Roots

                   A couple of years ago I took a trip to Ireland to get back to my roots. Half my ancestry has strung from a long line of Irish folk who were I may say not always the most sensible of people but they were successful in what they did. We have had Manual labourers, kings and queens, soldiers and believe it or not a wrestler. Before changing my name to Reardon because my mother got married to a Scotsman my surname was McDermott. I only found out recently from a relative who has spent all their free time researching the family tree, that the last king of Ireland was one of my great ancestors unfortunately our line comes from his eldest son who was removed from the family, gave up his title and married a gypsy; which explains where our lack of sensibility comes from. Although i'm not full Irish and only have the influence from my mother’s side with her father coming from Dublin I’m very proud to have it in me. Growing up I would always celebrate St Patrick’s Day in school, wearing ribbons coloured like the Irish flag in my hair but the sad thing is I’ve never grown out of that and the last St Patrick’s Day was no different 20 years old and I was sitting in my university lecture with ribbons in my hair. I’d never been to Ireland, which is something that maybe I shouldn’t admit but I hadn’t. I had never been taken but when the chance came up I took it. Going out to Ireland was something of a problem as I had never been on a plane on my own before and to be honest I was petrified, even when I was standing in the airport and looking for my terminal I wanted to turn back and the flight is only an hour long.  

                 

                    An hour later I was waiting in the arrivals terminal of Dublin airport looking for someone I recognised, the amount of people moving around me was slightly overwhelming in a sense it was hard to see anything and due to me only being 5ft 3in it made that all the more difficult.  Finally I see a woman running towards me with a huge smile on her face saying quite loudly ” Ah there she is, I can see her, how are you Sarah “. This woman was my great aunt Maureen someone who I hadn’t seen since I was about 6 so I’m still rather shocked that she recognised me.

  

       Touring around Dublin with my own guides and being driven everywhere worked out really well.
I’m the sort of person who loves to learn new things and who relishes in the idea of going to new places
with a lot of history so when we went to trinity collage, which was founded in 1592, I was in my element.
 Having spent quite a few hours relishing the history of a building a certain shop across the road took my
eye and shocked me because although I do like history and facts, sci-fi is also a huge love of mine and
across the road there stood a forbidden planet and was one of the biggest one I had seen so needless to say
I got unnecessarily excited and made myself look completely stupid as no one else knew what I was on
about. 

                  

     The food that my grandparents bought was always a product of Ireland and so when it came to eating
traditional food I did give it a second thought naively thinking that it wouldn’t taste the same as back home,
 I soon found out however that I couldn’t have been further from the truth. Their meat tasted completely
different the meat was so fresh, I later found out it came from the farm just down the road earlier that day.  

                  

    I am a really sentimental girl who loves her family and her friends. I love to learn and I can’t think of
anything better that learning new things about something that means a lot to me.  It’s something that money
 can’t buy which to be honest means its one of the most important things in life. Well to me it is anyway.