Slow Friday in Hillsborough

Today was a slow day for us. We went in search of churches to capture video in on Sunday. We stopped by the Church of Ireland church here in Hillsborough. They're calling us back tomorrow with a yes, we hope. We'll check with a Roman Catholic church in Newry or Dundalk tomorrow.

John (pictured left shooting video on Wednesday) and I drove in search of a small country Catholic church near Hillsborough. We never did find St. Colman's.

But we did get to see a lot more of the countryside including passing the village of Maze, home to one of the high security prisons that was used by the Northern Ireland and British authorities to house high security paramilitary inmates from "The Troubles." Following the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Peace Agreement, the prison was closed in 2000.

We did find two of the four former Montana visitors who I had yet to find or make contact with. Yesterday, we went in search of Jerome Brooks using his home address from 13 years ago. Once we finally found his house, his father was just walking into the house. He invited us in and gave us Jerome's phone number. Mr. Brooks told us Jerome, his youngest son, works as a concierge in a high-end hotel along the southwest coast of Ireland. He got married about a year ago. Mr. Brooks has a fun to listen to. He liked to tell stories and then he would laugh with a high squeaky laugh.

We had heard that another of the Missoula 12, Paul Ferris, was living and working near the Newry/South Armagh area. Declan Cromie knew someone who knew Paul. So we got Paul's phone number and called him today. Paul called back this afternoon and told us he's married with two kids--a boy and a girl. We're going to meet Paul and Seamus Carr from Newry tomorrow for lunch. We now have information or have talked to 10 of the original 12 visitors.

The weather is about to take a change for the Fall. We've been very lucky with the weather so far. Pretty warm for this time of year and almost no rain. Everyone has been commenting on how lucky we've been. Today we stopped in the Hillsborough tourist information office. One of the women there said we would have snow in the next week.

I laughed it off thinking she was making fun of us being from the mountains of western Montana. John told me later that the long range forecast is for lows at or below freezing--just in time for our trip north to Letterkenny next Wednesday. As John said, with only six inches of clearance on some of the roads we've been driving, any slick roads would make traveling very exciting.

But we'll see if that stands. If you check three different websites on the weather for Ireland, you'll get three completely different forecasts. More on the driving tomorrow.