Even if you grew up Jewish in America in the olden days, part of your musical repertoire was "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" and Jimmy Cagney belting out George M. Cohan's "H-A-double R-I-G-A-N Spells Harrigan."

Thus a trip to the Emerald Isle, where folks go around kissing the Blarney Stone, has always been on our traveling wish list. So when our daughter, who lives in London with her husband and two young sons, suggested renting an Irish cottage for a week of transgenerational bonding, my wife and I went for it.

The Davillaun Cottage turned out to be a rather resplendent two-story house in County Mayo, on the northwest Irish coast on the outskirts of the harbor town of Westport.

It included four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a comfortable living room with a fireplace, an enclosed garden terrace, complete kitchen, and washing machine and dryer -- room enough for four adults, plus 4-year-old Benjamin and 1-year-old Gabriel.

As promised in the promotional material, our cottage was only 100 yards from the nearest pub and not much farther from a supermarket and shops.

On clear days, we had a splendid view of Croagh Patrick, revered as the mountain retreat of St. Patrick, and across Clew Bay. The bay looks lovely at high tide in the late afternoon, but is rather less picturesque at low tide.

Depending mainly on the napping regime of our grandsons, we launched half or full-day excursions from our base in Westport.

We visited the magnificent grounds of the 13th century Ashford Castle in Cong, although the castle itself has been converted into a pricey hotel and was off-limits except to guests.

We did considerable hiking along the windswept beaches of Bertra Strand but were disappointed by a drive through the much-touted Achill Island. More rewarding was a trip to nearby Newport, with a first-class children's playground.

Westport itself retains much of the charm of a small town, though the government is spending a lot of money to upgrade (or downgrade) it to a major resort. Restaurants and pubs abound, with The Towers along the quay as our favorite.

For Californians, who gotta have their regular swim, the Westport Leisure Park offers an adult pool (indoors, of course) and an imaginatively constructed pool for kids and infants. (On the whole, we have found that facilities for kids in England and Ireland are designed much more imaginatively than in the States.)

We stayed in Westport during the middle of March, which has its advantages and disadvantages. Accommodations, and we assume restaurant prices, were considerably lower than during the summer season. However, we endured frequent rains, and while the Londoners took the cold weather in stride, the decadent Angelenos shivered occasionally.

What about costs? The one-week rental of our cottage came to a little over $400, not counting electricity and gas, for which we paid separately. There's a TV set, but no phone.

During July and August, the cottage rents for about $600, and in May, June and September for $500.

For information on County Mayo cottage rentals, the best way is to e-mail inquiries to bfq@visitmayo.com, or fax to 011-353-98-25749. The Irish Tourist Office publishes an illustrated catalogue of cottage rentals throughout the country. Phone (800) 223-6470.

Since many tourists will combine a visit to Ireland with a stay in England, here are a couple of tips:

If you start out from London, take the train from Victoria Station to Gatwick Airport. It's cheaper (about $30 roundtrip) and faster than taking a cab, and very convenient.

From Gatwick, we flew Ryanair to Dublin at a roundtrip fare of $98 per person. At the airport, we picked up a seven-seat minivan (booked through Alamo) at a cost of $400 for a week, mileage unlimited. The three-hour trip from Dublin to Westport was a bit of a squeeze, what with the luggage and baby seat, but we managed.

For a pit stop we halted at an excellent pub called The Covert, just outside the town of Mulligar.

One of England's legacies is that the Irish also drive on the left side of the road, and that might take some getting used to.

Ireland's Chief Rabbi Gavin Broder

Broder's Battle

Ireland's chief rabbi is trying to reverse the community's shrinking trend.

By Tom Tugend, Contributing Editor

Every September, at the All-Ireland Hurling and Gaelic Football finals in Dublin -- corresponding to two Super Bowls -- the chief rabbi occupies a seat of honor in the box reserved for the president of the republic.

Not only does Chief Rabbi Gavin Broder share seats and prestige with the Catholic and Protestant primates and top government officials, but he is consulted on weighty theological questions.

"Last time I attended, the prime minister turned to me and asked if there was a blessing for the losing team," the youthful Broder says with a smile.

When Broder, only 37, was inaugurated as chief rabbi four years ago, it was akin to a state occasion, he recalls, with the country's president, two archbishops and ranking diplomats in attendance.

"I sometimes think that the Irish people have more respect for the office of chief rabbi than the Jewish community," sighs Broder, born in South Africa and the son and grandson of rabbis.

The inauguration took place at Dublin's beautiful Adelaide Street Synagogue, and it symbolizes the continuing decline of the country's Jewish community that the landmark shul was sold to a non-Jewish purchaser a year ago.

Similarly, the handsome grounds of the Maccabi Sports Club, training ground of champion-caliber rugby and cricket players, was closed and sold six months ago.

Despite the prestige and 900-year history of the Jewish community in Ireland, it was never numerous. In its heyday, just after World War II, it numbered about 5,500 and has now declined, according to Broder's best estimate, to 1,300. Except for tiny enclaves in Cork and Limerick, the entire Jewish population is concentrated in Dublin.

Another 300 Jews live in Northern Ireland, or Ulster, but they give their fealty to the Britain's chief rabbi in London.

Though Broder enjoys the title and high profile of chief rabbi and the respect accorded to the office, he is, in fact, the only active full-time rabbi in Ireland and serves the Jewish community as its spiritual leader, secular spokesman and principal teacher.

