Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Tuesday 18th August Henrik Olsson and Lovisa Borjeson from Sweden stopped by.
They are visiting Ireland for three weeks thumbing their way and camping at night.
Last night they were in Athlone and pitched their camp outside a football pitch.
Some men going to work at the pitch in the morning brought them in for breakfast
and a chat. They were heading for Clonmacnois from Shannonbridge.

Ritchie Green from Ballinasloe stopped by on Tuesday. Ritchie is very interested
in history and brought in a copy of a book titled "King's and Queen's Counties -
The Members of Parliament for 1585 - 1800 " by Patrick F Meehan.
Henry Peisley L'estrange was MP for Banagher 1735 - 1760.
He was responsible for building the bridge at Shannonbridge and L'estranges Bridge
in Clara.
The book was printed in 2001 by Imperial Print and Design ISBN 0 86335 043 7

George Strierer from Tyrol in Austria is on a boating holiday on the River Shannon.
George appears to have a deep interest in historical places. Today he visited Clonmacnois
and his party used their bicycles to visit the Clonfinlough Stone.
On Wednesday they plan to use their bikes to visit Saint Brendan's in Clonfert and
Our Lady of Clonfert and Emmanuel House of Prayer.
They will visit Meelick Church when they travel further downstream.
George was interested in the various connections between Irish Monasteries and
ones on the Continent. He believes that the Monastery at Melk built around 1200 has
Irish connectionselk is still run as a monastery and a private school.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does anybody know further of the L'Estrange Connection, I have found the ruined church and graves at Moystown Cross recently (5/8/09). Stopped at Shannonbridge but did not know the connection.

Eamonn said...

I was anonymous comment. My name is Eamonn L'Estrange, my gt.gt.gt Grandfather was the Col. Peasley L'Estrange of Moystown, his youngest son Rev Guy Percival L'Estrange died 1893 aged 83. Would the Col. be any relation to the Henry Peisley the MP mentioned. (Grandfather Maybe?)