Susan's
      Story...


      
My
      ancestors hail from the Emerald Isle, but we weren't your typical
      Irish-American family. Mom was a lapsed Catholic, Dad's folks
      had gone Protestant a couple of generations back, and he was
      a teetotaler to boot. And not one of us kids took step-dancing
      lessons. True, I was attuned to the Celtic vibe, but Scotland,
      not Ireland, was my thing. When I was seven, my dad went to Edinburgh
      on some kind of fellowship, and brought back a doll for me, resplendent
      in Highland attire. Really, this lassie made Barbie pale in comparison.
      Dad also brought home a record of Scottish reels, which had me
      prancing around the house in my best try at a Highland fling.
      Then, when I turned twelve, I discovered Sean Connery and his
      Scottish brogue. For me, it was Scotland Forever!


      
Around
      the time I was mooning over Sean, I deserted my repeated readings
      of the Little House books and Little Women for
      something a bit racier: Gone with the Wind. Scarlett and
      Rhett, Margaret Mitchell's unforgettable Irish-American hero
      and heroine, had given me something new to swoon over. Suddenly,
      I thought it was totally cool that I was Irish on both sides
      of the family.


      
Fast
      forward twenty years…I started my first piece of creative
      writing ever, a novel. It was a romance with a tortured hero
      and a haunted heroine, who happened to be Irish-American. After
      finishing the book, I continued to write love stories, each one
      darker and angstier than the last, but I hadn't quite found my
      groove.



      Then came my real Irish revelation.


      
Not
      long after I remarried -- to a guy who had Irish ancestors too!
      -- I stumbled upon Maeve Binchy's novels, and couldn't get enough
      of her Irish voice. The same year, my daughter and mom visited
      Ireland, including a brief sojourn in County Monaghan, where
      Mom's people are from. They came back with a treasure trove of
      photos, guidebooks, and Irish knickknacks, and Ireland was back
      on my radar screen in a big way. Soon after, I went to see Edna
      O'Brien, the famed Irish writer, at the local bookstore, and
      she spoke of the "vast, ancestral loneliness" of the
      Irish. I would have written off the phrase as writerly affectation,
      but it actually struck close to home: my dad was a man who craved
      solitude, the kind who "keeps himself to himself."


      
Well,
      it was a Perfect Storm of Irishness. But the true tipping point
      was the evening I was listening to "Thistle and Shamrock"
      on the radio. As an Irish tune came on the air, a mournful ballad
      about the sorrows of emigration, tears came to my eyes, and I
      got a shiver up my spine. These were my people in the song. Could
      there be an Irish voice inside me? next

    

    
  

  

    
    
    
  

  

    
    
    
  






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