Farmer Joe, now 83, Visited a Year Later

Ran up with Farmer Joe today while out hammering the back roads on the Eagle.

Last time I saw him I was on my recumbent. On the HiWheel this time, I got a picture of 

him with his beautiful wife Kathleen, who he went to the same one-room

schoolhouse with. You can hear his amazing story HERE

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Irish History Museum Grounds

One of the Many Homes Reclaimed by Irish Nature

Inside this gate at the left is (was) a stone house.

The three pictures below are closer views of it.

Complete with tress growing out of the middle of it,  this is sadly a common sight 

over here in the west of Ireland, ten miles from the Atlantic Ocean. The stories 

some of these homes could tell. 

Were they abandoned by victims of the Great Potato Famine?

 Had their thatched roofs been raised by English landlords who had evicted a 

great number of Irish for non-payment of rent (see also 1886 Occupy Ireland)

because the crop failures that persisted during the famines times?

Nor does anyone seem to know as they fade further and further into nature.....