From My Family to Our Family
by Pete Miller, Dublin, Ohio
For 163 years, someone in my family has dreamed of returning to my great-grandfather’s birthplace in Cregganbane, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The honor to be the first descendant to return fell to me last year. Little did I know what a major role Brad Martini Chambers and MITM would play in this historic homecoming.
One sunny Ohio morning in Spring 2014, Brad Chambers announced a very special moment had arrived. MITM listeners Anita Foy of Dublin, Ireland and Pete Miller of Dublin, Ohio, were both in the MITM chat-room at the same time.
By that morning, Donna and I already knew that we would be flying to Dublin, Ireland later in the year. Brad, ever the great thinker and planner, immediately said that Anita and I needed to meet up, so plans began for a meeting of MITM Lounge Lizards in Exile (LLIE) in Dublin, Ireland. A meeting date was set for October 1, 2014.
Dublin, Ohio is famous for Wendy’s Headquarters, Jack Nicklaus’ PGA Memorial Tournament and two giant dancing bunny sculptures. The Dublin Convention and Visitors Bureau was happy for the potential publicly, when I asked their permission to shoot a video promo for our MITM LLIE meeting in Dublin, Ireland. Here is our (reposted) promo.
The Journey Begins:
Donna and I flew to Dublin on September 3rd. We spent a day, mostly at the Jameson Distillery, acclimating to the local culture, and then took a train to Northern Ireland, where we stayed with friends, who we met on Skype and who lived about a mile from where my Great-Grandfather was born about 1825.
I was able to listen to MITM on the 1.5 hour train ride north and across the border because our car had wireless Internet. Given the 8 hour time change from Studio City, I doubt that neither Brad nor Mother Miriam had even gone to bed yet from the night before.
Sometimes it’s good not to know too much about where you are. Our three days visiting my Great-Grandfather’s birthplace, in hind sight, turned out to be a very dangerous part of our journey.
My Great-Grandfather was born in what, today, is known as Bandit Country in South Armagh, a well-known IRA stronghold. Hundreds of British soldiers, police and civilians were killed in the local area during The Troubles back in the mid 1970’s. A pipe bomb killed a civilian near Crossmaglen just last week (1st week of March 2015).
Here is one of my now-deceased cousins, Patty Short, talking about The Troubles. The locals claim that the IRA planned many of their missions in the rear of Patty Short’s Pub in Crossmaglen, just a short distance from a fortified British Army base.
Did I find any living relatives? Probably. Some looked like me, some like my father. But records are not yet digitized that might link our families together back in the early 1800’s.
If you are planning to visit Northern Ireland to find your relatives, make all of the contacts ahead of time. It is polite and probably much safer, because the Irish in this part of the world are leery of strangers for many reasons.
Our Travel Continues:
From Ireland we flew to Amsterdam and stayed with old friends from the 60’s when I lived in The Netherlands as a student. Then on to Hoffenheim, Heidelberg and Munich, Germany by high-speed ICE train to visit an old buddy from my working days at United Technologies.
From Germany, we headed south by train through Bavaria to Austria and Northern Italy. Most European trains have Wi-Fi, so we were able to listen to MITM while watching castles, mountains and vineyards pass by outside.
We made three stops in Northern Italy: Verona, literary home of Romeo and Juliet, Venice just in time for George Clooney’s wedding (alas, we couldn’t find a water taxi) and Milan to see Milan Cathedral and DaVinci’s The Last Supper.
Lugano, Switzerland is the best place in Europe to hide your money now. There are more banks in this lakeside resort city than in Milan. We were going to make up for missing George’s wedding by stopping by his estate on nearby Lake Como, where the couple were honeymooning, but time got away from us.
Lugano is also where the spies came out. While there, we had coffee at the legendary Grand Cafe in the old city. It was at The Grand Cafe where OSS Chief Allan Dulles secretly met his German and Italian counterparts to successfully stop Germany from following a scorched-earth policy as they withdrew from Italy at the end of WWII. Today, the spot is frequented by sports and movie stars, and a few tourists like us.
We headed north from Lugano, first by bus through the Italian Alps to Tirano, Italy, where we caught one of Switzerland’s most scenic trains, The Bernina Express. The Bernina Express climbs to 7,000 feet in the Swiss Alps through tunnels, over stone bridges, past hundreds of picturesque mountain villages and below steadily shrinking mountain glaciers. The trip ended in one of Europe’s oldest cities Chur, Switzerland.
From One Family to Another:
From Chur we went on by train to Zurich and flew back to Dublin on September 30th for our long anticipated MITM LLIE rendezvous with Dublin, Ireland’s Anita Foy.
Dublin, Ireland today is not my Great-Grandfather’s Dublin of 163 years ago. This age-old city has a small town feel and is packed full of college students and young business men and women like Anita Foy.
Anita Foy is a young, award-winning caricature artist with formal training in digital design and graphic arts. She and her business, Anita’s Caricatures, have clients in Ireland and all over Europe. We were lucky to catch her and her husband Omar at home when we visited.
No stuffy old Irish pub for our LLIE meeting either. Anita arranged for our meeting to be held in Dublin’s only Craft Brewery, J.W. Sweetman on the banks of the ancient Liffey River, which flows through downtown Dublin.
Here’s a reverse shoot-out from J.W. Sweetman Senior Barman, David McGraph. And here’s an interview I did with David about the history of Dublin and MITM.
And so our European vacation ended with Anita, Omar, Donna and I drinking Guinness and Jameson’s long into the night, and talking about our mutual love for the Great American Songbook, Mother Miriam, Brad Martini Chambers and Martini in the Morning. Pinch me, I thought I was dreaming, but it was all real!
Thank you Anita & Omar, Brad & Mother Miriam and great-grandfather John Short for a bucket list trip, 163 years in the making!
Omar, Anita, Donna & Pete
