Houses of the Holy

How did four weary travelers (and by weary, I mean the kind of tired that comes after eating a big Sunday dinner rather than any real exertion) find ourselves driving southbound from Ayr on a scenic two lane highway when our original plans called for us to be settled into a hotel 150 plus miles to the north near Fort William?

Dunluce Castle, as photographed by Jay (Better than Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy album cover, IMHO)



Julie's sister Cheryl and great-niece Claire

The answer requires going back to why we went to Scotland in the first place.

Like most children, possibly prompted by a class project for a teacher hoping to make geography more relevant, Julie and her siblings at different times asked their mother about the heritage of her maiden name McQuillen, and the answer was Irish-Scottish. As with most American families that worked hard to assimilate into the epitome of Western Civilization, ancestry had become blurred for the McQuillen branch. 

However, the bright red hair of her sister Cheryl and the more subdued auburn hair of brother John hinted at Scottish roots, just as the red hair of my cousins Ronald and Reba gave me a similar notion about my mom’s family tree.

Red-haired nephews Brad and Brett flank a friend and niece Bree

And nieces and nephews carried on the theme.

Unfortunately, when Julie began searching her ancestry online a month before our trip, the McQuillen branches became dead ends before crossing the ocean back to the old world.



Scottish lassie Ellenor Hodge

While discouraged in her search on her maternal grandfather’s branch, his wife Opal, who actually had a German maiden name, turned out to have Scottish ancestors.  Julie also had a very Scottish grandmother on her father’s side, Ellenor Hodge, who was married to Julie's Greek grandfather Nick.

While tracing ancestry online is not an exact science, Julie kept seeing "leaves" sprout and finding solid clues in searches, leading her back to several ancestors in Edinburgh, including one who was a first cousin of Mary Queen of Scots.

So, while disappointed at not being able to trace McQuillen all the way back to Scotland, Julie verified that her family did have roots there, and poured herself into uncovering them.  

As my cousin Tami commented when I told her I planned to follow her path searching our family tree, “Don’t forget to feed your goldfish.”

Grandparents Lester and Opal McQuillen with Johnny

Ancestry.com can become something of an obsession. Flashing back to a beautiful, sunny day in August as we walked along the pier in Seal Beach, the ultimate beach-lover Julie said, “I can’t believe that I keep thinking about going back home to do more Ancesty.com.”  

That same August day, we had lunch with Julie’s cousin Darlene and her husband Rick, who had previously done ancestry research online and also visited both Scotland and Ireland. They said they could find nothing about McQuillens in Scotland, but an alternatively spelled MacQuillan had at one time owned Dunluce Castle in Northern Ireland near Belfast.

It turns out photos of that castle are in the inside cover of Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy album, while the nearby Giant’s Causeway  of Northern Ireland was on the more famous front cover.



Julie's Mom Edna, Brother John and Grandma Opal McQuillen

If you know Julie, you know the only band she loves more than Abba is Led Zeppelin, so she could not miss the chance to experience her family ties to "Houses of the Holy" personally.

Actually, if you know Julie, you know she’s really more of an Adele and Mariah Carey kind of girl. In fact, she never listens to Led Zeppelin or Abba unless I put them on, and even then she doesn't generally leave them on long, but that would be a better story if Led Zeppelin was her favorite.  Julie's brother John and his kids truly love heavy metal, so it is in the DNA.

As long as we were going to be “in the vicinity,” Julie decided to take a ferry to Northern Ireland instead of the previously planned Harry Potter Train from Fort William to Mallaig, and the rest of the family enthusiastically agreed. This also finally tipped the scale from train trip to driving trip, with me as driver and Jay as navigator.

Cross Haven Guest House

We drove ten minutes past Cairnryan where we would return early in the morning to catch the Stena Line Ferry, reaching the village of Strange Rare, I mean Stranraer. It took us a few wrong turns on poorly marked streets, but we eventually found Cross Haven Guest House where we would spend the night using two of their three en suite guest rooms.  Cross Haven is a former convent, which explains the cross on the roof and in the decor.

While it was a lovely, comfortable place to stay, the kids attributed some eerie feel due to the number of holy crosses in decorations, as if the inn was trying to ward off evil spirits or vampires, reflecting years of exposure to Hollywood distortion.  As mentioned in Scotland's Cuisine, Jay and Amy somehow found the whole village to be out of the Twilight Zone, though I think it was primarily because we came on a Sunday evening when most businesses were closed.

This is NOT brother Johnny, sister Jacque and Uncle Whitey,
no matter what Jacque may claim to her husband Mike.

While Julie and Amy rested in the room upon checking in, Jay and I ventured out on our own and found a nice coffee house, where we enjoyed delicious cappuccinos and discussed his Universal Music job. I really enjoyed it.  Interestingly, if we had stopped into the first restaurant we passed while searching for the coffee house, we would have discovered that it had a dart board, which is something we were unsuccessful in finding in the nearly deserted town, peeking in the doors of other pubs before finding the Custom House for dinner.  Walking back to the B & B after our meal, we saw an illuminated dart board through the window.

After a good night’s sleep, we departed before the 7:30 included breakfast start time, instead grabbing some fresh fruit and a couple of single serving boxes of cereal from the lovely breakfast room to eat on the ferry along with coffee from its cafeteria.