By Killarney's Lakes and Fells

My mother hated St. Patrick’s Day, with its green beer and phony Irish brogues. We did have our corned beef and cabbage and probably played a few tunes at the piano, but other than that, nothin’. Skip the shamrocks and all the rest of it.

We got no history, no nostalgia, no O Danny Boy or I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen. Mother wanted no part of the lace curtain Irish, the Americans with their snobbery and their newfound wealth. Nor did she want to be associated with the shanty Irish, who never made it out of their wee little shacks.

Mother was an intellectual. She wanted to be refined, but perhaps not Irish? Who knows. All I know is, she read her way through every English murder mystery in the local library.

As she got older, she dove into our Irish genealogy, following threads from the Sullivan homestead in Tullig in County Kerry, to the Tarrants in County Cork. But when I was a kid, there was nothing of this. So, it was the thrill of a lifetime, when Mother brought me and my Aunt Joan for a visit to Ireland, to reconnect with all the relatives there.

the house in tullig

Mother’s mother and father were both born in Cleveland, one on the east side, one on the west. Gramma was a Ring, became an O’Brien when she married.

The story of how the O’Briens got to Cleveland is a good one.

Around 1900, when my great-grandmother, Mary Somers was about 16, had a falling out with her mother. She walked out, got on a train, handed the conductor some money and said, “Take me as far as this will go.” He left her off in Cleveland.

She needed a room, walked to the nearest church, knocked on the rectory door and said, “My name is Mary Somers and I’m a seamstress.” She ended up in the house of John O’Brien.

The family owned and operated O’Brien The Mover in Cleveland. Movers of furniture, safes, pianos and machinery. Mary married John O’Brien. They had 10 children, four of whom lived. Mary also became the vet for the 20-30 horses.

The oldest son, Chrisopher ‘Kit’, took over the reins of the company upon the death of his father. Kit, who was a bit of a bounder, misread the fact that times were changing, that horses were not the wave of the future. O’Brien The Mover went under.

Around then, my grandfather was informed that his division of GE (Duplexalite lighting fixtures) was closing the Cleveland office, and employees would have a job if they moved to the main office in Meridan, Connecticut. They moved in 1925.

Happy St. Paddy’s Day to ye. May the road rise to meet you, O Danny Boy and yes, I’ll take you home again, Kathleen, if only I can wear your scalley cap, pour you another Guinness and dance a Kerry jig or two.

PS. I’m thrilled to have become an Irish citizen back in 1996.