Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [73]
Fitzmaurice finished his tea. “Yes, of course, but it may be a while before we learn anything. Requests for birth certificates can be made either through the Registrar General’s Office here in the city, or directly to one of the county offices.”
Sara motioned for the waitress to bring the check. “How many counties are there in Ireland?”
“Twenty-six in the Republic and six in Northern Ireland. But the records of Irish ancestors born in the north before 1922 are kept by the Registrar General’s Office, which is nearby. We’ll make a quick stop on our way to Dún Laoghaire and ask them to get cracking on it.”
Sara signed the charge slip and stood. “Although a hint of a brogue is in your voice, sometimes you sound more British than Irish.”
“Do I, now?” Fitzmaurice said with a chuckle as he walked Sara through the lobby. “I suppose it’s because I come from one of those Anglo-Irish families that embraced Catholicism and drew Oliver Cromwell’s ire. In his zeal to transform Ireland into a Protestant colony of the British Empire, he either reduced us to poverty or drove us into exile. It’s taken us a few hundred years to work our way back into polite society.”
Sara laughed. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re excellent company to keep, Hugh Fitzmaurice.”
“As are you, Colonel Sara Brannon, although it pains me to know so little of your real reason for being here.”
“I’ll try not to cause you any trouble,” Sara said as she slid into Fitzmaurice’s unmarked Garda car.
Chapter Eight
The short drive from Dublin to Dún Laoghaire reminded Sara of the sprawl of large American cities where suburban towns and once rural villages, now surrounded by commercial and residential development, had been absorbed and become virtually indistinguishable from one another.
Granted, there were differences between Dublin and the States: The architectural styles of the spreading residential subdivisions paid homage to a Georgian, Palladian, Victorian, and Irish cottage heritage, and in many cases the houses were smaller and squeezed onto tiny lots. There were lovely old buildings scattered about in parkland meadows cut by cobblestone drives, and the new commercial buildings had a distinctly European minimalist flair. The Irish Sea, the coastal hills, and the remaining open space soothed the eye, but there was construction everywhere. Roads, subdivisions, shopping centers, and business parks were eating away at the edges of the intact village centers and gobbling up the land.
When Sara mentioned this to Fitzmaurice, he railed against the development, pointing out that the old family-run bakeries, fish-and-chips takeaways, butcher shops, grocery stores, and ice cream parlors were nigh on gone, swept aside by fast-food franchises, gimmicky tourist enterprises, and big-box shopping malls with huge car parks that catered to the relentless consumption of a nation gone mad with consumerism.
“The whole bloody Republic is being turned into an Irish theme park,” he added with a huff.
Sara smiled sympathetically but said nothing. Fitzmaurice sounded just like Kerney complaining about the changes in Santa Fe and northern New Mexico. If the two men ever had a chance to meet, she thought they would hit it off immediately.
They arrived in Dún Laoghaire, which, according to Fitzmaurice, had been a sleepy village in the early nineteenth century until the railroad arrived and a harbor had been dredged to accommodate mail ships that crossed the Irish Sea to Holyhead in Wales. Now it was not only a popular day-trip destination for tourists staying in Dublin, but also home to the largest ferry crossing to and from the UK, a retreat for the wealthy who maintained vacation homes in the area, and a bedroom community for people who worked either in the city or in the resort towns that ran along the southeast coast.
The area promoted itself as Dublin’s Riviera, compared itself to Naples, Italy, and had no industry