The Irish-American Connection

We arrived in (London)Derry late at night, in the pouring rain. We checked into a B&B, Merchant's House, which seemed much more attractive in the morning. The owners had decorated it in the Georgian style of the late 1700s.

We woke to breakfast in the bright yellow dining room. We chatted with English tourists bound for Donegal as we ate our bacon, sauteed mushrooms, and baked beans.

This is one city where what you call it tells who you are. The traditional Irish name is Derry, but when the English defeated the last Irish chieftain in 1601, they shipped English and Scottish farmers into Northern Ireland "plantations" and renamed the city Londonderry. Derry has been a war zone between English and Irish, Protestants and Catholics ever since. The Catholics called it Derry and the Protestants called it Londonderry.

Our ancestors, the Hamiltons, came from Scotland. We don't know how long they lived in Northern Ireland, but they may well have been part of the "plantations" the Irish so hated. British troops finally left Derry in 2007, after Northern Ireland negotiated a ceasefire between Catholics and Protestants. Our guide said wryly, "We were so busy fighting each other that we didn't realize the Indians and Pakistanis were buying up some of the best land in our city." We walked along the city walls of Derry, built in the 1600s and still guarded by cannons.

We stopped at Columba Cathedral, named for St. Columba, one of the earliest Christian fathers in Ireland, who built a monastery in the 6th century A.D. This was the first Protestant cathedral built in Europe after the Reformation (1628).

We passed colorful shops and bars, including one pub named "Bound for Boston." Half of Ireland's population has emigrated in the last 250 years.

We wandered through the Tower Museum, housed in a reproduction of a fortified medieval tower house owned by the O'Doherty clan.

One of the most interesting exhibits was about the Spanish Armada, which was destroyed by the English navy in the time of Queen Elizabeth I.

Spanish survivors straggled onto the Irish shore. Most were slaughtered, but a few either intermarried (the swarthy "Black Irish") or made it back to Spain.

After touring Derry, we traveled south to Omagh to visit the Ulster American Folk Park. That living history museum told the story of the Northern Irish who emigrated from Ireland to America during the 1700s and 1800s. Many of these, such as the ancestors of Davy Crockett and Andrew Jackson, were Scots-Irish, like we are. One side of the museum showed the Irish thatched homes and culture which the Irish left behind them.

We then walked through the bowels of an emigrant ship, symbolizing the voyage to America.

We emerged in an American town with signs from businesses founded by Irish immigrants, such as Thomas Mellon's bank, which became the largest bank in the US outside New York. Gamble, of Proctor & Gamble, also came from Ireland.

The rest of the park showed the American areas to which the Irish immigrated, including log cabins, covered wagons, teepees, and even a (pre-Revolutionary War) redcoat or two.

After leaving the museum, we drove southwest, out of Northern Ireland. We passed Sligo, where our ancestors, the Langs (who married the Hamiltons), lived, and through the rough, spectacular countryside of County Mayo.

We stayed at an inn in Westport, a stylish Georgian city on Ireland's west coast which was built in the 1700s for the linen trade. We found a restaurant serving fresh mussels from the bay. Night after night, the Irish seafood was superb.

At home with Great-great-great-grandpa

How many good things could we squeeze into one day? After checking out Armagh, we drove through the green countryside to reach County Fermanagh, the other ancestral home of my Hamilton relatives. Fermanagh is split by a large lake, Lough Erne.

Eniskellin, the county seat, is a resort in the Irish lake country.

We stopped to search for information about the whereabouts of Pharmagh, the tiny town in Fermanagh where my great-great-great grandfather was born in 1790. Even though we couldn't find that town, we felt close to him throughout the county where he had lived.

We stopped at the Sheelin Lace Shop and Museum nearby. During the Irish potato famine of 1845-1850, lace-making schools were established in Fermanagh so poor women would have something to sell to feed their families. The owner of the shop now travels all over Ireland, buying up antique lace for resale.

We stopped at the bakery next door for a fresh raspberry scone.

Next stop was the Belleek Pottery Factory, also in Fermanagh County.

When Dave and I were married, we received a Belleek vase in the shape of a tree trunk as a wedding gift, and we loved it until it finally broke.

We were delighted to find a whole showroom full of Belleek pieces, which seem so very Irish.

We then drove north, through the remote and beautiful Sperrin Mountains.

Our goal was the Giant's Causeway on the northern beaches of Northern Ireland. It was nearly dark as we hiked the trail along the beach. We could see the spectacular cliffs and breakers...

but not the odd rock formations.

As I tell our world-wandering Michael, "You have to leave something unseen, wherever you go, so you have some reason to come back."

King of the Road

It was the smallest car we ever rented--a tiny blue Fiat from Dan Dooley Car Rentals at the Dublin Airport.

But it caused more trouble than any rental car we've ever had. Dave was working through his adjustment period to driving on the wrong side of the road, with his usual blind spot--getting too close to obstructions on the passenger's side of the car. I ducked as we skimmed within an inch of buses and stone walls. The car survived intact until we were on the outskirts of Armagh, the city and county in Northern Ireland where my Hamilton ancestors come from. Dave hit a curb, careened off the road, blew the tires, and bent two wheels. We patched the tire but had to drive back to Dublin for a spare. Another day or two, and Dave drove like Dan Dooley himself.

We were delighted that Armagh, my ancestral home, is a place of substance. It is still the ecclesiastic center of Ireland, as the city where St. Patrick established his Irish church in the early 400s.

We checked out St. Patrick's Catholic cathedral and the Anglican cathedral...

a rural cemetery with its Celtic crosses...

and the rolling countryside.

We ate supper at Lonely Planet's top-rated restaurant, the Uluru. We chose fish, but there were also "exotic meats" on the menu--ostrich, crocodile.

So many Irish have immigrated that there are many Irish genealogical resources, both online and on the ground. We found three towns near Armagh with names that included "Hamilton."

Confession: I lost my camera in Dingle, 8 days into our trip, with 520 photos on its chip. Most photos here are from Google Images. I just had to tell our story, with or without genuine photos!