My own Gathering

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2013 is the year of +The Gathering Ireland.

It is a global celebration of being Irish. No matter what part of the planet you hail from or however remote your link, the clarion call is simple - get yourself here and celebrate your ancestry.

It may come as some surprise - jaw-dropping in fact - to anyone that knows me to discover that I have Irish blood. And you don't have to go too far back to find my roots.

As kids my mum used to make some reference to having relatives over here - but the claim was never really fleshed out with any detail. In my blog  Old Age Passenger, you can read  how my mother was born the youngest of seven in Liverpool during the impoverished 1920s.

So we kind of figured that our ancestors, the Flanagans,  would have made the crossing on the boat for new pastures in England.  A few years back my sister found an insatiable appetite for all matters relating to genealogy with a rich vein of detail on my mother's side.

She had discovered that our maternal great grandfather was one James Flanagan. Seven years ago - still then unsure about the strength my links - I moved to Ireland  with my job as production editor of +The Sun's Irish edition.

One of the interesting aspects of living in Ireland today's is the hints of the ancient tribes. Mention an Irish surname and the sage in front of you will probably utter: "Ah that is a fine old name from......"

I don't think that really happens in England, except perhaps with some Yorkshire surnames where some end with the 'thwaite' syllable.

I raised my family name with a colleague in work one day. He informed me that there were a lot of Flanagans in his home county of Clare. Then, pottering around the web one day, I discovered the parish records of Kilmihil in  Clare. And there in 1856 was the birth details of James Flanagan.
It had to be him, I thought. I told my sister who was delighted but reluctant to add him to the jigsaw without incontrovertible evidence that he was our great grandfather.

A few years passed until finally, after much digging and work with fellow 'family'  enthusiasts she discovered that James was one of us - or to be more deferential - we were his.

I wanted to go there. We booked a hotel in the nearby town of Ennis and set upon the pilgrimage  from Dublin. On our way there, we saw a signpost to Moneygall. A certain US President had visit there a week earlier to discover his Irish heritage. I could not resist the slight detour - so I enjoyed a pint of Guinness on the same spot in the Ollie Hayes pub where +Barack Obama had supped.

By comparison the Co Offaly village was like a big town to my own ancestral home of Kilmihil. We drove for about 45 minutes from Ennis. Looking out of the car window, there appeared to be nothing but fields on the landscape. Eventually a small roadside pointed to the approaching junction. I felt butterflies in my stomach as we continued along the winding roads and, suddenly, we were there.

This is a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. Small but it had its own school, shops, church and pubs - yes, plural. The schoolchildren passed us on their way home. I was expecting to see some of the Celt features of my daughter, sister and nieces - dark brown hair, with big blue eyes.

I had a giggle as I thought of that episode of +Only Fools and Horses  where the lads visited the French village where Uncle Albert had stayed in the war.  There was the hilarious moment when Del and Rodney were stunned to see so many menfolk - with trademark beards -  looking almost certain offspring of  their old sea dog relative.

As I looked at the views from Kilmihil you could't help reflect that James Flanagan would have been surveying the same scenery more than 150 years earlier when he set off for a new life in England. There was an awesome sense of peace and belonging that I don't think would have been the same if I was visiting a larger village, town or cities where my relatives. had resided.

My two young children did not appreciate my fascination with this remote place and I was soon being urged to return to our hotel swimming pool. By coincidence, before we even knew ancestral first names, my son had taken the same name as his great, great grandfather.

Maybe as part of +The Gathering Ireland I will return and spend a bit more time there.

Ireland being Ireland, I just know that after a pint or two in any one of Kilmihil's five pubs I'll find someone who will say: 'Ah yes, the Flanagans'.

And I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover we're related.




You can visit thegatheringireland.com for more details on the celebration and discoverireland.com