This is a point where I have to be honest. I did something dangerous, something that under any other circumstances the parental units would NOT have approved of. Yet in this instance, they actually joined in. In the autumn months, having the freedom to surf the Internet wherever I wanted to at work, I researched the genealogy of my family name in Ireland. As luck would have it, there was a thread of comments from Heaveys all over the world who wanted to know the same thing I did. One user posted a lengthy explanation of Heaveys in Ireland and ended with a paragraph urging anyone who would like to know anything else to contact him via e-mail. I did that, and turns out his name is Mick and he is currently living right outside of Dublin.
After an e-mail or two about our families (he has a small young family of his own), Mick extended a bold invitation to me. He offered to take me in a night in Ireland and show me around the areas my ancestors more than likely lived. I felt like I was living a movie, but every 20/20 special I've ever seen about online predators rushed into my mind. I put the idea on the back burner, but when my parents and sister said they were coming to London to see me, I thought this might be a life-defining moment that I would regret if I didn't experience.
Next thing I know, we're on a plane to Ireland with plans to meet Mick that night for dinner. Before that, though, we painfully found our apartment in Dublin with luggage in tow. First thing we realized on the Emerald Isle was everyone looked exactly like us. Dark hair, pale skin, deep-set eyes. Each of us had moments of doing a double-take as we passed someone who gave us the feeling of looking in a mirror.
My mom was going on about two hours of sleep, so we let her rest and Brooke, Dad and I went on one of those cheesey hop-on-hop-off bus rides that I laughed at in London. It surprised my expectations, though, because it was so convenient and it took us to all the main sites in Dublin - Trinity College, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Guiness Brewery and more. We unfortunately didn't have time to see any of them in detail because Mick was meeting us at 6 that night, so we went home and waited for him. When he arrived he brought gifts - two copies of a book he wrote entitled The History of the Irish in the American Civil War - and we chatted a bit about our plans for the next day. He wanted to bring us to County Athlone, where the Heaveys have a strong history of living in the 19th century pre- and post potato famine. I asked if we could go to County Clare, as well, which was where my mom's father said the Doran family was from. When the plans were set, we went to dinner.
In a very snobby (I'll admit it) post-Europe moment I told Michelle Luna that I "only drink Guiness in Dublin."
But for good reason! It tastes different there...almost with a sweet hint, and it's much lighter. I had two pints that night, one at dinner and one at a charming Irish pub Mick brought us to. When you open the main door to the pub there are two doors to either side of you leading to different rooms, yet it's the same pub. We went to the bigger one, and Mick explained that when the pub was established women weren't allowed in pubs, so that's why there's a smaller room on the other side and why the ladies' restroom was up the stairs from that room, while the men's was right next to our table.
The next morning began bright and early - Mick picked us up at 7am and we started our journey across Ireland. It took about an hour and to get away from the city/surburban feel of Dublin. That area didn't seem too different from being back home in Kansas. But all at once it seemed we landed smack in the middle of the rolling hills with lines of low stone fences. To add to the awe we were feeling, Mick played some celtic Irish tunes that curved up and down along with our drive. County Clare was our first stop and it was all the way across the island. We stopped at a 10th century church where the caretaker happened to be. He kindly offered to look up my Mom's family history in the county and came up with two Dorans in the 1860s, but they had moved there from another county. They were in a type of government work that Mick nodded confirmation of when he learned of it and said he knows what happened. The kind of government work they were in was more than likely police, and police could never patrol their own county, so they were relocated to Co
unty Clare. He said he thought it sounded funny that a Doran would be from County Clare.Mystery solved! It was unbelievable how smart this man was.We all piled into the car and drove to the Cliffs of Moore, which were breathtaking.
(I hate to say it, but I found Scotland to be more beautiful.)
Then we looped back to County Athlone, the moment Mick had been waiting for. This was as meaningful to him as it was to us, as he explained he had met American Heaveys from the Northwest and the Northeast but didn't even know we were in the Midwest (I have an extended family of at least 20 in the KC area and I know there are plenty more in Chicago and St. Louis, so that was odd).
We went to a cemetery that had Heavey gravestones from the 1700s, but they were mispelled because most headstone carvers were illiterate. We found Heffy and Heavy...but the most amazing part of it was that there was a Doran gravestone in the SAME GRAVEYARD. Earlier my Dad had asked Mick the likelihood of him and my mom meeting had they lived in Ireland and Mick said not likely, as people stuck to their own communities and rarely ventured far, but here was proof that they could have. It was one of those moments that are rare in my life that I felt a possibility of something like fate.
We stayed with Mick's family that night and had a big "Irish" dinner of Lasagna...Our flight departed from Belfast, Northern Ireland, which I didn't like nearly as much as Dublin. I honestly don't think it stood a chance against the history I saw and felt in the Republic of Ireland.
