In May 2024, my wife Dawn and I landed at Shannon and drove up to County Mayo, searching for the ground my family had farmed for generations. It was my first time driving on the wrong side of the road, and I gripped the steering wheel white-knuckled for the entire two-hour trip north.
Before we even unpacked at the hotel, the phone rang. Basil Burke — a famous stonemason and local historian I had been corresponding with— was already down in the lobby. Over dinner we talked late into the night. Basil knew the Duffys and Connollys who had stayed in Ireland. He was one of the few people left alive who could help me, and I was thrilled he knew so much. At one point I had the strangest flash of my grandparents, Kate and William, sitting at the table with us, smiling. I figured it was from being exhausted from the ride up. But who knows? The picture of Basil, on the right, was taken that night.
He offered to take me to meet the farmer in a couple of days. But I could not wait, and laid plans to sneak onto the land the following morning. But we will leave that for next week.
This is how my adventure began — not with a map, but with a wonderful man waiting in the lobby, and a past finally coming into view.
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