The Plan:
At the beginning of July, 2004, I'll set sail
from Philadelphia to retrace my father's voyage to this country.
He, with his sister Annie, arrived in Philadelphia in August of
1929, seventy-five years ago this summer. They had left their
home, a small farm at the western edge of Ireland, like so many
others had done, sadly and hopefully. The village from which they
departed is named Falcarragh. "Falcarragh" is the name
that I've given to the small boat that I will sail. There is a
small pier, not far from my dad's birthplace, protected from the
Atlantic Ocean by a cove called Ballyness Bay. This will be my
destination.
Dad is buried with my mother in St
Mary Cemetery in Cape May New Jersey. When they bought that graveyard
plot years ago, Dad said, "This is a close as I can get to
Ireland, so it will be a good place to put me down." I'll
stop at the graveyard when passing the Delaware's capes, take
some earth from their grave and carry it home for him. On 4 July
2004, I will take my departure on the afternoon tide, from my
godson, OG Swan's, bay side house in Ocean City. Then to sea.
Recently, Joe Gallagher gave me a
print of the front piece of old book, The Navigation of St Brendan,
to hang in the cabin of the Falcarragh - Gallagher's way to bless
my trip. Fifteen hundred years ago there were other Irish monks,
who, in small boats, set off from the west coast of Ireland, and,
in local stories from Falcarragh Strand, their only destination
- destiny maybe - was to go wherever it was that God would send
their boats. I was told that sometimes they would set to sea without
either oars or sails. They were the Peregrinatio Christi - Christ's
pilgrims. Ireland, having no desert in which they might wander
for days and nights, offered the sea. I've got neither their faith,
nor their courage, but maybe something of their restlessness,
and a hope that past one's own familiar horizons it might be good
to go.
