The warmth of a family is a special thing indeed…

It’s been ten years since I was last with my Irish family and it may as well have been ten days…( ok there are a few more grey hairs, and wrinkles….but it feels like ten days!)

I have had more tea, more bread in the past three days than I have had in the past year….We have been welcomed into so many homes, with such generosity it is hard to describe…Hospitality is provided as a statement, not as a question!

Although my time here was way too short, we did manage to at least see a few familiar faces ( and some new ones in all the young ones, some of who are now adults themselves!), and I did manage to learn a few things…

The word “lads” is a non gender specific pronoun in Ireland….use it generously!  Prefrably followed by a “look after yeself, or be well”

Tracey my cousin reminded me how my grandmother used to grab and squeeze our forearms, it instantly brought back memories from when I was ten years old, and is now something that some of my aunties do….

My grandmother and grandfather  from Cummer in Ireland now have 94 surviving descandents…..( with the loss of one as a toddle)

Irish slang and vernacular is infectious, I have been here a week and already I am swearing in Irish, outside the hotel tonight I heard David say” Jesus, Mary and Joseph its frekin cold!”

My predisposition to getting names wrong IS genetic….I can be looking at someone, I know who they are, I know their name and yet I will call them something else, my mother often calls me Jason( my brother) or Una ( her sister), and I do the same thing.  While in Ireland all my aunties and uncles, without exception called me David and Angela Maher my cousin you managed to do so as well….. I rest my case….

My great grandmothers surname was Kennedy, Nora Kennedy, my mother is named after her, and my niece is named after my mother…..I must find a way of introducing my niece to all her wonderful cousins in Ireland, I know she will love it and her fathers visits as a child are the stuff of folklore in the family, she needs to hear them!! ( and know she has family who will welcome her and love her here!)

It’s been interesting to see how familys grow and blossom, (if all goes well and in the right conditions), I think my family in Ireland have been lucky enough to experience that…When I was younger my mothers siblings used to make a point of getting together, staying connected, and their kids as cousins knew each other.  Now those cousins have their own families, and each of those groups of siblings get together and stay together often.  It was wonderful and heart warming to see and nice to know that I am also part of it.  It’s meant that through sheer numbers they cant all get together as often as they once used to, but there is still a connection and vists by interlopers like myself are reasons for that to happen…it’s been a privilige to experience..

Ireland has undergone a huge amount of change, and next week they will be voting in a referendum on marriage equality, if the views of my family and a lot of the people we have met are anything to go by ( and people get out to vote)  then this will go through.  It;s been great to be able to have conversations about how family can only be improved through a yes vote, that a yes vote can only improve, not detract from strengthening families.  Without exception David has been made to feel warm and welcome.  Hard to believe that when I was living in Kilkenny all those years ago gay sex was a criminal offence…You’ve come a long way Ireland, i hope you join the marriage equality club! 

It’s been heart warming to be part of this, I will not allow another ten years to pass before I am back!!

Thank you Moyne Finnahy Cummer and Coornaboola