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The Garfield Family in Ireland
Summer 1997

*** Loads of visitors since November 1997 *** If you need to speak to Alan Garfield, Marycrest International University, Chair Department of Graphic Communication and Computer Science, you've reached the right place - my summer address. Read a bit. Then, email me. Or call. From the USA: 011.353.75.48808 (and don't forget, it is 6 hours later from the Midwest).

Check out our 4th of July, 1997 Card...

These are the journals of the exploration of the Garfield family: Carly, Meggie, Eliot, Phyllis and Alan. This web page is a visual (not a virtual...we were there and did all these things) web page of our summer vacation in Ireland. This is the 7th year at our house in Meenaleck, Co. Donegal. (Actually I think it is the 6th, but Phyl says it is the 7th...1991 was the first summer and it is the summer of 1997 now - you figure it out.)

Meenaleck is situated in the Gaeltacht region of NW Donegal. You can't find it on any map, though the little villages around it appear. Sometimes it appears as Jackstown, in remembrance of an old landlord. It is just a half mile from Crolly, about 2 miles from Gweedore, about 5 miles from Loughanure, about 10 miles from Dungloe. On a map, it is half way between Dungloe and Gweedore.

But really, it is wherever our family is and goes. And for 6 or 7 years, better or worse, rain or shine (but always with lots of rain broken by spells of notable shine), we've been here in Meenaleck. The village is made up by lots of friends. And two pubs. That's it.

One last note, this year we had a guest along...Eliot's school friend, Andrew Duckett. Andrew with BMX bike (like Eliot's) stayed with us for 2 weeks. So, along with the regular kind of embarrassing family pictures you'd expect to see, there are some of Andrew. I don't discriminate. I try to embarrass everyone.

Now, no one suspected that our new seats (row 20) were special ones. Phyl figured it out first, with a hint by a flight attendant. So, we all sat in 1st class seats, with the special "cradle seat" and individual TVs with lots of stations. Myself, I didn't care about the TV. I just drank and fell asleep. We arrived in London and had a long, long, long, (get the hint) long layover. We arrived at 10am and our flight left at 3pm. After lunch at the McDonald's at Heathrow, we flew to Belfast. One of the boxes had come open and some hi-tech equipment was lost. Other than that (and wet clothes in the suitcases), our trip was fine. James MacCole picked us up in Feda O'Donnell's small coach (which we managed to fill up with all our stuff plus 3 bikes).

We arrived at our house on Sunday, June 22nd, 10pm to a shiny sky. Everything was clean, neat and tiddy. It was just great to be home.

So much for the talk...now the pics.
Sorry if these pages take a bit of time to download. Lots of images, you know.
Choose from below, and please be patient...
Incidentally, all these pictures were taken with an Epson Digital Camera and saved as 24 bit JPG files 320x240 before being converted to 8 bit GIFs and resized.

So, pick a place and go there!

Created "on-the-fly" by Daddy Alan with help from Eliot, Meggie, Carly, Phyllis and Andrew.
Last revised: August 18, 1997.