Happy St Patrick’s Day

One rainy morning in November of 2007 I walked out of a hotel in Limerick, Ireland, around the corner, and up towards William Street. I was on a bit of a quest.

In my hand was a copy of an old photograph, taken in about 1929, of James Fitzpatrick’s pub at 18 William Street.

The picture, which was taken by my grandmother Agnes in 1929 on her one and only trip “back” to Ireland, shows the family pub that had been owned by her great-uncle and great-aunt, Nora and James Fitzpatrick. Agnes’ mother had come to America as an eighteen-year-old in the mid-1880s, and settled in Connecticut. You can see Agnes, her husband Bill, and a couple of relatives posed outside the pub’s door behind a cart. It’s one of a handful of wonderful images I have from that trip, showing the newlyweds kissing the Blarney Stone, meeting relatives, and touring Ireland.

In 2007 my mother and I were on our own tour, and we spent a memorable evening with relatives from the pub-owning side of the family, still living in Limerick, and still putting away pint after pint.

That day, I stood there for a minute, in the rain, in the middle of the street, taking pictures and trying to imagine William Street as it had been eighty years before.

And then I walked away, through the rain, and made my way back to America and beyond.

Immigrants waiting to sail to America, Cork, 1881.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.