More Irish Brown Bread is made in Arizona!

Last Thursday at lunch time I took a visit to the post office and sent one of my Irish Brown Bread kits to Arizona to Andrea and Bernadette to surprise Gerry, a fellow Irish man. Of course their were pictures take of the Bernadette's first adventure of making Irish brown bread:

From all accounts it seems like a big success and Gerry looks really happy in the last picture with his big slice of brown bread. It is breakfast time in Cork as I write this and I am having my brown bread slightly toasted with lots of Kerrygold butter!

There is another Cork connection to the Murphy family as in preparation to Andrea and Gerry's wedding I was asked to sing along with my friends Maria and Catherine. One of the hymns that Andrea picked was the Lourdes Ave Maria. No where in San Francisco was the music to be had but the words were available. On the Thursday before the wedding I got the words by email and I smiled as I had sung this hymn since I was a very young child. I knew exactly where to get the music.

A late night phone call was made to Len, my Dad, in Cork with the instruction to go to our parish church, go to the choir loft and get the music. As it was early morning in Wilton, Len headed up to 10 AM mass. There he encountered another hurdle as the choir loft was locked but with the help of Don Moran the door was miraculously opened ( I think without a key both must have been boy scouts) . The music was scanned and emailed at Brian, my brothers office and when I got out of bed in San Francisco next morning I had it sitting in my Inbox.

Gerry and Andrea's wedding was a very touching ceremony but I must admit there was tears in my eyes for most of it but mostly when I sang the Lourdes Ave Maria when the Mothers walked up the aisle. I closed my eyes and I remembered all the times that I sang it as a little girl in Ireland especially during the month of May at school in front of our May alter.

Skip forward to 4th September 2006, the Honan Chapel, University College Cork a 2pm wedding is just about to start. A choir from San Francisco are singing, the Bride arrives and the music changes to the Lourdes Ave Maria as the Mothers and Bridesmaids walk up the aisle. The music sheet the choir are singing from is the exact music that was scanned and emailed for Andrea and Gerry's wedding as this was my wedding day. I was inspired by Andrea to use this wonderful hymn that honors Mary our Mother as part of our wedding ceremony.

Gerry are you sure with a name like Murphy that you are not from Cork??