Kathy's family home, Tiernaur

Tuesday, 17th September, 2019.

Kathy was born in this house, which is where her mother grew up as well.  The house is now vacant, but owned by one of Kathy's sisters, and it is used by many of the family who visit from all over the world, mainly in the summer.

Originally, the only access to the house was across these stepping stones.  The river is fairly high now, so some of the stepping stones are under water.

Kathy gave me this picture of what the stepping stones looked like when the water was lower.  She said that when she lived in England and they came here on holidays, they used to lie on the stones and wash their hair in the flowing water.
Sounds a bit uncomfortable!

In 1938, Kathy's Uncle Patrick, with the help of a neighbour, built this bridge  to give better access to the house than that afforded by the stepping stones over the river.  Firstly, they diverted the river to one side, then to the other, then to both sides.  They completed the projects in only six weeks.  Kathy's Grandma spent the whole six weeks praying that there would be no rain, which would ruin the project.  There was no rain.
The bridge is still in use today.

Kathy has had this plaque installed on the bridge to commemorate this feat of engineering.

In Kathy's early years, there was no running water to the house, so they would come down to this river several times a day with buckets.

To help feed her large family, Kathy's mother used to poach salmon from this river.  It was the children's job to stand at the top of the hill, and if they saw the owners of the fishing rights coming, they were to run down the hill calling the dog.  This was the signal for Mrs Horan to stop her poaching activities.  Kathy now attends a community group activity with one of the members of this family, and they laugh about the old days.

After they had come home from school, it was the job of Kathy and her brother Johnny to bring turf from a field behind this hill, with the help of a donkey, and haul it through this small culvert to the house.  Not one of Kathy's favourite jobs.

The house today.  If walls could talk, it would have some stories to tell.

Roses in the garden.