I’ve been wanting to write about our recent travels to Ireland. As an anthropologist, I have always been fascinating by migration stories — my own and of those around me. What compelled people to leave? What ambivalence of feelings did they have in leaving their families and everything familiar to them behind? Living for many years in Africa and being fully cognizant of my own migration story, I couldn’t help but wonder what it might have felt like for my husband’s family members to leave Ireland and Scotland behind with no certainty of returning.
Irish history has been profoundly shaped by a constant cycle of colonial wars, rebellions, and famines, mostly caused by centuries of being colonized by England. Even the Potato Famine of 1845, though it was immediately caused by a biological blight, was the result of centuries of economic exploitation by the British. By enforcing strict English rule against the Irish, preventing them from owning land, voting or pursuing other professions, and forcing them to grow the potato and exporting them, millions of Irish starved to death. Between 1845 and 1852, the population of Ireland dwindled by 20 to 25% and approximately one million died of starvation and disease while the other million emigrated.
These events formed the backdrop of our trip to Ireland, enriching my understanding of the country and deepening my admiration for a people who endured extraordinary hardship while maintaining such a rich culture, identity, and tradition of storytelling.
In Search of Our Roots
It started with a search for our roots and the migration stories of my husband and our children. We initially thought one of his possible ancestors lived in Donegal, and when her husband died, Fanny “gathered her courage and ventured into the New World by ship with eight or nine of her thirteen living children” from Ireland to Baltimore, Maryland.
However, upon further investigation, we found that my husband’s ancestors may have left from Derry and that they were the Scots Irish, who make up many people who ended up settling in Appalachia. The Scots-Irish were sent from Scotland by the English to settle in Northern Ireland to work the land. However, although they were promised land, they were never given the opportunity to own land, so they sought greener pastrues by migrating to the United States.
While they were originally from the lowlands of Scotland and they were Protestant, they did see themselves as Irish, having settled in Ireland for generations. However, when they arrived in the United States, many tried to differentiate themselves from the Irish by calling themselves Scots-Irish.
A Country That Tells Stories
As O’Toole writes, I liken Ireland to “whiskey in a glass — a cone of amber, a self-contained passage of time, a place apart, reaching out to the world with sometimes an acrid taste and definitely an excess of personality, telling her story to all who will listen… but always, always, the story is the teller, and the teller is the story.”
That was our experience, as if we were protagonists in a rich story that honored both the admirable and the troubling parts of the past.
Medieval Lives in Kilkenny
Kilkenny had the feel of a small village but possessed an extraordinarily rich medieval history. One particularly memorable stop was St. Canice’s Cathedral and Round Tower, which houses one of the largest collections of Renaissance tombs (1560–1650) in Ireland. I was fascinated by what archaeologists and historians have been able to reconstruct about the lives of medieval residents.
Medieval Kilkenny was a vibrant town, populated by English and Welsh settlers alongside Anglo-Norman descendants and Gaelic Irish voices. Violence was common, and even minor illnesses could result in death. Life was difficult, especially for the poor, in what was clearly a highly stratified society. The museum’s stories were drawn from bodies excavated in the cemetery and the research that brought their lives back into view.
If you were 45 years old in medieval times, you were considered elderly. One caption described a woman who “would have been in constant pain” from spinal disease, a broken hand, and defects in her neck. With limited medical knowledge, even mouth ulcers could have been fatal. Gum disease caused tooth loss and bad breath, small concerns for a woman who likely worked until the day she died.
A child between 12 and 13 years old who died sometime between the 1320s and 1600 had lived with a fractured left arm for much of their short life. Their bones showed signs of malnutrition and chronic infection, and they had been buried when the graveyard was already at peak capacity.
Another burial told the story of a 17- or 18-year-old young woman whose spine had been damaged by brutally hard labor. The pain she endured would have been etched into every movement as she walked the streets of Kilkenny. She may have married around age twelve and, by the standards of the time, was practically middle-aged when she died. Wealthier families rested in elaborate vaults, while she was buried without a coffin, wrapped only in a shroud. In the mid-1300s, the Black Death devastated Kilkenny, killing large numbers of its people.
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Castles and Communities
This stood in striking contrast to the grandeur of Kilkenny Castle, built in the twelfth century and home to the powerful Butler family — earls, marquesses, and dukes of Ormond — for some six hundred years. After touring the castle, we enjoyed the unexpected heat wave with a picnic on its grounds, watching families, children, and groups of friends gather and enjoy one another’s company.
Out of curiosity, I looked up Kilkenny’s demographics and learned that roughly 8% of its population consists of non-Irish citizens, with the city remaining predominantly White Irish. I was encouraged to find references to the Twilight Community Group, established to promote “the integration and social inclusion of everyone in our communities,” particularly immigrants, ethnic minorities, disadvantaged groups, and people with disabilities, although unfortunately the website no longer appeared to be functioning.
Perhaps because I work in the nonprofit sector, I always find myself looking for organizations that support marginalized people in the cmmunit8ies and the services and support that they offer to those in need and how they bring different groups together.
We also noticed that in nearby Inistioge, where we stayed, many local businesses had closed, including O’Donnell’s Pub after sixty years in operation. Much like rural communities in the United States, Ireland faces challenges with brain drain as younger folks leave the countryside for greater opportunities in the cities and more openness to diversity, differences, and heterogeneity.
Cork: A Different Ireland
Cork, by contrast, felt entirely different, and we loved it. It is a vibrant urban center where cruise ships dock and where more than one in five residents were born outside Ireland. We could sense the difference immediately, from the English-language schools near our hotel to the remarkable number of international restaurants packed into just a few city blocks.
We wandered through the English Market and enjoyed one of the most delicious seafood chowders I’ve ever had, surrounded by stalls selling everything from traditional Irish fare to Mexican cuisine and foods from around the world. The city felt youthful, cosmopolitan, and alive. As we walked in the evenings, we saw people from many different backgrounds, religions, and cultures spending time together. It almost felt as though New York City had been transplanted onto the banks of a beautiful river while retaining centuries of European history.
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