into my cousins and I for jumping from bale to bale of silage. Our wellies would rip right through the plastic and then it wouldn't keep and we'd ruin all his hard work. We always knew we were forgiven though when at the end of our trip he'd slip us £2 and tell us not to spend it all in the one shop. He was a gruff man with a heart of gold. A softie until the very end. To distract himself from the pain of cancer, he used to sing himself to sleep. Nothing like an old Irish tune to soothe a troubled soul. I still miss him. To my poor heartbroken Granny - I salute you.

So while my sister's fascination lies in our history, our roots and lineage, I am more enticed by our recent past. The past that has my own memories. Smell is one of my strongest triggers for memory and it always manages to hit me hardest in Kilconnor. But a certain smell is not something easily recreated. I'm aching for the smell of Granny's brown-bread fresh out of the oven, of the sap from the sticks loaded into the fire night after freezing cold night, of the musty old wardrobes. I love the stories that come out; like the time my mom and her sister tried to glue a statue back together with Vick's Vaporub so they wouldn't get caught, or how my great grandmother used to wind the kids up before sending them off to bed and snap when they wouldn't settle down. All it takes is one photo or one sly joke about a bygone time and the stories unravel.

I suppose I'm also finding myself lost in my own world with my imagination. What went on in that great old house that no one still living can remember? What celebrations, scandals and tragedies are forever lost? You can't pick your family, that's for sure. But I couldn't have picked mine any better if I'd tried.

I'll be the first to admit that my compass may not be pointing due north. I may not know where I'm going, but I'll always be proud to know where I come from.