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Cavan County Museum, Ballyjamesduff Part 1 -- The Trench


I had been to Cavan County Museum about 10 years ago, during my first visit to Cavan. I should explain to those not familiar with Irish geography that Cavan is the county next door to Fermanagh but separated by the invisible border. Fermanagh is part of Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom. Cavan is part of Ireland. When the border was drawn up and Ireland received its independence, six counties in the Province of Ulster, mainly Protestant, wanted to remain with the U.K. And so Counties Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry (called Derry by the southern Irish) and Tyrone make up Northern Ireland. So my ancestors came from both sides of the border--Fermanagh to the north, Cavan to the south.

When we are in Fermanagh we use pounds sterling and the road signs are in miles; when we are in Cavan, we use Euros and the road signs are in kilometers. The distance/speed issue was a problem when we were in Fermanagh as our rental car's speedometer was only set to kms. So I would say over my shoulder to Kathleen in the back, "It says 60, what is that in kms/hr?" And she would say "90" (because she was always hoping I would go slower.) And when I went into the store to get my can of Diet Coke in Enniskillen and handed them a Euro they said "Don't take those. It's a pound." Ten minutes later we were back to Euros. Kind of like going from Montreal to Vermont although the distance is further there.

Back to Cavan County Museum. They have created two new exhibits since I was last there. In the large park outside, they built a model of WW1 trenches, life sized. This was part of the larger WW1/1916 Rising/Peace and Reflection exhibit that was also created out in the park. It was an intensely moving experience to walk through trenches. Richard and I had watched a program on the Ypres 100th anniversary ceremonies in Ypres and we have both watched a lot of World War 1 movies and documentaries. But to actually walk through a trench, to read the placards on the wall that described what "life" in the trenches was like, to listen to recordings in there of gunfire and men's voices.... I tried to capture some of that in the following photos:




















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