If you're Irish come into the Parlour !!!

You're doing alright Eva.
I hope to get out for a few hours to-night to sample once again this Guinness stuff. :wink:

My family tried to find our roots (dads side) our surname is Coyne, but we never did find where we hail from exactly.

Short of D.N.A. fingerprinting all of Ireland it looks like we've drawn a blank.

Thanks kev, a bit of a blank for you then.

I got the words of a Johnny Cash song about the potato famine and according to the song how his family left Ireland to go to USA.
A word or two and place names I had a small problem with.
Not sure if they are correct, so if anyone spots a mistake please write to George Bush and not me. :wink:

Let me show you a land of rolling hills and tall corn,
a land of hard working people where rewards are often very small.

This is Pellow Iowa, my mother and father brought me here in 1847,
We came from Cork, Ireland. We had a potato famine over there,
Things had been pretty rough for us.

I remember during the potato famine I'd trail along at father's feet
and we'd try to find enough potatoes for a meal
and we'd take 'em back in to Mother and she'd cook 'em coats and all.

Well finally we gave up an' somehow we made it to America
Our new neighbours here in Pellow loaned father oxen and ploughs
to make his first crop lift and you never saw taller corn that year
than was on our place.

The next season, well, we even been lending out ploughs and oxen
to other farmers, well that's the way it was here in the new land,
everybody helped everybody else, if you got sick everybody came to visit,
even the doctor wouldn't take any pay if he thought you couldn't afford it,
But old Doc. Brown was always there if you ever needed him.

This is a monologue and continues on about Doc.Brown.

Parents born in Ireland Father's family names O'Brien & O'Donoghue from Claire and Galway: mother's Welsh & Power from Ardmore in Waterford.

I've enjoyed many happy trips to Ireland, The countryside, the music and the conversation are the best things. I've found the food to be either fresh and wonderful or awful - depends on where you are. I prefer Smithwicks to Guiness

Hi georgeob1, I'm glad you enjoyed your trips "home". You will be fairly familiar with the "going's on" of this country. Two beautiful counties,Clare
and Galway, also Waterford where we spent a week in Tramore on the coast. :wink:

It is changing fast - the youngest country demographically, in Europe. Getting rich, independent, and more self confident. Still there is a bit of music in everyday speech, beauty in the countryside and most small towns, and a very relaxed acceptance of the old and the new.

I'm a young lil' lass here...I'm not Irish in ancestry at all (with the exception of maybe a little Irish blood somewhere in my father's French lineage that goes way back to the time when Celtic tribes settled in what is now present-day France) I'm 1/2 French on my father's side and mixed Anglo-German (1/8)-Norwegian (1/8)-Japanese (1/4) on my mother's (thus making me a Eurasian young lady) Well sometimes I consider myself 'honorary' Irish because of the Irish strain (though it's rather very distant) I have somewhere down the line. I also find myself having an 'accidental penchant' for liking Irish boys (the guy I've been crushing on for a while, I think has pure Irish blood-and what can I say, he's a true gentleman! Also the very first kiss I got way back in the old playground days was from an Irish kid in my class who seemed to like ME very much! I see a coincidence here... ) I also started picking up Irish step-dancing from I-don't-know-where and I do the Irish jig spontaneously- my folks are convinced that maybe I should take Irish step-dance lessons (mom says "he'll be impressed" and told me after that "you'd have to learn that before you chase that Irish husband of yours" -lol) Well I don't think I'm the only non-Irish girl out there having 'an accidental penchant' for liking Irish guys...well I think it's the Irish charm that really gets to me! And my family might be making plans to visit Ireland next summer. I can't wait to see it because it looks SO GREEN there, and the people seem friendly and I feel like my heart melts when I hear the Irish accent-I think it's sooo sexy! Additionally, a lot of people think I'm Irish at first after they hear my 1st name being called out because it's also the name of a county in Ireland ( I don't think it has anything to do with my looks though...)

Btw, my mom's getting re-married this Oct. to a 'Heagney'- a very Irish surname though he's only 1/4 Irish on his father's father's side, but that's gotta count for something, right? :wink: Perhaps someday I myself will get settled down w/ a 'nice Irish boy' and start a close-knit family together (I love big, close families-I think they're terrific!)

And, I might add, I've recently leant this popular Irish phrase somewhere, and hope none of you wouldn't mind if I say it, so here goes:
"Erin go braugh!"

So may I be considered an "honorary Irish girl" and remain in this parlour?

Hello shortncute, "Erin go braugh!" you've passed the test, remain in the parlour.

Sorry for being a bit late. My mum told me as a baby I was right on time, probably got something to do with the punctuality fetish I have.

My mother is from Celbridge, Co.Kildare - maiden name Smyth (pron Smith). Her mother was a King (this is where it gets weird but the family name King is derived from the Gaelic word for a wolfhound, I can't work it out). Anyway I'm reliably informed that I was conceived halfway across Ireland.

The Irish Embassy told me I'm on the register of Irish citizens born outside of Ireland. Good, one day I might need a haven to shelter me from the madness of the rest of the world.

When I was a kid I lived in Kilcock Co Meath and if anyone hails from there - I actually met Billy Byrne from Billy Byrne's Square Pub (he's been gone for some years now, bless him, he was a lovely man).

I just finished reading "McCarthy's Bar" and now I wanna do it myself !!

People still wonder why I break into hysterics at the mention of Singapore Noodles

I just think of them as "my fun," but then, i've not read that book.

goodfielder, I dont think that I will ever be able to eat Singapore noodles withoutbursting into giggles !!!

Set it's a hoot. The first chapter might put some people off (I'll not explain except to say it's a bit of a surprise and if I said any more I'd spoil the surprise) but the book is very funny. Having lived in Ireland as a kid and been back many times as a teenager for summer holidays (only been back once as an adult) I can tell you he really understands Ireland and the Irish. Well worth the read.

sorry to come so late, my Mum is irish from county Antrim, Northern Ireland a town called Ballymoney, Ive been to the family home which amazingly is still in the family through decades of years. I have loads of buddies in Cork and have travelled Ireland quite extensively, I will be returning next year, I just love the place.

Hmmm, McCarthy's bar was a book I tossed early, alas, I don't remember why. Nothing terrible, I think, but that I got a bit bored...

Uh oh, I should have kept reading?

I loved the Frank McCourt books 'Angelas ashes' (hilarious)
and 'Tis'and his brother Malachy McCourt 'A Monk Swimming'