Actually, this title’s false since it was not my trip at all, I am a native of New York and proud to be so. No, they’re my Father’s roots. For many years now, he has been recounting the circumstances of when his great, great granddad set foot in America from Ireland. Let’s turn the clock back to the early 1850’s and Ireland had been hit by the potato famine. The Irish people were reliant upon the simple potato as a cash crop that was exported to England as well as a basic food item. A variant of potato blight affected the crop for a number of years and over 1,000,000 people on the island died from hunger and related diseases. Another million people left their homes and ventured to Canada, England and America to begin a new life.

I’m not sure if it was the government of Ireland attempting to lower the numbers of deaths in their country or greedy shipping magnates trying to profit from misery but false promises were made to encourage people to start a new life in North America and those making that long journey suffered horrifying living conditions aboard those endearingly named “coffin ships”. I’ve seen estimates that as many as 25% of the people that started that journey from Ireland did not suRVive the trip.

Great, great Grandpa was a battler and finished the journey successfully. He started a new life here in New York and married a fine young woman from Sweden and thus began the New York chapter of our extended family.

My father so wanted to take a trip to The Irish Republic to see if he could find the little settlement in County Cork where his predecessors had lived up till the famine. Thus, plans were drawn up, suitcases were packed, flights were booked and the great voyage of discovery commenced.

We flew from JFK to Heathrow, London’s main international airport before taking a coach to another of London’s airports, Gatwick. We had a flight booked to Cork early the next morning so had reseRVed a night at one of the hotels near to the airport in preparation for our early start. We stayed at the Gatwick Copthorne Hotel which is about 10 minutes drive from the airport. What a wonderful hotel it turned out to be. Set in stunningly beautiful grounds, it is built around a farmhouse dating back to the 16th century. We had a marvellous time exploring the hotel and grounds and eventually retired to our beds after enjoying a delightful meal washed down by a pint of warm beer (Yuck !).

The short hop to Ireland went smoothly and bearing in mind that public transport is fairly sparse in Ireland we decided to rent a car from Cork airport. Within minutes we were on the open road and I now know the real meaning of that term. As soon as we left the airport we found purselves on deserted country roads where we were more likely to come across a herd of cows in the road than another motor vehicle. The first stopping place was a small town names Mallow, which seemed to be the closest town to the settlement that we were looking for. Following check-in at the hotel, we took a walk hoping to meet some of the town’s inhabitants who might be able to aid us in our quest.

In no time at all we came upon a delightful old chap who was able to tell us the precise location of the village that we were looking for. Sadly, it had ben reduced to little more than a small group of broken down farm workers dwellings; all humanity had left there many years before. It was heart breaking to realise that our journey had produced such pitiful results and we returned to Mallow surrounded by a black cloud of depression.

When booking the trip some weeks earlier we had been attracted to a hotel named the Springfort Hall which was a couple of miles outside Mallow. It turned out to be an inspired choice.The hotel was hidden away in a beautiful country estate that dated back to 1169 during the Norman invasion. The actual hotel was the 18th century manor house, an amazing building beautifully restored to its former elegance. A few hours later we were seated in the lounge bar learning to appreciate why people swear that Irish Guinness is better than any other version sold anywhere else in the world. We started chatting to a gentleman called Seamus and it turned out that he was a leading member of the local historical society. It seemed that he knew everything there was to know about Mallow and the surrounding area. He knew of the deserted village that we’d visited earlier and was able to tell my dad the complete story of how almost 50% of the inhabitants of the village died during the famine and those that remained left to begin a new life elsewhere. Seamus was delighted to hear the tale of how great, great Grandpa had made it to the United States and how the family had grown since that time. We had a delightful evening listening to the tales told by Seamus (all Irishmen are wonderful storytellers) and we were so sorry when the time came to bid goodnight to our new found friend.

We had decided to leave Mallow the following day in order to take a couple of days to explore the South West of Ireland. Imagine our surprise when Seamus arrived early the following morning holding a pile of magazines for my Dad. He told us that the historical society publishes an annual magazine and he’d brought a whole heap of previous issues as a gift for my Father. The journals are brim full of the history of Mallow and the surrounding areas and tears rolled down my Father’s cheeks as he shook hands with his new found friend, thanking him for the simple gift that would bring him so much pleasure. We were forced to keep the magazines under lock and key to stop Dad reading every one of them before we were able to continue with our trip.