May 24, 2024
Spending time with Mayo Co. Cousins!
I am having a fabulous time visiting all my Irish cousins in County Mayo, this week. Last time I was here was 2016, about seven years ago and since then there have been a lot of special additions, spouses and children! My oh so lovely and welcoming hosts are John and Anne Keane (Anne's mother and my mom's mother were sisters), making her my first cousin, once removed. They live in Balla, Mayo and have both mostly retired from running the Keane Farm Machinery & Repair
Business. Their 2 sons Gerard and Sean now run the business, which is located right next to their parents' home. Aine, their daughter is married to Barry Moran and their 3 children are pictured above and they are expecting one more, in October.
Cuties above are Cuan, Seoidin & Barra,
all Gaelic names and they are 1.5, 4 and 3 years old, respectively. They live in a stunningly converted, energy efficient home just outside Castlebar and are very active in sport as are both parents. Aine
is a Physical Education teacher in middle school and Barry
was a Gaelic football player and now coaches and works in Finance for American Life Science Firms. Below is John Keane
performing one of his favorite retirement duties - heating up feed for the cats; Anne
visiting her brother Martin
out on his farmstead: John & Anne
together and Anne
in Cong.
Sean Keane & his wife Helen McGarrigle, a pharmacist, have 2 enchanting boys Oisin and Fionn and little sister Niamh. The boys are 6 and 5 and in school together and I got to spend a fun afternoon with them playing with Legos and learning all about farm machinery.
Another of my grandmother's sister was Josie McEveney who is survived by her 5 Children in Mayo. I got to spend time with 3 of them.
Patricia & Thomas Fitzpatrick on their farm in Hollymount. Tommy McEveny & son Conor in Snugboro, Castlebar.
So excited to get out and explore this huge city. Our Port is attached to a huge shopping mall - so it is a bit of a hike before we even get outside. When we do the heat hits us like a brick wall! There are typhoons, in the area and according to a local, when the storms come in, they first bring a wave of fog, heat and humidity to Hong Kong .
On Saturday August 29, 2026 we achieved another historic milestone on this circumnavigation of the World , we cruised into Hong Kong Harbor. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. The land encompassed by Hong Kong is confusing. It includes part of the southern coast of mainland China, just below Shenzhen, Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories . Looking at a map helps, but the rules changed so many times! I asked my buddy Chat several times, to tell me if what I was looking at was the Hong Kong that the British had owned for years. The answer was never straight forward!
Ha Long Bay in Vietnam is one of those bucket list places I have had in my sights for years. It's the iconic picture in my mind's eye, whenever I think of Vietnam . We had made plans to go with 8 others on a brand new, swanky Red Dragon Junk boat for a harbor cruise and overnight stay, but sadly the weather did not cooperate the whole 4 days we were in port. No ships were permitted to sail, per the local government. Many of us were bummed! This is typhoon session and there was a lot of rain and high winds our first couple of days - we were hoping it would blow out the last day and we could at least do a day trip but no luck!