Do I detect a note of exasperation from Ms. Lunney? Never mind, it gave me a laugh on this morning when Donegal is in danger of being blown into the sea. Maybe you should have added that to your letter Linda. How the "oule sod" is a coul, wet, miserable, damp, bankrupt country compared to California. Tell you what - offer to go live there and she can come live here. But then again, we "stay behinders", with our knuckles trailing on the ground, probably couldn't find our way to the Belfast boat. Just jesting, Listers, in our typical self deprecatory Ulster way. We are very patient really. (Just don't ask if your Wexford Boyds are any relation to mine from Bellaghbeddy beside the River Bann when I cannot even connect them to the Boyds from Maddykeel and it's right next door.) Linda will be putting you and me off this List, Linde. Boyd Gray http://familytrees.genopro.com/boydgray26/Boyd/default.htm http://www.westulstergenealogy.com/ http://preview.tinyurl.com/yk7gckr -----Original Message----- From: scotch-irish-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:scotch-irish-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Lunney Family Sent: 08 December 2011 07:41 To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com Subject: [S-I] Thoughts on replying to an American/ Canadian/ Australian/New Zealand/ Argentinian/ South African/ Englih/ Scots/ letter I suppose I'd better reply to that letter from that American woman about the family history, it's been lying here a fortnight or three weeks already; cows calving, floods, weddings, elections; it's all been happening this last while. I can put her straight about one thing anyway; our lot are not the same as her lot. Those Gortmullan ones were different; they were A. Catholic OR B. feckless; they were fiddlers and drank and lost the home farm that was my great great grandfather's, while my great grandfather was a very hard worker and made a success of the farm he bought for himself to get away from the noise of fiddle music night and day OR C. they all emigrated and we stayed here so they must have been different OR D. we know they were different because we know that their grandfather came to Gortmullan as a servant with the minister of First Ballyness who moved from Tyrone and it just happens that they had the same name as us. Anyway, I'll write and tell her what I know, which is very little really and she might not want to hear the real reason her great grandfather left; that trail of weans that that woman up beyond Gortmullan said were his. It's all a bit difficult to put down on paper to someone you don't know; it's hard to explain life here to someone not from here and it might offend her if I told her what my granny said about her granny. Maybe as well not mention the broken lock on the chest where the money used to be. I suppose if I've started I'll have to finish it one way or the other. Must remember to tell John to tell his young lad to bring an American stamp home to me the next time he comes from the town; that's if the Post Office is ever open again after the IRA bomb at that side of the street. Right; letter written, though dear knows it's hardly worth putting a stamp on, because I don't really understand what she's after. Why she's talking about the "ould sod" and shamrocks and feeling homesick on St Patrick's day, sure that's all old guff, our ones never went in for any of that. So where does this go to then? There's nothing on the letter; the address must be on the envelope. Where the hell is the envelope that her letter came in? I kept the letter right enough, somebody must have used that envelope to light the fire or something. There's no way I can write to her now, probably just as well anyway, I would only have disappointed her because I can't tell her the whole big story about her ancestors that I know she wants to hear ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

No, Boyd, not exasperation! just trying to suggest some reasons why people here might not always reply post-haste to letters from unknown Americans. Probably I should have dated my little jeu d'esprit; say about March 1975 And just reminding everyone that we are all now habituated to email contact; letters are subject to different etiquette, and people can mean to reply and then leave it so long they are embarassed to reply... L