In the days around the Autumnal Equinox we had the pleasure of welcoming Dorothy Scott to Glengarriff again.  Dorothy lives in Forres, Morayshire, North West of Aberdeen. Her long journey was by Ryanair from Aberdeen to Dublin, train to Cork where she hired a car to drive the last 60 miles to Glengarriff. Her arrival coincided with the Autumn Miscellany of readings, poetry, music and pictures on 17^th September and we were delighted to welcome her to the function.

 Dorothy is, of course, no stranger to Glengarriff as she is the niece of the late Murdo Mackenzie who worked as Head Gardener on Garinish Island from 1926 until his retirement in 1971. In her youth Dorothy visited and stayed with Murdo on the Garinish Island and reminisced with us on some of the people who visited Murdo on Garinish. These included Fr Sheridan, uncle to Ann Barron, whose visits from the Foreign Missions always included visits to Garinish where he and Murdo discussed and argued over current day events. These discussions Dorothy said were always accompanied by the broaching of a bottle of whisky to aid the discussions!

 Dorothy is the daughter of Murdo’s youngest sister and has become the keeper of the family archives of the many letters that Murdo wrote home to his family in Scotland. Dorothy brought with her some photographs which had come from Murdo over the years which she presented to Cormac Foley, Park Superintendent with responsibility for the Gardens on Garinish Island. These pictures will be held in the Office of Public Works archives. 

During her brief stay in the area Dorothy visited Garinish Island, walked in the woods in the Nature Reserve as well as exploring some of the highways and byways of the Beara and Sheep’s Head peninsulas. Unfortunately, her travel plans did not allow her to stay on for the Ministerial Visit to Garinish on Monday 27^th September. Amongst the people she met with on her brief stay were Maggie O’ Sullivan’s nephews, Danny and Matt Galvin, who were on a visit here at the same time and John O’Sullivan, son of Humphrey ‘Champion’ O’Sullivan who reminisced with her about ‘cow milking’ and other activities of the past. We look forward to welcoming Dorothy to Glengarriff next year when she hopes to be accompanied by her cousin from America. Hopefully they will be able to take part in some of our Garinish 100 activities planned for next year.