A marvelous B&B, Letterkenny and the Fanad Peninsula

30 June 2014 cont'd
As we drove away from Donegal town we discussed the fact that we would love to come and visit with an eye towards spending more time enjoying the beautiful countryside of County Donegal.  We arrived at Letterkenny with the purpose of finding our B&B on R251 about 6 miles out of Letterkenny.  We got on the correct roads but just did not travel far enough.  We stopped and asked directions and about 2 miles up the road we came to the Mountain View  B& B.  At first glance, one could not ignore the beautiful gardens and the very well kept home of Susan and Tony Alexander.

Our host Susan met us, showed us our room and immediately served us "tea and sweets"  Denise did a bit of laundry and hung it out on the clothesline (aka free dryer).  We asked where we could get dinner and were directed to Larkins of New Mills.  The meal hit the spot and we dawdled over coffee and finally headed back to our B&B.  We did the mundane chore of collecting the laundry and were offered tea by our hosts that we gratefully accepted.  Retired to bed about 10:30PM

01 July 2014 Canada Day
Our plans for the day were to tour the Fanad Peninsula.  The day started off with a great breakfast with Denise in her glory with "loads of fresh fruit".  After breakfast, we headed out in late morning for the Fanad peninsula and the towns of Rossnakill, Tamney and Portsalon.  We drove through Kilmacrennan and Milford to Rossnakill.  We toured the graveyard looking for Marianne (the first wife of the Rev. Henry T Carre and the mother of his first child,Thomas.  We took an interesting photo as there were two Carre graves and right next to them was a Carr grave.  We had been told that as far as anyone knew, Carre meant Protestant while Carr meant Roman Catholic.  So, we have the question of why the Carr grave in a Church of Ireland parish graveyard?

Entrance to Rossnakill Church

Carr may be part of a mystery or a link

The three Carr(e)'s

Entrance lane way to Rossnakill Church

Sign at the entrance gate to Rossnakill Church

We left and carried on to Tamney.  We stopped and asked about William Carre as he is the parish treasurer for the three churches of Rossnakill, Portsalon and Leat Beg.  We were directed to a village about a mile up the road to the hamlet of Tamney and an ivy covered roadside residence.  We knocked on the door and met Sandra Carre who was more than a little surprised at our presence.  After a brief conversation, we had convinced her of our identity and we were welcomed into her home.  She was kind enough to loan us the keys to tour the interior of the church by ourselves as she could not leave the house due to her having an invalid relative in the home.  Just as we were leaving for the church, she mentioned an old bible at the back of the church which had a reference to Henry Carre.  We toured the church and found the bible with an inscription to Henry Carre inside.

The exterior of the bible inscribed to the Rev. Henry T Carre

The find that shows where the Rev. Henry T Carre was a curate after graduating TCD

We returned the church key to Sandra Carre and she served us tea, of course, with sandwiches and sweets.  We were told that the William Carre General Grocery closed in 2001 but the photo is still on the Fanad website.  William Carre was away working but Sandra was a most gracious host.  During the lunch she was looking at the laptop and asked me where I got the name of Ballymagahy as it relatively unknown today and refers to a town land area between Rossnakill and Portsalon.  The former parish rectory was there and this explains the mention of that name with relationship to the birth of George Edward Carre the 2nd son of the Rev. Henry T Carre and his second wife, Elizabeth Jane Inch.  We left contact information and Sandra thought that her daughter would e-mail us and follow up to determine where we fit into their family.  This mystery is still outstanding.

The roadside home of William and Sandra Carre (Eric Carre in the doorway)

We are now on our way to Portsalon which is the other side of the peninsula.  Knowing that Ballymagahy was en route, we looked for any indication but, as far as we know, there were no signs.  At least we knew we were extremely close.  We arrived in Portsalon and found the church easily.  The church is in a small plot of land and appears to be well kept.  We had a look around but being as it was late in the afternoon, we decided not to spend any more time and so headed back to our B&B (Mountain View).  We arrived back in Churchill by 6:15 and decided to return  to Larkins of New Mills for dinner.  Back at the B&B by 8:00.  We met a young Italian woman, Martina, that our hosts had been mentoring as to the nuances of life in Ireland.  She was quite chatty and along with Susan, we talked until 10:00.  Martina said she was leaving around 10:00 AM to head to Dublin and the route she was taking helped us to get part way to our destination so we requested that we tag along.  We excused ourselves at 10:00 PM as we needed to pack for our trip to Maghera.  The end of a scenic drive and, all in all, a wonderful day!!