Islandmcgrath - Paradise for McGraths and more

Illustration by Caty Bartholomew

Are you a McGrath clansman or woman, or do you have any of that clan's very green blood flowing through your system? 

Or are you one of the world's many O'Briens from the old Irish bloodline featuring politics and wars and imposing castles? 

Or are you in any way genetically connected to the millions of MacNamaras we have bequeathed to a grateful world?

If so, then these hints are especially for you if making a trip to Ireland anytime soon. But they are also for the benefit of all. 

Any time I make a worthwhile discovery on this unique country I don't keep it to myself.  I pass it on.

Any time I encounter a McGrath I find myself meeting a fusion of friendliness and force. They are a unique clan altogether. 

It is typical of them that, some years ago, wandering through New York alone, I walked into a bright pub which may well have been called the Black Sheep, and within minutes discovered the flamboyant landlord was a McGrath from my own county.

Not alone that, but he had just completed a coast-to-coast run across America and was still wearing the battered trainers that had pounded out every mile along with him!

I grew up in McGrath territory and they were always colorful and different. Their ancestors, for example, were the boatmen and keepers that kept the penitential island of Lough Derg running smoothly down the centuries. 

There was an amazing Donegal bishop away back in medieval times called Miler McGrath, and I think he was as skilled as a politician and warrior as he was in religion. 

He was appointed an archbishop, and when he moved to Cashel and Tipperary many of his clan moved down there with him. It is said that it was they who put the extra sauce and skill into Tipperary hurling centuries later!

Yes the McGraths are something else and, through marriage and wars, they have always been connected with the O'Briens and the MacNamara clans.

So, for everybody, but especially for McGraths, can I powerfully commend a holiday interval in a heartland of theirs which I did not know existed until last week. 

It is located behind the village of Clarecastle on the main Limerick-Galway road only about 30 minutes from Shannon Airport. 

Where Clarecastle bends in the middle near Power's Pub you head straight on out the Kildysart Road, and if you follow the brown IMECO signs you will quickly find yourself in Islandmcgrath, a world of its own. 

It is maybe indicative that one of the sights of Islandmcgrath, indicative of the resilience of the McGraths, is a large sycamore tree, felled by gales in 1995, still healthily growing away!

There is a paradise here on Islandmcgrath for young and old, but maybe especially for the young of today's different world. 

The Eco Centre has every kind of course in renewable energy under the sun for those with green minds, but these are supplemented by a thousand sights and sounds and activities for the young, the nature things many of them see for the first time if they are from urban environments. 

They can meet up with newborn lambs, with pink piglets, with rabbits and hamsters, with bantam hens and a bantam rooster with the strut of the king of the world. 

There is a bouncing castle and a maze and a cafe and a million pedal buggies to ride upon through playgrounds. There are even (caged) reptiles here to round their eyes with wonder. A million healthy outdoor things for them to do and see.

I am not in the business of "plugging" ventures or attractions, but this Eco Centre on Islandmcgrath is as different and stimulating as the clan after whom it is named. 

Here, long ago for example, lived the great harp presented by the Pope to the clan of Brian Boru. It is believed to have been played sometimes by the legendary Maire Ruadh of North Clare. 

It was eventually presented to Trinity College in Dublin, and its image has long been adopted as the official emblem of the Irish State. There it is on every state document, and there ever has been since the establishment of the Republic.

Especially if you are a McGrath, do try to get to amazing Islandmcgrath before you die.  

I have no hesitation in adding the website for this compact paradise -- www.imecofarm.com -- for those who are interested, that here they can even teach you how to thatch a cottage and keep bees!

In rural Ireland we love too see our Irish Yanks coming -- Admiration and respect for Irish Americans is total

We love our Irish Yanks - admiration and respect for emigrants

There has been a lot of discussion around the place recently on the subject of what the Irish in Ireland think about Irish Americans, and I've read some strong views being expressed on both flanks of the debate and on both shores of the Atlantic. 

