From dreaming of Ireland in prison to discovering strong Irish roots

I have always wondered about Irish history.   Since I was a little girl I can remember being mesmerized by Irish dance, the way the people talked, and the towns they lived in.

Back in 2004,  I, unfortunately, had made some stupid decisions that would ultimately change the direction my life was headed, I was incarcerated. During that time, I started reading "like a lot of inmates do to pass the time".  

I was drawn to a section of old and new paperbacks that had been written by the author Nora Roberts. I grabbed a book and headed back to my housing unit to pass the time of long days ahead. Once I started reading, I instantly felt like I knew what the author had been describing, the cobblestone streets, the pubs, and even the rolling hills of scenery. So needless to say, I went back and read every book they had by Nora Roberts.

When I was released, I started dreaming of myself talking with this accent. I can see myself having full conversations with other people that I did not know, but I was speaking in another language. I found out later that I was speaking Gaelic.

I remember having an Irish setter running on lush green hills. That's when I got completely obsessed.  Of course, going to see the "Riverdance" was a no-brainer.

Things got really weird after that. I  married a man who had been adopted, of all things to a family with the last name of McKeown, and of course, I had to get the Celtic symbol for Trinity tattooed on me.

At the beginning of 2022 my mother decided to get an Ancestry DNA test done.  Sometime later she received the results and to my surprise, it indicated that she was 47% Irish and her ancestors back in the 1400s owned a portion of the land and were some kind of royalty. That gave me validation to me why I can't stop thinking of Irish culture.

I am determined to someday go visit my ancestral past.  Who knows what I will find on that journey.

This article was submitted to the IrishCentral contributors network by a member of the global Irish community. To become an IrishCentral contributor click here.