The story continues… While Brian and I went to Ballymoney and then back to Cushendall for one last night in the tower, Ben and Anda went to Galway to meet Ben’s flute maker. Anda went on to Sligo to see her/our friend Colum while Ben played in sessions in Galway.
Una drove Brian and me to Belfast in her taxi (she had picked us up at the airport when we arrived). Una was infinitely patient with the rush hour traffic and just a joy to be with. We had dinner with Markus (in his incredible Victorian house) — good food and great stories before spending the night in a hotel (sorry USA– the hotels and restaurants here were cleaner in Ireland than any I have ever stayed at in the USA– not to mention the service!).
The next day we met Ben, and then Anda and Colum in Belfast, and had dinner with Colum before he headed back home; Colum had driven 6 hours round trip in order to see us all! That was one special dinner! Ben and Anda stayed with Sam, and we picked them up at Sam’s the next morning. We all headed for the Belfast Ferry Terminal to embark for Stranraer, Scotland, and thence south via train to Glasgow. Anda had left something at Sam’s place, and he biked the whole way to the terminal to deliver it!
We experienced such generosity of heart in Ireland– unparalleled.
When we left for Stranraer I felt we were re-tracing the journey made by my great grandparents David McDowell and Ellen Connelly when they left Northern Ireland for Glasgow to work in the shipyards in the early 1870’s. They would have left from Belfast or from Larne (farther south).
When I left the ferry to walk onto the shores of Scotland, a man whisked by me on the ramp and took a piece of luggage for me that I had been having trouble with. To me it was a sign that this was home territory and that these people are my people. In the Stranraer train depot I saw a woman that looked in profile exactly like my cousin Janice, who had left us much too soon– she would have LOVED knowing I had been able to make this trip).
We made it to Glasgow, transferred trains, and headed for London. The stops we made on the train trips echoed familiar names: Carlisle, Berwick, Lancaster. I grew up in York, PA, close to the namesakes of these places. This sewed in my mother’s side of the family for me.
Then there was London!
From London, a flight to Frankfort, and “home again, home again, riggedy-jig.” Over the pole, past Mt. McKinley (Denali, The Great One) again. When we landed in Anchorage, I was thrilled to see the towering white peaks, Cook Inlet, and the approaching spruce and birch. But something was different for me. Anchorage is still home, but Ireland is Home. Ireland is where my heart is.
There’s work left to do. I am determined to find out more about my Northern Ireland roots and to locate family in Ireland. Good news is that some of my cousins are interested as well. Kevin is planning a trip to Ireland in the spring!
Speaking of cousins! Thanks to my cousin Annie, who provided information about our ancestors. Thanks to Tricia, who sent me letters she kept from our Northern Ireland cousin Geraldine McDowell Jones! Thanks to Michael, who has the death certificates of David, Ellen, John Paul, and Archibald (brother of our grandfather John Paul).
I’ll repeat this quote from an earlier post:
A few of you have already come to see us, and we begin to hope that one day the steamers across the Atlantic will not go out full, but come back full, until some of you find your real home is here, and say as some of us say, like Finn to the woman of enchantments: “We would not give up our own country– Ireland– if we were to get the whole world as an estate, and the Country of the Young with it.”
– Augusta Gregory
