American Airlines 777

If you get a chance to choose, go on American's 777. You can sit in business class for the price of coach - and those seats are fabulous - they even recline flat for sleeping!

We flew to Ireland from Boston (our flight to Kennedy in NY was cancelled at the last minute) and flew Aer Lingus to Shannon. That plane was old, dirty, didn't have decent earphones or personal screens and our reading light didn't work. (Business class would have been $6000 more - per person!). Our flight back, which was changed to route through Chicago included a stop in Dublin (so we flew over Ireland twice on the way home).

We had raided the duty free shop in Shannon for Irish adult beverages and overloaded the overhead then when we got to Dublin were told we had to get off with all our hand luggage. Then they herded us up and down stairs (great for those rolly bags) to wait in a room meant for 50 or so passengers with a group of at least 200 - holding on to our hand luggage and purchases - for about an hour.

Recommendations:
1. Check other airlines for travel to Ireland. Ryanair doesn't fly from the US, but Delta and Continental do. There are now no direct flights from DFW, so try for the AA 777 from DFW to wherever.
2. Take your own earphones. I took my CD player and a story CD, but lost the player with disc 9 of Prisoner of Birth. I have a feeling that the girl sitting next to me might have taken it, but I did find the earphones.
3. Take crackers and cheese. You never know if they'll have anything at all to eat or how long you might be trapped on the plane. Peanut butter sandwiches work, too.
4. You can take as many little bottles of Scotch or other adult beverages as you can fit into a quart sized Baggie in your carry on luggage. Take an empty water bottle and when you are through Security you can fill it up for free with water for a mixer. Remember to take a cup and you won't have to wait until the plane has reached cruising level.

Wrong photo

I intended to publish a photo of Ireland and accidently uploaded a photo of the ranch - Mark was spreading gravel on the driveway with a little bulldozer and we all had to play on it.

Here is a photo of Redwood Castle - also known as the Egan Castle. It's in County Clare near Portumna and near Birr. Our late chief, Michael J. Egan, a lawyer in Castlebar, bought it and restored it and held the first modern Egan Rally about 25 years ago. Ever since then, the Rally is held in Ireland every four years and somewhere else two years later. So far we've been to Austria with the German Egans (the vonEgans), Salt Lake City with the Mormon Egans, Annapolis with the Naval Egans, Melbourne with the Australian Egans. We hosted them in Dallas in 2006 and the next rally is to be held in Tasmania with the Devil Egans (sorry, couldn't resist).

My iPhone is fabulous but I'm on a learning curve about uploading pictures to my computer then finding the ones I want. I upload to Kodak Easyshare which collects them in date, but not time, order. In other words, I can find photos for June 26, but they are jumbled in time - with early morning photos mixed in with late night photos. And, on Easyshare, the photos aren't numbered which would make it easier to upload to the blog.

Anyway, this is Redwood Castle, still in the family of the late chief - and when in Ireland we've always held the final meeting of the Rally there. The castle is now party subsidized by the country and must be held open for visitors so many days a year. The sign outside invites people in for 6 euro.

Unfortunately, the heirs who own the castle now are not very family oriented. They charged the 85-95 people (relatives!) 20 euro to enter! Not only that, if anyone who didn't have 20 euro in cash for every person (including children) they were not allowed to pay by check or credit card! (Of course some Egan white knights stepped up to pay.)

To make matters even worse, no preparation was made for the people attending. Chairs were not set up and not enough were provided. Tea was offered with a few store-bought cookies.

We'll never go there again and recommend that no one else go, either.

Ireland!

We are just back from an Egan family Rally in Ireland. It was great to see old friends and relatives. Our international chief, Michael J. S. Egan, planned and executed a wonderful programme of events, meals, transportation and lodgings for about 100 assorted Egans from all over the world.

As word for US travelers, though - stay home! The euro is about $1.8 - meaning when things cost 1 euro it is about 2 dollars. And not only that, the prices in Ireland are jacked up. For instance, a McDonald's Happy Meal in Dallas is about $2.15. In Limerick, a McDonald's Happy Meal costs 4 euro - almost 8 dollars! I didn't see one price that was less than 1 euro - even a pack of gum.

If foreign travelers come to America they can really buy lots of stuff at a great price.