Not angry, just lost

When I buy Irish Whiskey, and it’s rare that I do, it’s Bushmill’s. This gets people up in arms about Protestant Whiskey and a beverage being problematic. And I hear this from people who are not Irish.

Oh the dissonance.

I do not like the taste of Jameson’s, is that a crime? And I’m not going to buy a Whiskey called Michael Collins. Might as well have one of those Irish Car Bomb shooters to go along with it.

My Mother’s maternal Grandmother and Grandfather were both Polish immigrants who came over in the early 20th century.

My Mother’s paternal Great-Great Grandparents both came over from Ireland in the late 19th century.

My paternal Grandfather’s Mother emigrated from England in the late 19th century.

My paternal Grandfather’s Great Grandfather emigrated to the United States from Ireland in the mid 19th century.

My paternal Grandmother’s family history is filled with mysteries but with some certainty I can say her Grandparents were from Ireland and emigrated here in the late 19th century.

How much Irish Soda Bread should be in my house today?

I can take or leave Guinness Stout and have one or two a year, but not today.

How much Americanized distance is there between me and my ancestors from 1850-2017?

Here I am now, closer to my so called roots to Suffolk County, New York, Western New York State and Columbus, Ohio than to any of the olde countries any members of my family lived. I am closer to Fall River, Massachusetts, Brooklyn, Astoria, Greenpoint than Derry, Dublin, Libniki, Baba or Clitheroe. Maybe it’s one large disconnect between my brain and the world?

If others want to hoist one for St. Patrick, wear Kelly Green and shamrocks, fill their bellies with corned beef and cabbage (which I loathe) so be it. I might just break out some Van Morrison and drink a Four String Big Star instead.

So many links, so many mysteries in the hunt for facts

Finally opened up the genealogy binder that I found (in the last place I looked) in my Aunt's apartment and started plugging data into an online family tree database. The site linked me to some other previously unknown to me distant relatives so the tree has a few more branches.

My paternal great-grandparents came from Clitheroe, England, which I knew. But I have his naturalization documents from 1888, which is very cool. The family all settled in Fall River, Mass. and many of them moved to Brooklyn/Queens in the 20's, which is when my father's parents met. They were married in 1928 in Brooklyn at a church that still stands. The Irish on that side I have going back to the early 19th century and those ancestors came from Derry or Dublin. There are also ancestors who lived in New Hampshire and New Brunswick.

My maternal grandmother's story is sometimes painful and difficult. She was a twin, her brother did not live a year. Her Mother died in 1910, she was put in an orphanage then her father died six years later of TB and was buried on Hart Island. Her Mother also had a brother, but he was shot in the head in 1913 and I'm trying to find the documentation of that event. Did he shoot first? My Grandmother's Grandmother had a number of children, none of whom seemed to live past 1910. This is frustrating when you cannot find anything, but the thrill of recovering history happens when you can match a name.

My Mother's Grandmother came to the U.S., alone, from Poland in 1893 and settled in New Britain, Ct.. She married her husband, also from Poland in 1897 and lived in New Jersey for a time before they moved to Brooklyn. I do not know too much of my Mother's Father, neither did she, so I have not really traced that side of the family.

I also have a lot of pictures, none of them written on so I have no idea who all these ancestors are, and there is no one left to identify them that I know of. I do not like lost history, so I will plug away from time to time and get people identified and noted properly. As a librarian/cataloger/archivist it is something I have to do.

The kids are alright

I was reading an interview with Elton John last night and he was raving about this band. So I looked this group of Irish kids up on Youtube and was very impressed with what I saw and heard.



I mean, what the Hell was I doing when I was 16? Compared to the ramshackle band I was involved with, these kids were on a stage at Glastonbury. They're also quite talented, with polish provided by the production skills of Chris Thomas and the management backing of Elton John's empire behind them.

There's a lot that can go wrong here, or simply fade out to remember whens or what ifs. Right now I'm going to focus on the promise and enjoy hearing about their ascent.

From Fact to Fiction

Six years after the publication of her true crime memoir A Rip in Heaven, Jeanine Cummins returns with her first novel, The Outside Boy.



It's the story of Christy, a young Irish Traveller living in Ireland in the late 1950's. His Grandfather dies, a photograph comes into his possession - secrets are kept and revealed.

Cummins prose is quite rich, emotions run high while a deft sense of humor runs throughout the book. The plot gets a bit predictible and nearly crosses into Lifetime Movie territory, but it stays on the side of being rational. It's a novel that will please readers of many genres, be they historical, dramatic or books about a family that loves each other.