By Paddy McCarthy
By the time you read my Out&About this week I will be in Ireland basking in the sun, did I say sun, I hope so anyway. My itinerary is like a booking agent, full up with the things I must do and the people I must see. I am heading to the real capital of Ireland, namely County Cork.
I will have been flying from John F Kennedy Airport in New York to Dublin Airport which is fine but I then have to get a bus down to Cork and that takes the best part of three hours, now that sucks, as after traveling across the Atlantic for six hours now I have to sit on a bus for a another few hours. I am told they make one stop for a cup of tea; remember you will be reading all this after I have done all this.
Now for the good news as my daughter Christina will be with me as she is planning for her wedding this coming March. It will be in Castlemartyr, a village in East Cork and the hotel is the Castlemartyr Resort Hotel. It is located 25 minutes east of Cork City, 10 km east of Middleton, 16 km west of Youghal and 6 km from the coast. You can see a picture of the resort where my daughter’s wedding will be, and she will be marrying a good lad from Youghal, Kevin Coyne who also resides in New York.
Now after all that happens, I have another wedding that is in the west on Inis Beg Island with a ferry from Baltimore for my sister Mary’s son Gordon wedding. I am told we are staying in Casey’s Baltimore Hotel that is in Ballylinchy, Baltimore. I am told that this is going to be the who’s who from all over, now does that excite me? NO! I will be in good company and I know that’s all I want, and you know the rest from there.
After all that I am not sure if I am a travel agent or a hotel director as I have been giving you the inside scoop on everything that I will be doing, Ah, but we will have some laughs along the way. I am so looking forward to be back there after having been unable to travel to Ireland for so long and that every minute will count and the good news is the hospitality business is open.
The best thing is that everybody that I know would like to visit a pub or a restaurant when they travel home but don’t want to talk about it sheeeee. I am so much looking forward to the sing songs again – that is part of who we are as every night is Saturday night especially when the party starts. Yes, I will be doing some sightseeing along the way as I was born only five miles from Blarney and I did kiss it on a few occasions and it works believe me, because after you do it you get the gift of the gab, so they tell me anyhow.
I have a big family and the week I will be there I’ll be all over the place visiting them all and getting back on the Aer Lingus plane will be like going on holiday because I know I’ll be wrecked. I am not complaining though because I promise you it will be sad leaving my family and friends.
When you read all this it’s like I am telling you the future, well I could say that I am because that is all I am hoping for, that and good craic meeting a lot of old friends. When I get back, I will then have all the real gossip about who’s doing what and hopefully it will be all good news.
I am now here in West Cork in Baltimore and heading to Inish Beg Island just off the mainland of Ireland and boy is it beautiful. Here is a little history on Inish Beg. Irish for “small island”, Inish Beg is the most northerly of the Carbery Hundred Islands of County Cork, Ireland and lies in the unspoiled tidal estuary of the Ilen River. There is a bronze age Cromlech (boulder burial) within the grounds, as well as a tree covered Lissaghaun (little fort or fairy mound) in front of the main house. The local saint, St. Fachtna is recorded as having been given the “Book of Dues” on the island in the 6th century. The island belonged to a Richard White in the 17th Century and was acquired by the McCarthy Morrough family in 1830. Initially used as a sporting estate, the main house was finally finished in 1899.
The population of the island followed a familiar pattern to that of much of the rural west of Ireland. Lewis quotes 109 inhabitants in 1837, but the numbers then declined to 11 by 1901 following the famine years of the mid 19th century and the agricultural depression of the 1880s.
The McCarthy-Morrogh’s had acquired the island of Inish Beg in 1830 as their sporting estate. Kathleen ‘Kay’ McCarthy-Morrogh, a noted beauty, moved to London where she married Gordon Thomas Summersby in 1936. By the outbreak of war in 1939 she was a fashion model for Worth, but on hearing Neville Chamberlain’s declaration of war on the wireless on 3rd September, the following day signed up with the Mechanized Transport Corps where, in May 1942 she was assigned as driver to the then Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Later she became his secretary and spent the rest of the war with him. During this time, he was made a five-star general and the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.
It is unclear how intimate Kay’s relationship with Eisenhower was, but they were very close. Mamie, Eisenhower’s wife, and Kay had a mutual dislike for one another. At one point Eisenhower discussed divorcing Mamie and marrying Kay with General George C Marshall. He advised that it probably cost him any chance of a political career. Eisenhower took his advise and, on finally returning to the US, Kay was assigned to General Lucius D. Clay and did not meet Eisenhower again.
Eisenhower helped her become an US citizen and a commissioned officer in the US Women’s Army Corps which she left in 1947. Her military awards included the Legion of Merit, Women’s Army Corps Service Medal, European Campaign Medal, World War Two Victory Medal and Army of Occupation Medal. Kay divorced Summersby, who died in 1943. She was engaged to Colonel Richard Arnold when he was killed while mine clearing in Tunisia in June 1943. She married secondly, Reginald Herber Morgan, a stockbroker in November 1952 and divorced in 1958. She died of cancer at Southampton, Long Island, NY on 20th January, 1975 and her ashes were brought back to County Cork. Her book “Past Forgetting: My Love affair with Dwight D. Eisenhower” was published posthumously in 1976.
Visit Inish Beg and see the now restored estate where Kathleen McCarthy-Morrogh was born. Now that I have giving you the romantic history of Inish Beg I am now ready for a good time at this wedding in a good old Irish tradition.
I will have more to tell you of my trip in my next Out&About…