On our last day in Ireland we didn't have much planned. Garrett wanted to drive up north to Belfast and try to find some of his Irish ancestors. He had done some research before we left Oregon and knew that his ancestors were from around Belfast, more specifically the town of Comber. It took us awhile to drive up there and to finally find the town. We found a church and Garrett got out to look around, but didn't find what he was looking for. Then he found another church and asked some people who were there if they knew where we could look and they pointed us to the town cemetary. We drove there and we all got out and started looking. I think we spent about an hour there searching the gravestones. We did find some McKibbens, but they had lived and died more recently and the people we were looking for were from the 1700's. It was pretty interesting walking around a cemetary. I've never really done that before. It was cool reading when they lived and the different inscriptions that were written. But, we didn't really find anything there.
I think we looked at one more cemetary and then were ready to start driving back to Dublin when Garrett saw a church steeple and thought he should look there. So, with this as our last stop we got out and started looking again. Within about 10 minutes, Garrett said that he had found one and sure enough, it was the person he was looking for. His name was John McKibben and he died in 1758 and was 48 years old. On the same headstone we found out who his wife was (Elizabeth Orr; died 10 days after her husband; also 48 years old). Next to that one we found a William McKibben from 1851 (60 years) (not sure how they are related) and then across from the first one was another John McKibben (spelled McKebin) who died in 1715 (62 yrs. old) along with his wife, Isabella who died in 1741 (age 72). Garrett was so excited to find these family names. He told us that he had been praying all day for direction and guidance to know where to go and look. What a testimony builder to know that Heavenly Father does hear our prayers and is there to help us out. As Garrett wrote down all the information from the headstones, Maggie and I searched the rest of the cemetary for any other McKibbens and sure enough at the very end, we found two more. Another John McKibben who died 1886 at the age of 38 and also on that same stone were his children, but not his wife. His kids were: Willie died 1882; William died 1884; Joseph died 1886; Hugh died 1887 and Agnes who died in 1898 (17 years). I'm not sure how old they all were when they died. I was thinking they died as infants since it happened about every two years. Makes you really want to research their story. Anyways...we were really happy that we had found all that information. The church there was being added on to...which explains all the debris. (in the pictures) I can't believe how close they were putting the church to the grave sites!
Church of Ireland Parish
We think the church was built in 1774.
Church of Ireland Parish
The Cemetary
The McKibben plots
Garrett and his ancestors
The new addition to the church right next to the McKibben plots.
John McKibben; d. 1758
William McKibben; d. 1851
John McKebin; d. 1715
John McKibben and his kids
The last McKibben grave site. I can't remember who is on this one.
Looking out from the church to the end of the cemetary.
Looking up towards the church.
Bella, after her snack.
Beautiful Irish countryside on a beautiful day...driving back to Dublin.
We had to hurry and rush back to Dublin because when we first got to Ireland we bought tickets to Riverdance on our last night. What better place to see Riverdance than in Ireland!!! We left Comber a little after 5 pm and the show was starting at 8pm. So we drove like crazy and got a little lost in downtown Dublin trying to find the theater. We finally found it, but were 15 minutes late. So we missed the first little bit. Garrett dropped us off so we could go in and get our seats while he found some place to park. By the time he got in, we were still waiting for a break in the dances to get up to our seats. So when he got there he took the girls to their seats, and I had to go and change Bella who had a big blowout--Yuck--so I missed a little more. I have to say how glad I was that we were able to go and see it. It was absolutely fabulous. What talented people! It was such a great show--the music was amazing. They had a woman playing the fiddle, one playing a flute/saxophone, one playing a guitar and a guy doing all the percussion. He was my favorite. They all had a chance to perform solos and the percussionist played a really neat little drum-- I think it was called a bodhran --I'm sure it was native to Ireland, but it was so cool!! They had quite a variety of dances as well. They had songs and dances about nature--the sun, the river, thunderstorms, etc. Then songs and dances about Irish farmers, Irish people emmigrating to America, other peoples and cultures becoming part of Ireland, etc. They had guest performers from Spain, Russia, the US and Great Britain. The Spanish lady did a couple of flamenco dances, the Russian dancers did a really cool one with some amazing "stunts" and dance moves and my favorite one was two American guys doing some pretty cool tap dancing and then the riverdance guys would come out and show off some of their steps and they would go back and forth having a "dance war". It was pretty funny when the tappers broke out into riverdance moves. It was very entertaining. If any of you have a chance to see a show of theirs, I would highly recommend it. It was a great night of entertainment.
This is inside the beautiful theatre.
Us during the intermission.
After such a late night and not getting home til about 10 and then not getting to bed till around 11 or so, we had to wake up at 4 am to get to the airport to make our 6:30 flight. Garrett dropped me and the girls off with the luggage to go get in line to check in while he dropped off the rental car. After waiting in line for about 15 minutes the guy at the desk said that he was about to close the flight and said we were the last people allowed to check in. When I told him that my husband would be back in 5 minutes, he told me that I could check in now and me and the girls get on the flight without him or none of us get on the flight. (We still had 30 minutes before our flight left, by the way). I tried to tell him that he'd be right back, but he wasn't budging. So we waited for Garrett, who came 5 minutes later and missed our flight. So we had to go buy 5 more tickets @ 75 euros each which is double what we paid for our tickets in the first place. As if that wasn't bad enough, there weren't any more flights open to Bristol that day. So we got a flight to Birmingham, but that wasn't until 12pm and here it was 6 am. We couldn't check in until 9 am. We were all exhausted and had to wait in the airport for half the day. Then we had to get another rental car in Birmingham to drive to Bristol to pick up our other "official" rental car. The drive from Birmingham to Bristol was two hours. Then from Bristol to Cirencester (where our house was) was another hour. So, we didn't back home again until like 7 or 8 that night. What a day!!! All because we were 5 minutes late in getting to the Dublin airport. Ugh!! But, we made it and all was well.
