I *almost* booked a day trip to Galway but decided instead to stay in Dublin tomorrow. I’ve got a migraine coming on and know I need to write, to breathe, to process all the information I’ve gathered and experiences I’ve had over the past week. It was good to see friends in Glasgow and when Storm Babet canceled my trip north to Inverness, I instead took the train to Carstairs; my first known Scottish ancestor, Thomas Stark, hailed from Carnwath and a short trip on a very fast minibus took me to that neighboring village. Here in Ireland my ancestors come from a few different areas; Galway isn’t too far from Terryglass but I’m just too tired to commit to a thirteen-hour day trip. I can reach Tipperary in a couple of hours by train but the guides seem to be in the north of the county and without a car, I can’t easily get up there. But I have booked an appointment for Wednesday morning with a genealogist at the Emigration Museum and afterwards I will tour their Entangled Islands exhibit to learn about Ireland’s involvement in the Caribbean. I picked up a few books today so can start reading up on Irish mythology and I may even try my hand at a Halloween story since it’s that time of year and the holiday originated here in Ireland as Samhain.

My weekend in Oxford was wonderful. Seeing my book featured in the “Gifts and Books” exhibit made me proud—and I reread The Ghosts in the Castle the night before I gave two talks at the library. I met some folks who were interested in self-publishing and I gave away the books I’d brought to three lovely women who run the local prison family reading project. Everyone at the Bodleian was lovely and the exhibit curator Nick set up an informal meeting afterwards with half a dozen undergraduates who had just finished reading Mother of the Sea for their fairytales course with Prof. Alex Paddock. We talked about book bans in the US, the latest Disney adaptation of “The Little Mermaid,” and how far we’ve come with diverse casting in fantasy films and series. I had hoped to get over to Oxhill to visit Myrtilla’s grave but couldn’t make it work. Took an early bus to Heathrow instead and then flew to Dublin. Now I’m ready to read some Irish fairytales and already have an idea for a magical story—my tour of Trinity College this morning included two giant deer! They went extinct long ago and many males were preserved in peat bogs here in Ireland but the female deer are rarer…they stood about seven feet tall. I’m sure I can work a giant deer into my story somehow…