The River Bann

Jane James really wanted to come to Ireland with us. We couldn’t imagine her enjoying the tenting part of the trip, or squeezing into a mini car, or hiking up to lofty castle rooftops… but she said, “at least go to the River Bann and find where our ancestors came from.” Well, the river Bann that comes up on the internet is in Northern Ireland, and it was hours and hours away from where we were traveling. We really thought we’d fail in this mission.

But then we stopped at another ruin. McKinley had been clamoring for lunch, and we said, instead of just pulling off to the side of the highway to eat, we’d look for someplace lovely that might have a table. We found it, an old ruined castle, and pulled in.

It had a new visitor’s center, and a tour that was fantastic, as well as free, and it also had crewel tapestries just like the Quaker Tapestries of Kendal. These tapestries were the vision of an older woman in the town, who wanted to depict their history in cloth. An artist drew the pictures, and the embroidery was shared among a group of women. Some specialized in faces, others did the horses, one particularly talented woman did the flowers, and a wedding bouquet of daisies that looks as if Monet had worked embroidery, was amazing.

Halfway through the tapestry exhibit, we came by one that was titled “The Vikings Sail up the River Bann.” I ran to the woman at the desk, and she said, yes indeed, the river Bann was just up the road. She gave us specific directions. So just as it started to rain (really, it was mostly sunny!) we stood by the road and took a photo of the descendents of the River Banners. When we got home, Joplin found a document that links the Macelwaynes indeed to this smaller River Bann, and not the one in Northern Ireland after all.