The Smyth story

You can take the man out of the bog but you cannot take the bog out of the man. That idiom described my parents, Rachel and Bennie Smyth. They lived their entire adult lives on Long Island, and raised their family there, but not a day passed that they did not think about “home”, their parents, their siblings. Their accents never softened, and all their friends were Irish immigrants. My parents never fully assimilated into American culture, especially my mother.

My mother was born and raised on a small farm in Fairymount (Mullach na Sí) parish, County Roscommon. My father was also raised on a farm in the townland of Ballyduff, County Leitrim. Bennie emigrated to Canada in 1952 and eventually made his way to Long Island, where he started a home-building business. My mother, along with a friend, landed at Idlewild Airport (JFK) on January 2, 1958. A doctor who lived in Lloyd Harbor, New York, hired my mother and her friend to be the cook and nanny for his family, which consisted of him, his wife and seven daughters. My mother often said of the day she arrived in the USA: “Well the wind and cold nearly cut the ankles off me.”

Rachel and Bennie met at an Irish American dance. No surprise there. Bennie, one of the last of the great romantics used to say of the night he met Rachel: “She was up on a shelf. She was dusty. I took her down and danced with her.” With charm like that how could my mother resist him. They were married in February of 1960. My parents were married almost three years before I was born in November of 1962. The babies came in quick succession. John arrived in January of 1964, Brendan in May of 1965 and Paulette in April of 1966. Rachel liked to say: “I never thought I’d get pregnant and then I thought I’d never stop being pregnant.”

The greatest gift my parents gave us was infusing a love of Ireland right into our bone marrow. They were the only members of their respective families to emigrate to the United States. All our aunts, uncles, and cousins lived in Ireland and England. Because Bennie was self-employed, we traveled to Ireland every three years for anywhere from four to eight weeks. When we stayed in Ireland, our home base was in Fairymount. My grandfather, aunt, uncle and cousin Siobhan lived in that house. For however long our visit lasted, it was nonstop craic. Running to the shop with our cousins, helping bring in the hay and later silage, walking cattle in for the evening milking. Off to the Galway races, and the Roscommon races, and the Sligo races. We lived on Tayto's, Choc Ices, and bottles and bottles of Coke and Lucozade. Visiting my mother’s cousins meant we had to choke down the dreaded ham sandwiches which were slathered in butter. The day we had to return home to the USA was awful, nothing but a trail of tears with everyone crying, especially my grandfather.

My parents welcomed all visitors from Ireland into our home with open arms. Over the years they wore a path from our house to JFK picking up relatives and friends who were out for a holiday or to start a new life in America. When my cousins and their friends started coming in the 1980s in search of work, my mother started referring to the sunroom as the "International Arrivals Room". My cousins and their friends must have felt very lonely leaving home for the first time, not knowing when they would return. To this day, they all say what a comfort it was that the first place they stayed in the USA was in our house. Even though they were in a new country, sitting in our house with the familiar accents, the food and the welcome they almost felt as if they were back home. Our house was the halfway house to ease visitors into America.

I have never stopped visiting Ireland. In 1985, my wife (then my girlfriend) and I traveled to Ireland together for the first time. Our sons have been going to Ireland since they were born. My youngest son is now attending law school at NUI Galway.

In 2005, my wife and I purchased the house and farm in Fairymount, my mother’s home place. To say my mother was delighted would be the understatement of several centuries. Over the years, my neighbor and contractor, Paddy Corcoran, has performed all the renovations on the house. I rent the shed and the ten acres to my cousin Leo Gilligan. That house is my favorite place on earth. Some of my happiest childhood memories took place in that house. The memories of my parents, who died in 2019 and 2022, and Grandaddy, and my aunts and uncles, and neighbors echo in my head when I am in Fairymount.

Bennie and Rachel gave me a gift money cannot buy. A wonderful upbringing on Long Island and an equally wonderful upbringing in Ireland. My connection to Ireland started to take root on that first visit in 1965, when I was 2 and 1/2 years old, and it has grown as deep and strong as a Sequoia tree in the California Redwood Forest.