My Grandmother was a lady

Where did I get my expensive taste? Where did I get my love of refinement? Where did I get my tiny feet (UK Size 2, EU size 34 US size 4.5)? I got it all from my Grandmother, Ellen Gillespie. She was petite in stature and came from an upper class Irish Protestant family. She married my Grandfather who was nearly 2 meters tall. Here they are kitted out in their finery. She is wearing a beautiful and fashionable "Afternoon Dress". I wish I could see her shoes. He is also dressed very fashionably in a gentleman's afternoon suit, a shirt with a high detachable tubular collar and silk tie. I bet he is wearing spats. They are both wearing pocket watches and what look like matching chrysanthemum corsages. I'm not certain of the year this photograph was taken but I believe it was around 1908.

My Father was born in 1911 to an upper class landed gentry family, and grew up in a country estate in Athenry, Co Galway. My Mother always told me about the day when my father brought her home to meet his parents. They arrived up to the tall pillared gates of the huge country estate and two Irish wolf hounds came to meet them. She thought they were at the wrong house.
My father, Malachy Ruane was a legend. He was educated in Scotland and at the time his family were living in Ireland. He would cycle from Scotland to Galway and back every weekend! Obviously getting the boat in Wales. He was also fantastic swimmer and won the 8km promanade swim in Galway two years running. He was a mechanical engineer and a business man who was more interested in helping his friends and people around him than he was in making money. He engineered the first disabled car in the world and enabled the first disabled driver to pass her driving test. All he asked in return was for her to buy him a drink sometime. Unfortunately he didn't patent the design and several years later someone copied it and made a mint. I am proud of my heritage and know that when it comes to my taste for the finer things in life, as they say here in Ireland; "it wasn't from the ground I licked it".