Today started the first of our adventure on our own. Picking up the rental car at the airport in Dublin I hesitantly ( never having driven on the wrong/right side of the road ) hit the freeway. After the first few roundabouts I felt I pretty much had the hang of it. lol We headed west into the interior of the country. We spent our first night in a small family run B&B relaxing after a tense first day drive. Next day we headed back over to Donegal and to the small tourist town of Bundoran. The B&B there we stayed in was a old house right on the coast with a beautiful view of Donegal Bay. Bundoran is a Irish holiday town with casinos on every street. It was also the ideal location for our trek over to Pettigo. Pettigo is the tiny town my Great Grandmother was born in and one of the main reasons for our trip was to see it. While wandering along the main street Pettigo we met a interesting old timer who took us to see his uncle. His uncle remembered the Jervis family (my Great Grandmothers maiden name) and believed there were still Jervis's in the area but his irish brogue was soooooooo thick we could barely understand him so his directions to where we could find them were sadly too hard to follow. It was thrilling though to know we were walking where Gran had walked. Interestingly the town of Pettigo was divided in half when North and South Ireland divided. On one side of the river running thru the town it is Pettigo in County Donegal. The other side of the river is now renamed and is in Northern Ireland and part of County Fermanagh. When Gran was living there the whole town was in County Fermanagh so church records were hard to trace especially as she was Protestant. No one seemed to know if records were in Belfast or somewhere else. Still walking along the river where she fished as a child was a emotional experience and a highlight of our trip. We both shed a tear remembering her.
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