A Graduation Gift

When I graduated from high school, my grandmother promised to take me on a trip to Ireland. Her mother, Mary Ellen Brennan, immigrated from Ireland to the US as a young woman. Her father, Martin Hannigan, was also 100% Irish, as both his parents immigrated here from Ireland. My grandmother had traveled there with her brother many years before, but she wanted to take me to see how beautiful it was.

We spent two weeks touring. I was 18 years old, whiny, and insisted on eating burgers and fries at every juncture because the fancier food the tour was providing was not to my liking. Somehow, she did not kill me before we returned home. In exchange, I didn't kill her when she began insisting she had never been given the claims form she would need to get back through US Customs (which I had seen them give her five minutes before).

These are a few of the snapshots from our trip:

Fake beer in the fake pub. My grandma's in the middle.

Surly teen face

Us with the two great tour guides. For the record, I told her that shirt was see-through!

Thank you, Mommom!