I am a third-generation American. Half of my ancestry is Irish, from Kilkenny.
My late husband was also partly Irish (his grandfather was born in Cork), though he usually described himself a "British Isles mutt, with a dash of Abenaki Indian." When we adopted the first kittens of our married life, it was a no-brainer to give them Irish names. So there was Liath and her sisters Briana and Shannon. Later, we adopted a pair of sisters (also gray tabbies), and named them Kilkenny and Cork, for our respective ancestral counties.
Emily was a foster cat from my mom, who moved into an apartment building that did not allow pets. By the time she was in a house where she could have a cat, it seemed too late to start uprooting Emily from a place where she felt at home.
We had decided to visit Ireland for our 20th anniversary, and I was inspired to borrow a basic Irish language tape from the library. I didn't get very far, but I did discover that we'd been mispronouncing Liath's name for several years. Fortunately, cats do not come when called, so only the humans were confused by the change.
We did manage the trip to Ireland -- a self-drive trip that took us in a semi-circle roughly along the southern coast, from Shannon Airport to Dublin. It was a very interesting trip, all the more so because we landed at Shannon on September 10, 2001.
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branchandroot
Of cats and culture
Date: 2008-10-01 05:39 am (UTC)My late husband was also partly Irish (his grandfather was born in Cork), though he usually described himself a "British Isles mutt, with a dash of Abenaki Indian." When we adopted the first kittens of our married life, it was a no-brainer to give them Irish names. So there was Liath and her sisters Briana and Shannon. Later, we adopted a pair of sisters (also gray tabbies), and named them Kilkenny and Cork, for our respective ancestral counties.
Emily was a foster cat from my mom, who moved into an apartment building that did not allow pets. By the time she was in a house where she could have a cat, it seemed too late to start uprooting Emily from a place where she felt at home.
We had decided to visit Ireland for our 20th anniversary, and I was inspired to borrow a basic Irish language tape from the library. I didn't get very far, but I did discover that we'd been mispronouncing Liath's name for several years. Fortunately, cats do not come when called, so only the humans were confused by the change.
We did manage the trip to Ireland -- a self-drive trip that took us in a semi-circle roughly along the southern coast, from Shannon Airport to Dublin. It was a very interesting trip, all the more so because we landed at Shannon on September 10, 2001.