Church Hunting and Appliances

Uncategorized 4 Minutes
On Sunday, we tried to go to Mass at a church about 20 minutes from the house. Mass was supposed to be at 11:00 according to the church website. When we got there, it was empty except for one other woman, who said she did not know why there was no Mass. When I asked her if there was another church we could try, she suggested we go to the church in Cahersiveen, the name of which she couldn’t remember. Off we went to Cahersiveen, about 30 minutes further away. Thank God for GPS! We arrived with a minute to spare at a church called Daniel O’Connell Memorial church. I panicked for a moment because it was not named after a saint and I figured it was not a Catholic church, but it was! I’ve never seen a Catholic church that was not named after a saint, have you?

Turns out, Daniel O’Connell was responsible for the legislation that allowed Catholics in Ireland and throughout the British Empire access to education and government jobs. He is called “The Liberator” and was born just outside of Cahersiveen.
It reminded me of St. Aidan’s in Jersey CIty, where my high school always had Mass. It was lovely inside and so full of people! Much more crowded than any of the other churches we have been to here (but maybe that’s because there aren’t as many churches here and people come from all over to this church).
I have posted before about appliances in Ireland, and about how everything is smaller here, from appliances to showers to food packaging to cars.
Here’s a photo of the refrigerator in the current house. The kitchen is tiny, like an apartment kitchen, so a full size fridge would not fit here. This one is just a bit larger than the one I had in my college dorm…you know, when I was only feeding one person! It certainly is keeping things interesting.
The worst part is that one of the 3 door shelves is broken, so we have even less space than there should be.
I guess this is why so much of the food comes in small packages. There simply isn’t room for large ones. I do like how the milk jugs are skinny enough to fit on the door shelf.
Next we have the dryer. The caretaker of the house had to show me what to do with this one, and I’m so glad she did. The dryer will keep beeping incessantly if you forget to empty this container. And I’m not talking about the lint filter. Any guesses?
It is for water! It fills up (about a gallon of water) after about 2 loads of towels have been through the dryer. I empty it into the utility sink and then replace it. I’ve never seen this before! Perhaps it is because the dryer is not vented to outside, so it does not get too hot and it must have a different method of removing the moisture. The good news is that when I put towels in the dryer, the laundry room gets nice and warm and the clothes that are hanging dry faster. I honestly didn’t think that I had anything left to learn about laundry, but I was wrong.
This is the apartment-sized electric stove. The previous 2 houses (Bayfield and Oban) also had electric stoves. I’d like to say the I’m getting better at cooking on them, but I am not. I will say that this particular one seems easier because it is less powerful, so I am less likely to burn stuff 🙂 This brand of appliances, Zanussi, is owned by Electrolux, and is known for being energy efficient. In other words, S L O W.
This is just a picture of the stove with a regular frying pan on it, so you can see the size. Now, this frying pan is not big enough to cook food for all of us at once, so I use two at the same time; one on the front right burner and one on the back left burner is the only way they both fit. I am missing my big pots from home!

In terms of other appliances, this house has 2 electric showers that work very well. The downside is that we can only run one at a time. The washing machine is a little bigger than the others we have seen, so that is convenient! It also has an unusual configuration in that it is very shallow (it’s a front-loading washer) but the drum has a larger diameter and this makes it spin the clothes more efficiently, making the cycle faster. Also convenient. The heat in this house is under-floor oil heat. Apparently, when the house was built this was the newest trend. However, it is not very good at keeping things warm. It ends up heating the floor (and the room) around it quite nicely, but that room is the laundry room, and the rest of the house stays pretty cold. Luckily, the weather hasn’t been too bad, and the kitchen has a small space heater, so we use that a lot. I prefer the radiators that the other houses had, not only for heating the rooms but also for helping to dry the clothes.
Sunset on Monday evening.
Unknown's avatar

Published by broganfamily8069

We're a homeschooling family of eight - five girls and three boys. Our children are ages 20, 19, 17, 15, 12, 10, 7, and 5. We will be living in Ireland for the next six months, and then going to Tennessee! This blog is a documentation of our travels. Enjoy!! :)

Published

2 thoughts on “Church Hunting and Appliances”

    1. It wouldn’t be too bad if the grocery store were close, but put the two together and it’s a pain! I’m thinking of putting the whole family on a fast so I don’t have to go to the store.

      Like

      Reply

Leave a reply to cathylamothe1979gmailcom Cancel reply