The community is predominantly Orthodox, with the Terenure Hebrew Congregation now as its major remaining shul. A minority belong to the Reform-style Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation, which brings in a rabbi on High Holy Days. Chabad envoys have not been able to gain a permanent foothold in Dublin.

Other community institutions are an old-age home on "Denmark Hill," a chevra kadisha (burial society), and a kosher butcher, baker and deli.

Points of pride are the Irish Jewish Museum (see sidebar) and Stratford College, the Jewish day school, with students ranging in age from three to 18.

The college, whose premises on 1 Zion Street also house the chief rabbi's office, is so well regarded that about 90 percent of Dublin's Jewish youngsters attend its classes.

But in another indicator of the declining Jewish population, about half of the school's 200 pupils are gentiles and receive separate Catholic religious instruction from nuns of the aptly named Sisters of Zion.

Broder blames the massive departure of Irish Jews during the postwar decades partially on the Jewish community, which, he believes, could have done more to retain the emigrants.

Kosher kitchen ca. 1900, in Irish Jewish Museum, Dublin

But the main cause was Ireland's depressed economy, which triggered an exodus among the general Irish population reminiscent, though not as dramatic, as the potato famine exodus 150 years earlier.

The country's current economic boom, dubbed the Celtic Tiger, has stabilized, but not reversed, the Jewish emigration trend.

Young singles are leaving because of the small pool of potential Jewish mates, and young couples are departing because "there are not enough Jews for their kids to play with," says Broder.

In growing numbers, young Irish Jews hold on to their good jobs in Dublin but make their homes in London and Manchester, which have sizable Jewish communities.

That sort of arrangement, says Broder, "is not good for family life."

To stop the decline and graying of the Jewish community, its elders are looking, or at least praying, for reinforcements from abroad. "If we could attract even 20 young couples, it would make a difference," says Broder.

There are some 50 to 100 Israelis in Dublin, mainly on temporary assignments from their high-tech firms, but they show no inclination to become part of the established Jewish community.

Broder is hoping that with the improved economy, Jewish Dubliners who have settled in South Africa might come back.

"Life in Ireland is very attractive," says Broder. "The daily pace and the demeanor of the people make for a more leisurely and civilized lifestyle than in most Western countries."

With a growing influx of Jewish tourists from abroad -- some 7,000 to 8,000 visited the Jewish Museum last summer --the Dublin community is hard put to extend the traditional Jewish hospitality, reinforced by the same Irish trait, to visitors looking for a Shabbat meal or kosher facilities.

"Just 10 tourists looking for home hospitality on a Shabbat can put quite a strain on our resource," says Broder.

Despite their small number, Irish Jews have made sizable contributions to their host country and its struggle for independence.

One well-remembered patriot is Robert Briscoe, an early member of the Irish Republican Army, which sent him to America in 1917 to raise money among Irish Americans.

Reportedly, Briscoe later taught IRA guerrilla tactics to Zionist Revisionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky to use against the British mandate in Palestine.

Briscoe was the first Jew elected to the Dail, the Irish parliament (there were three Jews in the most recent one), as well as the first Jew to become lord mayor of Dublin. His son, Ben, held that post in the late 1980s.

But Leopold Bloom, James Joyce's protagonist in "Ulysses," unquestionably is the most famous Dublin Jew. Each June 16, the day Bloom traversed Dublin in 1904, is celebrated as Bloomsday, when the faithful read portions of "Ulysses" and retrace Bloom's footsteps.

(For information about the Dublin Jewish community, check the Web site at www.Jewish.com/search/Jewish_City_Guides/Dublin_Ireland.)

Joe Morrison, 84, volunteer at the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin

Those Irish Jews

The Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin is open to the public only on Sundays during the October-April off-season, but we imposed on Joe Morrison to open the place and give us a private tour on a weekday in March.

Morrison, a hearty 84, is one of the elderly volunteers ("The young people are not interested") who keep the museum going.

Located at 3 and 4 Walworth Road in the Portobello district, the museum has retained the setting of the synagogue it used to be on the premises' second floor.

The museum itself is on the first floor, jammed to the last inch of space with memorabilia of Jewish life in Ireland, with valuable artifacts jostling kitshy souvenirs.

There is a fully recreated kosher kitchen at the turn of the last century, old photos of family weddings, cricket caps of great Jewish players, World War I medals, and yellowing clips from newspapers and magazines.

Eye-catching are a bottle of Guinness stout, certified kosher on its Hebrew-language label, and a dreidel, mezuzah and menorah, made of the finest Waterford glass.

One section documents relatively rare expressions of anti-Semitism, such as a businessman's ad stating that his store "employs only Irish labour."

The bushy-browed Morrison was raised in Limerick, still remembered as the site of a 1904 "pogrom." It wasn't much of a pogrom as these things go -- a group of young men, stirred up by business competitors and a fiery priest, threw stones at Jewish homes -- but it was enough to convince the 20 to 30 Jewish families to abandon the town for a number of years.

When Morrison's family returned, it lived around the corner from the family of author Frank McCourt, whose best-selling novel "Angela's Ashes," depicts a life of grinding squalor and poverty.

Morrison judges McCourt's description as "greatly exaggerated."

Despite the earlier unpleasantness, Morrison recalls that he and his brother were educated in a Limerick school run by the order of Christian Brothers without encountering any prejudice or discrimination.

Like most of his contemporaries, Morrison worries about the attrition and graying of the Irish Jewish community but thinks little can be done to reverse the trend. In his own family, four of his five adult children have settled in Israel.

(The museum's Web site is at www.eecs.tufts.edu/ ~zblocker/ijm/) -- Tom Tugend