Hi
everyone,
Here
in the USA, Memorial Day weekend, at the end of May,
is the unofficial start of summer. Soon many tourists
and summer residents will arrive to open their summer
homes
to enjoy the beautiful New England summertime. Many
of our readers do not realize that we are located in
the
United States, not in Ireland, so I will tell you about
our area
now.
LittleShamrocks.com
is located in the Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee Region, in the
west central area of New Hampshire,
in New
England, about 100 miles north of Boston. Dartmouth
College, which includes one of the country's premier
teaching hospitals,
Dartmouth
College
Art Print
Buy
at AllPosters.com
is
located in Hanover, N.H. and is one of the original eight
Ivy League colleges in the
USA.
Eleazer Wheelock Founding Dartmouth College
in the Forests of New Hampshire,
1770
Giclee Print
Buy at AllPosters.com
The
Ivy League schools are private institutions of higher
education and are all located
in the northeastern
United States. The term Ivy League also refers
to these schools as having academic excellence, selectivity
in admissions, and social elitism. Seven of the
eight
schools were founded
during our country's colonial era and were chartered
before the American Revolution; Dartmouth College
being
chartered
in 1769.
The
Lake Sunapee region is comprised of several towns which
border Lake Sunapee, the town of Sunapee,
and
the town
of Newport, which is our town. Sunapee is derived
from the local Native American Abenaki word 'Soo-Nipi',
which means 'waters of the wild goose'. Lake
Sunapee is the largest
of the area lakes, which measures ten miles long
and
three miles wide.
Lake Sunapee
Lighthouse Illustration by John "Babe" Sargent
The
area is somewhat seasonal, as we have many
tourists enjoying the lakes in the summer and
the mountains in the winter. We have several activities
in the summertime
such as boating, water-skiing, skin-diving,
fishing, hiking, camping and swimming in our clean, pristine
lakes. The
area also has many antique shops, flea markets
and farmers' markets. In the wintertime, the
area
offers
skiing, both
downhill and cross-country, sledding, snowmobiling
and ice fishing. If you would like to learn
more
about our
area, please have a look at another of our
web sites, Lake-Sunapee-Living.com.
As
I was searching the web to see if there was a holiday
similar to Memorial Day in Ireland,
I discovered
that
they had observed the first annual National
Famine Memorial
Day on May 17, 2009. Although Irish
communities have held memorial observances in the past,
this
is now a national holiday. In May of 2008,
it was announced
that
the government had agreed to commemorate the
Great Famine with an annual memorial day, and
the National
Famine Commemoration
Committee was established to decide on the
most appropriate arrangements for the observance.
Each year, the observance
will be held at a location in one of the provinces,
in turn, beginning with Munster in 2009, in
Connacht in 2010,
and in Ulster in 2011. I have marked my calendar
for the observance on May 17, 2010 and I invite
you to
join me
for a moment of silence.
I
also learned that Canada observes a similar day of remembrance,
which is held at the Irish
Famine
Memorial
located at the
former quarantine station on the island of
Grosse-Île.
Over 250,000 Irish famine immigrants were
quarantined here before they were allowed
into the country due to
the fact
that many of them were suffering from cholera
or typhus. There are 6,000 of the famine
Irish buried at the site,
and the monument was erected in 1997, on
the 150th anniversary of the most devastating
year of the famine, 1847. The
monument was officially opened in 1998 and
the President of Ireland,
Mary McAleese, attended the ceremony.
Now
that June is here, we are going to be celebrating graduations
and the beginning
of the wedding
season, along with Father's
Day on June 21st. On our home page, we
are featuring the Traditional
Irish Wedding Cake that
I made last
summer. We are also featuring items from
our Barbecue
Recipes Page, which
would be
perfect to
serve to Dad on
Father's Day and for Independence Day celebrations
on the 4th of July. Remember that you can
purchase party supplies
for any occasion at our affiliate ShinDigz.com.
I
hope that all of your June celebrations will go splendidly,
as well as your 4th
of July.
I want to
thank you all
for your continued interest in LittleShamrocks.com.
Until next
time ...
Sláinte,
Tyna
