It’s late December of 2002. I’m weeks away from insanity. I’m in Burtonport, a small fishing village within County Donegal, Ireland. This is where my Great Grandfather, Patrick Francis O’Donnell, emigrates to America from in 1909. This is where my Irish heritage begins. This is simply awesome. Donegal is a slice of Heaven on Earth, as long as the weather holds up. However, it often doesn’t lol. It rains a lot. I stay here for 10 days over Christmas into the New Year. It doesn’t rain until the day I leave. A minor miracle.
I stay with my Irish cousins, the Boyle family. I’ve never met them before. It’s John Columba and Catherine and their six children. The oldest is Evelyn, an elementary school teacher. She and her new husband, Declan McBride, live in Milltown, five miles from Burtonport. They move into the very same house that my Great Grandfather lives in until he comes to America. There’s a large rock on the property. It’s partially covered with dirt and sticks and leaves. John Columba and I remove the debris. What’s revealed is so damn cool. It’s my Great Grandfather’s initials ‘P.O.D.’ and the year ‘1909’ carved into the rock. I’m speechless.
The cousins take me to Carrickfinn Beach. It’s a windy paradise. The water is crystal blue, the sand shimmers and the sand dunes loom large, all amidst a backdrop of lush green hills and majestic orange-brown mountains. Nobody else is there. We have it all to ourselves. A gift. We run up and down the sand dunes. This makes us giggle like children. We take in the nature, and we live in the joy.
The cousins take me to the Slieve League Cliffs. Everybody knows about the famous Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. Not everybody knows about Slieve League, the humongous hidden gems that are actually the highest sea cliffs in all of Ireland. They are a majestic expanse that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. We traverse along the top. The view makes me feel like a speck. The cousins lay down on their stomachs near the edge and stare down into the Atlantic. They tell me to do the same. They say it’s a rush. I’m too scared, though. I don’t do it. Thank goodness I’m not manic on this trip. Just thinking about being psychotic at such great heights completely freaks me out. Were my sanity jettisoned at the time, I very well may have cannonballed myself right off the cliffs into the abyss. The unthinkable.
The O’Donnell name is all over Donegal. From the pubs to the castles to the cemeteries, it’s everywhere. As I pull up to Donegal Town on the bus, one of the first things I see is a cemetery with ‘O’Donnell’ on a number of gravestones. It’s equal parts eerie and fascinating. Historically, the O’Donnells are a big deal in Donegal. For centuries, throughout the middle ages, they are Irish royalty who rule over large swaths of land collectively known as Tyrconnell. Among other areas, Tyrconnell comprises most of Donegal.
So yeah, the O’Donnells STRAIGHT UP RAN SHIT as the Gaelic nobility of Ireland for hundreds of years, and I’m a direct descendent of these badasses. At present, I do STAND UP COMEDY. What the hell happened? I’ll tell you: The Battle of Kinsale in 1601, the Flight of the Earls in 1607, and me being over-loved by my parents in the 1980s lol!
Love,
JFOD
I like these still moments in between the chaos.
There's a region of Scotland with my name. Maybe one day I will explore it.