On Monday as part of our Irish road-trip we visited Ballina a town in north County Mayo as it was here, in a farm just outside the town that Pauline's great grandparents lived.
The town sits on the River Moy.
After settling into our rented apartment we took a walk around the town crossing over the river Moy and along its banks.
We asked a local to recommend somewhere for lunch to which he replied the 'Ballina Manor Hotel'. When we told him we had tried it but there was a note on the door saying 'Residents and reservations only' he said that it had been there for years and we should just ignore it.
We returned and sure enough it was not a problem with the charming lady who welcomed us explaining that it was only put there to keep out the 'undesirables' and she was sure we were ok!!
After a good lunch we headed into the centre of town to watch the St Patrick's Day Parade, will post more on that later.
We headed back into town to sample St.Pat's celebrations but the pubs were either too busy or too full of peeps who already were spent having had a day of it. We had some entertainment provided by a group of seasoned veterans but slipped out and found a quite pub and toasted Pauline and Eileens ancestors.
Then it was out into a lovely evening and a walk back to our apartment.
The next morning we headed 10 minutes out of town to area known as 'Corrimbla North' where I tried to find what I thought was the farm where their ancestors had lived but as it was a small dirt road took them past it. We had only been minutes away! but by the power of t'internet I tracked it down, you can just see the house through the trees below!
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