Hmm, this title is misleading because it was not my trip at all, I’m a New Yorker, born and bred and proud of it. No, it was my Dad’s trip. For more years than I care to remember, he has been telling us of the times when his great, great grandfather set foot in America from Ireland. It was around 1850 and the potato famine had hit Ireland. The Irish people relied on the simple potato, not only as a staple food item but also as a crop that they exported to England. A type of potato blight hit the potato crop for a number of years and a million Irish people were killed by malnutrition. A further one million people left their homes and ventured to Canada, England and America to start a new life.

I’m not aware if it was the Irish authorities attempting to reduce the numbers of deaths in their country or the ship owners happy to profit from misery but false promises were made to encourage people to start a fresh life in North America and those making that long journey suffered horrifying conditions aboard those endearingly named “coffin ships”. I’ve seen estimates that a quarter of the travellers died during that trip.

My great, great Grandfather was a battler and survived the trip. He settled in New York City and married a beautiful young lady from Germany and thus began the New York chapter of our family tree.

My father so wanted to visit The Irish Republic to see if he could find the tiny village in County Cork where his predecessors had lived up till the famine. Thus, plans were made, luggage was packed, flights were booked and the great voyage of discovery commenced.

We started our journey with a flight from JFK to London’s main airport, Heathrow, and then took a bus to another of London’s airports, Gatwick. We had booked a flight to Cork from Gatwick early the next morning so had decided to stay at one of the hotels near to Gatwick in preparation for our early start. We stayed at the Gatwick Copthorne Hotel some 10 minutes drive from the airport. What a wonderful hotel it was. Set in stunningly beautiful grounds, it is based on a farmhouse dating back to the 16th century. We had a marvellous time exploring the hotel and grounds and after a delicious meal it was time for bed.

The flight went smoothly and knowing that public transport can be quite infrequent in Ireland we decided to rent a car at Cork Airport. In no time at all we hit the open road and now I appreciate the real meaning of such a phrase. As soon as we left the airport we found purselves on deserted country roads where it was more likely to come across a cow wandering along the middle of the road than another vehicle. The first stopping place was a small town called Mallow, which seemed to be the closest town to the village that we were looking for. Having checked into our hotel, we took a walk with the intention of meeting some of the local people who might be able to aid us in our quest.

Within a few short minutes we were lucky enough to meet a wonderful old man who was able to tell us the exact location of the settlement that we were searching for. Sadly, it had ben reduced to nothing more than a small bunch of ancient derelict farm workers cottages; all signs of life had long since left the scene. It was heart breaking to realise that our journey had produced such pitiful results and we returned to Mallow with heavy hearts.

We had been lucky enough to find an amazing hotel called the Springfort Hall Hotel just a couple of miles outside of Mallow. It turned out to be an excellent choice.The Springfort Hall was located in a secluded, wonderfully pretty country estate that dated back to the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. The hotel itself was the manor house dating back to the 18th century, an amazing building beautifully restored to its former elegance. Later that evening we were sitting in the hotel bar appreciating why people vow that Guiness actually brewed in Ireland is better than any other variant found throughout civilization. We started chatting to a gentleman called Seamus and it transpired that he was a leading member of the local historical society. It seemed that he knew everything there was to know about Mallow and the surrounding area. He was aware of the ruined village that we’d visited earlier and readily told my father the full story of how nearly 50% of the villagers passed away during the famine and those that remained left to begin a fresh life elsewhere. Seamus was delighted to hear our stories of how great, great grandfather had made it to the USA and how the family had blossomed from that time. We had a delightful evening spellbound by the stories recounted to us and we were so sorry when the time came to say goodnight to our new found friend.

We had decided to leave Mallow the next day and to take a couple of days to explore the South West of Ireland. Much to our delight, Seamus arrived early the next day clutching a heap of magazines for my Father. He told us that the historical society publishes an annual magazine and he was delivering at least a dozen previous issues as a gift for my Dad to read. The books are packed with the history of Mallow and the surrounding areas and tears rolled down my Father’s cheeks as he thanked his new friend for that one gift that would bring him so much pleasure. We were forced to keep the journals hidden in order to prevent my Father from reading every one of them before we continued our travels.