My Sister Was Going to Ireland

My sister was going to Ireland. So, naturally, my father gave her an address. Years ago, his mother had written to someone at this address in Ireland and we were somehow related. That’s all we knew. Others had taken the same address on their trips to Ireland with little success. But, my father said, she should take it again. Try to make a connection with family in Ireland.

My great grandmother, Margaret Coleman, left Ireland alone in her early 20’s. She came to Chicago to meet her brothers, James and John, who worked on the railroad, but she never found them. So, like millions of other Irish immigrants who came to America, she built a life.

I often wonder if her family held a funeral for Margaret the night before her departure. They often did that back then for those who were leaving for America. Everyone knew that their lives were over as they had known them. The idea of the funerals makes me think how sad and scared she must have been to leave all she knew. We hardly think of it today as we can take a plane across the world in a matter of hours. Even if we can’t get home we can hear each other’s voices over the phone and even see one another with a webcam or a video. Those who left back then knew they were leaving for good.

And when they came here as my great grandmother did, they didn’t have time to look backwards. Surviving in Chicago in those days took all you had. So the sadness had to be pressed down and the energy used to make a successful life. Maybe that is why an Irish tenor in those days could make everyone cry – he reminded them of the enormity of their loss.

There was one sister who stayed in Ireland. Margaret wrote to her, and to her daughter, Alice. And when Margaret was gone, my grandmother kept up the communication. We have one letter from Alice. That was the letter my sister Deb was taking back. Alice would be gone, but maybe the address would lead them to someone else.

When Deb and her husband got to the small town of Enniscorthy, they stopped at a pub. Deb asked the bartender if he knew of anyone related to an Alice Murphy who had lived at the address. “Sure, Sean Murphy, he lives right across the road.” “Would he welcome a knock at the door?” she asked. “Mmmm well, now, I don’t know…”

Deb was abit taken aback. But she did cross the road and knock at the door. A man answered the door. “Yes?”

And yes, it was himself and yes that was his mother’s handwriting. Would she come in? Yes, she would, yes.

Tea was made, as were telephone calls. “You’ll never guess who is standing in this room but your American cousin” said Sean when he called his sister, Bridie. She thought he was putting her on…she didn’t even know they had an American cousin. “Here” he said, “I’ll let you talk to her.” “Not till I heard your voice,” Bridie said later, “did I even begin to think he wasn’t joking.”

The next two days were filled with meetings and meals and visits to an old graveyard. Deb met three of Alice’s children on her trip. They were all delighted with each other, and with the connection.

The day that Deb and her husband were to leave they stopped by Sean Murphy’s house one more time. She wanted to give him a copy of the letter his mother had written 30 years ago. He invited her in and she resisted as they had to get on the road but Sean wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I have to show you something,” he said.

He pulled out a photo album. There were pictures of his mother and his brother and sisters. Then he turned the page. “I don’t know who these people are…but I thought you might know.”

“Yes, I do know.” Deb looked at the pictures. “That’s my mother and father, my grandmother and grandfather. Those are some of my sisters and brothers.”

And there we were. It seems my grandmother was sending pictures with the letters she wrote, to keep the family alive even though she had never met her Irish cousins. To keep us connected to that world that Margaret Coleman had left. And to welcome us, when finally, we went home.