My Heart Comes Home to Ireland

There must be something in our genes that harbors “memories” of places we’ve never been and people we’ve never met. How else to explain the powerful sense of belonging that enveloped me when my husband and I landed at Shannon Airport? My heart had come home!

I doubt there’s another 32,544 square miles on earth that encompass such a variety of natural beauty. In County Donegal, we visited Slieve League, the highest sea cliffs in Europe,

stretching for five miles along the coast and reaching a height of nearly 2,000 feet. One is seldom out of sight of mountains – not the Rockies or the Alps, but mountains, nonetheless, with names like Knockmealdown, Macgillycuddy’s Reeks, Blackstairs and Blue Stack. In between, are little fields in myriad shades of green, separated by ancient stone fences in the south and hedges in the north. They’re dotted with flocks of dairy cattle and sheep, the backs of the latter daubed with various colors of paint to identify their owners.

One of the most awe-inspiring sights we saw was the Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim – 37,000 joined basalt pillars, mostly hexagonal, formed 65 million years ago by volcanic action and reaching from the ocean bed to a hundred feet above sea level. It’s Ireland’s most popular tourist site, and for many the journey has been refreshed since 1608 with a stop in Bushmill, the nearest town, where the world’s oldest whiskey distillery (at least, the oldest legal one!) is still in business.

Dublin, my favorite city, is famous for Trinity College that houses the Book of Kells (a Latin rendition of the Gospels by seventh-century monks whose calligraphy is so perfect that it’s difficult to believe it’s not type-set), the beautiful bridges spanning the River Liffey, the wonderful literary history and the colorful Georgian doors. Other places with particular charm were Cobh, a quaint little village on the east coast that was the last port of call for the Titanic, and Donegal, where I received a chaste kiss in a pub from an Irishman in a kilt.

Belfast and, to a lesser extent Londonderry, also have many things of historic interest, but are memorable particularly for the reminders of “the troubles” – the late 20th-century violence between the Loyalists who favor continued alliance with England (primarily Protestants) and the Unionists (mostly Catholics) who long for a reunited Ireland. Tour guides in both cities stressed that the ongoing tension is not over religion, but politics. Whatever the cause, the major tourist attractions in both places are the murals, grim records of the hostility that still bubbles just below the surface and, in Belfast, the 40-foot-high fence erected to separate the contentious factions.

Monasteries, castles and cathedrals abound, some beautifully restored and some charming in their state of disrepair. On May Day, when we toured Glenveagh Castle in the Derryveagh Mountains of County Donegal, fresh flowers were strewn around every doorway to invite the good fairies in and keep the bad fairies out.

We talked to a fisherman in Killybegs – who could not love a country with a village named Killybegs? We saw peat, still the fuel many families use for heating and cooking, being cut and

stacked in the bogs. We rode in a pony “car” up the Gap of Dunloe to view the beautiful Lakes of Killarney. We visited St. Patrick’s Purgatory, where the saint spent forty days praying on an island to rid Ireland of evil spirits. And we saw Newgrange, dating to 3200 B.C., the oldest-known megalithic passage tomb and a World Heritage Site

Because one purpose of our trip was to gather information about my ancestors and their way of life, we were intrigued by visits to the Bunratty Folk Village in County Limerick and the Ulster-American Folk Park in Omagh, County Donegal. When I reached the crossroads in Clones Clintivrin, County Fermanagh, I could picture my 21-year-old great-grandfather, James Kennedy, leaving that spot in 1852 to sail to America, carrying the red wooden chest – now the coffee table in our family room – that he had built to hold his belongings. I could also imagine the “American wake” his family and friends would have held the night before his departure, knowing they’d never see him again.

