Yea, my Irish grandfather was not the nicest man. He then married my mother's godmother and wouldn't take in the kids. Go figure. Anyway, yesterday this distant cousin sent me an intriguing Irish government document. It seems that Cornelius Barrett, another brother of my grandfather, wrote a witness statement detailing his IRA activity in 1915-21! He was a founding member of the Millbrook division of the IRA. He described his group's activities, such as scouting the enemy, placing mines on tracks, procuring weapons, etc. He never came out and said he ever killed someone, but the multi-page document sounded pretty rough. This is especially interesting as my grandfather, John Cornelius Barrett, was a staunch loyalist who always had a picture of the Queen hanging on his wall. My grandfather emigrated to Liverpool and then to Boston, where he spawned a large family that he didn't take care of, and then returned to Ireland to grow old, die, and be buried. Seems like there is a historical drama in this one little archival document -- did the brothers get along at all? Were the political differences so great that Pop felt he had to leave Ireland? Was there trouble because of Cornelius' involvement with the IRA? I love all the history that these stray documents turn up.
Another note of interest on the site yesterday is that while my surname is most definitely not Irish, most of my DNA is. There is a feature on the site that assesses likely country of origin, not sure how far back it goes. 6.4% Irish, .01% German. God help me to contain this much DNA from such a struggling and conflicted people! In the end we all come from the same handful of early homosapiens, so all of this is really irrelevant. It is amusing and captures my imagination -- the IRA? Really? God save the Queen!
What will you make today?