On our last morning in Kerry, we explored the castle and town of Askeaton. Askeaton was founded in the year 500 and the streets laid out in the 16th century are still in use. It is the ancestral home of the Keatings, although we did not know this at the time. ( Patrick Shanahan married Jane "Rose" Keating after he arrived in America in 1851.) In their printed history, the people of Askeaton apologize for not knowing too much about the town before the year 1199. A cascade in the river near Askeaton and the town itself are named for the Keating tribe which settled there in pre-Christian times, ie: before Saint Patrick arrived in the 5th Century. The bridge and many of the houses in the town, as well as the castle, date back to the 16th Century. The Church of St. Mary (an Anglican Church)was built in 1291 by the Knights Templar. The ground in the cemetery which surrounds the church is rough and bumpy and littered with old tombstones and even bits of human bone. People are still being buried in family plots today, and the church is still in use.

I cried a bit when I left my family at Shannon Airport and flew home to California, not only because I was leaving the family, but because Ireland was just such a wonderful place to be.