In far northern County Donegal, near the Fanad Head Light, I found Croagan House, the ancestral home of my sixth-great-grandmother, Margaret Patton, who was born in the 1600s. Deserted but still standing – fortunately, the Irish never seem to tear anything down – it was once the center of a huge estate that included a private island in the North Atlantic. We also spent three days further south in Kilmacrenan, the village Mary Patton’s daughter, Margaret Lynn, and her husband, John Lewis, left about 1730 to come to Virginia and found the town of Staunton. (Margaret Mitchell told friends that she based John O’Hara in Gone with the Wind on stories about John Lewis, my fifth-great-grandfather.) Just outside Kilmacrenan is the spot where, for centuries, Ireland’s high kings were crowned on Doon Rock. Doon Well, nearby, is still believed to have mystical healing powers.

Our 4,200-kilometer journey in a wee Nissan Micro (a model not sold in the U.S.) took us through 23 of Ireland’s 32 counties. The tiny auto was just right for the 12-feet-wide winding roads.

We stayed in B&Bs, some elegant and a few a bit shabby, but all clean, comfortable and hosted by friendly people. Especially memorable was the 255-year-old Cavangarden House in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, that can host 18 guests and has an equally-ancient private chapel next door.

Every host made sure that guests started the day with “the full Irish breakfast” – eggs, sausage, bacon (the Canadian variety, not the American version, which they call “streaky bacon”), cold cereal, a half tomato (raw or broiled), white toast, wonderful “wheaten bread” with butter and jam, orange juice, coffee or tea and sometimes fresh fruit, pancakes and oatmeal.

Those bountiful breakfasts sustained us most days until dinnertime, and the food in general – mostly pub grub – was very tasty. A few surprises: If there’s a packet of artificial sweetener to be found in all of Ireland, it was nowhere we ate. Every bowl of soup we were served had been pureed. Canned or bottled sodas (varying in temperature) were served with a glass, but no ice. (Bottles of Coke and Dr Pepper were printed with the message, “Open by Hand.” As opposed to …?) And there was no iced tea. (I learned to ask for a pot of hot tea and two large glasses of ice.)

Creamed potatoes translate to mashed, crisps are chips and chips are fries. (Raised with an Irish grandmother who served potatoes at every meal, I had a dinner in County Fermanagh with three kinds of potatoes on my plate. Heaven!) Salad dressing is scarce and usually limited to one choice. I ordered a green salad our second night in Ireland and asked what kinds of dressing were available. “Well, now,” said the waitress, “you’ve only just arrived, haven’t you?” They had none at all. Tuna salad consists of canned tuna and whole kernel corn, with perhaps a touch of salad cream (mayonnaise). But order a side salad, and you hit the jackpot. At the Railroad Hotel Restaurant in Enniskillen, we were served half-circle plates containing lettuce, sliced apples, tomatoes, green peppers, green onions, cucumbers and beets, a hard-boiled egg, grapes, corn kernels, grated Swiss cheese, a strawberry, slaw and Waldorf salad! No dressing, of course.

In Belfast, where I was searching for the 19th-century baptismal records of my great grandparents, a cab driver parked in the shade, turned off the meter and told us to wait while he ran down the block to see if the address we’d been given was actually where we needed to be.

But our favorite example of the Irish spirit of caring is the mail delivery system. We noticed the total absence of family mailboxes and, in talking with two mailmen, discovered that they put mail through door slots in both town and country and, consequently, know everyone in each residence and business. One visits 385 addresses a day; the other about 500. It’s their civic duty, they said, to check on the elderly and ill.

We found the Irish brogue more pronounced, but very understandable, in the Gaeltech region along the northwestern coast. Signs in the rest of the country are in both Irish and English; in the Gaeltech, in Irish only. Still most are not difficult to sound out phonetically. Hospital, for example, is ospidell.

Whether or not you have Irish ancestors, you’ll find a trip there a magical experience. Two hints: Bring washcloths and be aware that your request for a first-floor room will entail climbing a flight of stairs.

Woven into the tapestry covering the seats in the Aer Lingus plane that carried us back to Chicago was the following message: “Returning Americans are never the same. They will forever be caught between two worlds.” ‘Tis true, ‘tis true!