From Deseret News archives:
Boarded-up bookstore highlight of Irish trip
Castles, cottages can't hold a candle to 'library'
I grew up in a pretty serious Irish-American family. The only one of my Irish ancestors I knew, however, was Mary Ellen (Nellie) Kerrigan, born in the resort town of Bundoran, on the northwestern coast of Ireland, in 1892.
Granny arrived at Ellis Island on Sept. 29, 1908, and never went back. Other than a few choice words in Gaelic, the only other thing I remembered of Granny was that the Kerrigans owned some properties in Bundoran, and she spoke often of a cousin who lived with them named "Josie Logue."
Bundoran would be a three-hour drive out of the way of our planned itinerary, but it seemed almost criminal to travel across the Atlantic Ocean and not see the place I'd grown up hearing about.
We arrived in Bundoran about 6 p.m. on a Saturday and, despite the negative reviews, found ourselves in a seaside village not all that different from Ocean City, N.J., where I'd gone as a child. It would be too late to check any official records, and almost all the stores were closing up as we passed, and I doubted seriously that anyone would remember a 16-year-old girl who skipped town 100 years ago.
We wandered down the street, and I tried to content myself with the idea that at least I was walking the same sidewalks Granny might have walked in her youth. We stopped at the traditional-looking Brennan's Criterion Bar, and decided to follow the Irish tradition of drowning our sorrows in Guinness.
The bar was almost deserted, but behind the counter we found Nan and Pat Brennan, sisters who owned and ran the bar. I mentioned I was looking for any trace of the Kerrigan family. They shook their heads sympathetically, and I realized they probably dealt with Americans like me 20 times a day.
The Criterion Bar, they explained, had been in their family for three generations. They'd been working behind the counter since the 1940s, and there were no Kerrigans they knew of in Bundoran.
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