Irish 'Ayes'

Notice anything familiar about this map?

Sometimes you just happen to run across something and it changes your view of what's possible... {yes, like July 12, 2008 when we discovered our home here on Camano Island}. Tonight, we serendipitously discovered that there exists a place we are most certainly destined to visit one day...

Deep in the center of another Island, in a central rural county, there is a village alongside a fabled river. And in that village, there exists a neighborhood with several byways, roads, and drives - and a park - that are named the same name that we gave our business.

The Village of Athlone, in County of West Meath, Province of Leinster, Ireland, resides on the banks of the epic River Shannon. Situated East of Counties Galway and Clare (both locations of my O'Shaughnessy and Ward families and Bob's family), this neighborhood named Retreat is located smack dab in the middle of the Emerald Isle and both of our family's histories. {Coincidence? Ask the little people. ;0) }

We've always wanted to visit Ireland, of course, but now... well, now we KNOW we'll visit our ancestral home. Not sure when yet, but we will. For me, it will be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream - something I have dreamed of since I was very young. 

Just as my heroine Katie Scarlett O'Hara did in the sequel to Gone With the Wind, I'll stand on the High Hill of Tara, home of the Irish Kings, with my bare feet planted in the soil of my forefathers and foremothers. I'll close my eyes, and hear the songs of a hundred thousand years of my family's history on the clear Irish breeze. 

Like Gerald O'Hara's daughter did, I will grab a fist of loam and carry that part of my Ancestral Home with me back to my own place. For me, that is all the way back to Retreat Farm on our own private Retreat Drive on Camano Island, Washington, USA, where I'll mix it with the dirt in my yard.

My redheaded son {called 'Irish' by his friends} is the most vocal supporter of our family's heritage. But this redheaded Irish girl gives thanks that I am exactly where I belong in this world, due to the strong and honorable Irishmen & women who came and fought and worked and survived and took risks long before me. And especially because of the one who walks beside me every day...

'Tis Blessed I am, to be an Irish woman in love with an Irish man!