A Bubble Off Plumb

Although my family tree only shows a small amount of Irish blood, that limb is perhaps the most well documented.

Some of my ancestors from the old country took part in a rebellion against their English overlords and wound up on the losing side. Imagine that. The two boys, still young enough to be unmarried, were given the choice to leave the country or face the gallows.

Quick as a wink, they were down at the docks, on a ship and gone with the wind that swept through Ireland. Sadly, though, they didn’t quite think this whole immigration thing through since they didn’t have any money. Like none. Not a sous, shekel or farthing.

On arrival in Virginia, one brother is lost to history while the other, from whom I am descended, was sold into slavery to pay his travel debt.

Luckily for him, or so the ancestry goes, he became so endeared to his owner that the man adopted him as a ward and later he was allowed to marry the farmer’s daughter.

In reality, the daughter probably got in the family way on the wrong side of the sheet, so to speak, with a married man and the newly arrived Irishman was pressed into matrimony.

But apparently the match was blessed, since the happy couple inherited the estate and went on to produce a boatload of children who later migrated to Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and even Arkansas.

Once I found a cemetery in South Dakota that bore my family name. There was no one of that name buried in the cemetery, but perhaps some ancient relative donated the land for the plots. Hard to say.

There was even one of our clan who fought at the Alamo. It probably seemed like a grand adventure to him at the outset, but it didn’t work out very well for him. Like all the other men, he died in the fray.

The point is, no matter where you come from, how you got here or what your history is, everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. It isn’t heritage, it is being the hero of your own story. It’s about perseverance and overcoming the setbacks along the way.

That’s why everyone loves the Irish. That, and the accent might have something to do with it too.