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A condensed passage from the memoir:
I arrived in Killarney with little more than a scrap of paper—given to me by my Uncle John as I boarded a train at Boston's South Station. Somehow, through six months of travel across countless miles, it had survived, safely tucked inside my passport. Once I arrived in County Kerry, my ancestors' homeland, I unfolded it carefully to reveal my next destination.
Anne Sheehan
54 Countess Grove
Killarney
I often tell the story of going for afternoon tea and staying for six weeks. After a warm welcome and a "cuppa," Anne and her lovely family whisked me off to the family farm. Life there was simple—starkly different from the suburban comforts I knew in Boston.
A squat, black peat-burning stove sat in the corner of the large kitchen, radiating warmth and serving as the cooktop for every meal. The smell of peat was unlike the sharp scent of Douglas Fir burning in a Pacific Northwest cabin. It was sweet and earthy. A tinge of smoke handing in the air welcomed me into the home every time I pulled the thick wooden door shut behind me.
The barn's dirt floor would turn to mud whenever it rained. There was no fancy tractor to ride. The outhouse, its door hanging precariously from a rusted hinge, worked just fine.
Mornings came early. At dawn, I stumbled out of bed to hand-milk the cows—an entirely new experience. We loaded tall cans of fresh milk onto a wooden cart, and the family donkey proudly pulled us down the rutted road to the town creamery. There, the foreman carefully weighed each can before handing my cousin's father a thin wad of cash. The return journey always included a stop at the local pub, where we tossed back our morning shot of whiskey—an unexpected but time-honored tradition.
Some afternoons, we worked the nearby peat bogs, slicing the rich, dark earth into bricks and stacking them to dry under the summer sun. The British had cut down virtually all of Ireland's trees for their warships long ago, leaving these dried bricks of soil as the only source of fuel for my family and most of rural Ireland. s
After a long day of hard but fulfilling work, I often set out for a solo stroll across the peaceful, greener-than-green fields. The scent of peat lingered in my curly black hair as the jumbled words of a Jackson Browne song spun in my head—a distant echo of the world I had left behind.
It's a long way that I have come.
Across the sand to find this peace among your people in the sun.
Where the families work the land as they have always done.
Oh, it's so far the other way my life has gone.
All I could think about was what my life would have been if my 19-year-old grandfather had not left Ireland in 1910.
There is so much more to the story:
· Music festivals with new Dublin pals; falling in love with one of them.
· Irish history, my family's Irish Republican Brotherhood connections, and, oh yeah, my bartending partner who confided that he was in hiding and on the run from the IRA. (really)
· It was not all shamrocks and smiling Irish eyes. Glimpses of sorrow, superstition, guilt, and alcohol abuse gave me pause as I was coming to grips with my struggles with bipolar depression.
· Finding the flow – my own personal, Zen, be here now nirvana that I found on a deserted country road between Cork and Skibbereen.
NOTE – Photo is of Anne Sheehan and I in 2025 – At first she did not recognize me, but when her son told her that is was “Michael the Hippie”, she beamed, grabbed my hand, and looking me right in the eye said:
“It’s so good to see you Michael.”
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