We keep hearing that there are something like 40 million Americans with Irish blood in them.  That, for sure, is an impressive tally to have been contributed to the New World by such a small island as ourselves.

We, and you too, have been both busy and fertile down all the long decades of emigration. The modern fact is that ye now outnumber us on a scale of about 10 to one, and that is mindboggling.

I feel that many of the opinions I've heard expressed thus far are wide of the real mark. Few of them reflect the deep clan respect which the overwhelming majority of the stay at home Irish have for their families and friends in the United States especially.

There is a deep, strong, warm bond there, and there always has been throughout my lifetime. We admire and respect what our emigrants achieved down the years despite all the odds in a tougher and more competitive society than the one they had to leave behind.

My memory goes back to the fifties as an Ulster child, and I can say that the arrival home of the summertime "Yanks" was always an occasion of celebration and pride among not just the extended clan, but also the entire local community.

We never said "Irish Americans" as a matter of interest. The incoming flank of the family were always affectionately known as Yanks.

That was not connected at all to the Civil War labels or to the resident state of our relatives. They were simply Yanks, and we were delighted to welcome them home with open arms.


The modern homecomings are slightly different in that it is relatively easy to fly home quite frequently, and even for us to visit quite often. The families are in closer communication all the time in the majority of cases. 

But when I was a child the older folk could tell so many tales of Johnny and Mary leaving Cobh or Belfast in their teens and never ever being able to return.  It was not easy then.

For that very reason it was an occasion for celebration when the American clansmen and women did make it home for what was invariably a rattling good party.

I've celebrated with homecoming Yanks in all four provinces at this stage of my life. A significant factor in the warmth of the Cead Mile Failte actually goes back to that bloody Famine. 

Think about it. The heaviest waves of emigration came from the impoverished communities on the poorest lands, many of these located in the rugged counties along the west coast from Donegal all the way down to Kerry and West Cork.

In these lands the sense of community was always stronger than in many other areas. The people of the west are still very strongly bonded by a common pride in their family, community, parish and county.

When one of their own does well in life everybody is proud of them. They survived and thrived.

And my experience is that they are as proud of their own Yanks as they are of the clansman who started up some successful project in the nearest town.  Maybe even more proud because the initial emigrants had to fight such a tough battle against deep-rooted prejudices and disadvantages. 

All those legendary American letters both ways across the sea have left a deep knowledge of what Johnny and Mary had to survive in the homeland folklore.

There is also a poignant undercurrent of folklore about those who did not get the breaks and fell by the wayside. There are countrymen still today who never visited the U.S., but who know neighbors, maybe even family members who perished, as they say, in that place called Hell's Kitchen

So, in a single sentence, our Yanks, all Yanks, are highly regarded when they come back home to us.
We are proud of you. Very proud.

Ye are different from us in many ways. I think ye are often surprised that we have changed a lot too, as has our society, but fundamentally we are equal members of the one big zany family, and it is good to get together again.

One reality about the homecomings used hurt me when I was young, but thankfully it has disappeared now. It was a profound enough reality back then.

When Johnny emigrated, for example, a part of the family background was that his older brother Seamus inherited the farm.  Back then the farm normally went to the oldest son as long as he was interested. So Johnny emigrated and Seamus worked the land.

Normally in the west that land was not rich, and the manual work was harder than hard all day and every day. The contrast between Johnny, on his return home, and Seamus was often exceptionally cruel.

Seamus might have been only a couple of years the senior, but he so often looked old enough and stiff enough to be Johnny's father.  Seamus, whatever he did in the states, always seemed to look tanned and fit, light on his nimble feet, brightly and boldly dressed.

The contrast was often a savage reflection on the different lifestyles, maybe the drier climate, probably a higher standard of living. Thankfully you don't see that anymore.  I'm glad about that above all.

There is something bone-deep in about all of us, and that is the special warm feeling you experience in your chest when you are truly in the midst of a gathering of your own flesh and blood.

I can assure those of you who have not yet had that experience in Ireland that it is still strongly here.

It is worth getting the taste of it.