Mary Pat Kelly Galway Bay Book

Growing up in a big Irish Catholic family in Chicago, I was very proud of my heritage but really did not connect myself to Ireland which seemed very far away. For me being Irish was more about John F. Kennedy and Notre Dame than my own roots. While backpacking through Europe in 1969, I added Ireland to the itinerary because I wanted to see Peter O'Toole in Waiting for Godot; I was drawn more by his blue eyes than Samuel Beckett. On the way in to Dublin from the airport I was scrambling to find bus fare, I had come from London where bus conductors were very intimating. But the Irish conductor smiled and said "Would you ever relax--you're home." I was! Thus began the exploration that has culminated in Galway Bay. I cranked my way through many rolls of microfilm until I was able to combine a sense of Irish history and literature with my own family story.

Much of the joy of writing Galway Bay came from the amazing stories and facts I discovered through more than 30 years of reading texts of all kinds in libraries big and small. I found wonderful local histories, typed lovingly in manuscript form, in local libraries in Ireland and in collections of papers such as those in the Chicago History Museum.

And now with the advent of the Internet, you can begin your own journey of discovery. Visit my research page for links to many of the sites that can help you get started. And of course, feel free to post any questions or stories of your own you want to share.

- Mary Pat Kelly

Labels: Chicago, Dublin, Galway Bay, History, Ireland, Irish, research, travel