For as long as I can remember I’ve known I was adopted, and my birth father’s family came from Ireland. But before this week, the week we celebrate St. Patrick who brought the gospel to my ancestral homeland, there were no more details.
I’ve written before about the time in college when I hitchhiked with a friend from Dublin to Galway and down the southeastern coast of the island. With few cars to pick us up, we tramped across fields and stumbled upon a castle, without fanfare, no guided tour, just a broken tower with a stairway open to the sky. Atop the lookout, I could see the edge of the world, the Cliffs of Mohr which fell over seven hundred feet to the sea. Waves which rolled from a continent away crashed on the rocks below.
But here’s the part of the story that matters today. On the road out of the little town of Dingle, we climbed the broad-backed highlands of the Slieve Mish mountains until it narrowed to a single ridge. Just beyond the summit was a white-washed cottage with a thatched roof. Window boxes dripped with geraniums. Roses crawled the fence. A white pony browsed in the dooryard, and a stone path curved to a rounded, red door. In the rising mist, it was a mystical vision as if I were looking through the thin, gauzy space that separates the earth from the sublime. And I wondered, if I pressed my nose against the windowpane, what would I see inside. God himself in a rocking chair beside the fire? Or perhaps a long-lost relative who would claim me as his own.
And on the opposite side of the road, down the green slopes dotted with sheep, I could make out the ragged peninsula south of Dingle. That was in 1973.
To make a long story short, my husband has been digging into my genealogy for some time, and this week located the birthplace of my great grandfather, Michael Joseph Sullivan, born in 1873, who came to America in 1890 from the little town of Cahersiveen.
Drumroll please; Cahersiveen is on the Iveragh peninsula, the peninsula I overlooked at that holy ground moment on the mountain 100 years after his birth.
His wife, Ellen McSweeney was born in the small village of Beaufort that we surely hitched past on our way south to Killarney. Both towns are within the Ring of Kerry in county Kerry.
When I Googled the Ring of Kerry, I found this anonymous quote,
“Any Kerryman will tell you there are only two Kingdoms: the Kingdom of Kerry and the Kingdom of God.”
Perhaps that’s what I felt so many years gone by, and what I discovered again today, amazingly on St. Patrick’s Day.
The slim intersection of the dust I’m made from and the sovereign hand of God who alone guides my destiny.
Cover photo by Aldo De La Paz on Unsplash. Thanks!
So interesting, Ann. You were drawn home.
Yes, it was a spine tingling moment sitting on my couch connecting that image in my memory with the facts Rick was reading me. It wasn’t a fairy tale. It was real.
As the years go by our memories of past events become more precious. God reveals the loving nature in so many ways.
So true, Donna. Many precious memories with you.
I love the connection you’ve made here to both the physical memory and the supernatural. What a blessing!
It was a moment I’ll never forget!
What a breathtaking realization! I’m also Irish on my father’s side. I’ve been to this area a few times and it never fails to take my breath away.
I know exactly what you mean. Welcome to the clan.