Ireland-bound

Growing up just short of the Adirondack foothills in the rural Upstate New York town of Galway, meant spending alot of time in the dairy farming land that surrounded our village home. I enjoyed haying with neighbors, eating wild red raspberries and sledding in the winter. Still I was always alert to the mention of faraway places. One, naturally, was Galway, Ireland.

Galway NY was settled in 1792 by Scottish farmers as New Galloway, and the story goes that, when the town was incorporated in 1838, an Irish clerk in the Saratoga County Registry mis-spelled the name of the new town, and it stood.

Attending Joseph Henry Elementary Elementary School (named for the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution) in the early 1960s, I did a social studies report in Mr. Rowland's 6th grade class that combined information about Galway NY and Galway Ireland. Other than the name, the two towns had little in common but that didn't deter me. Mr. Rowland overlooked the lack of commonality and rewarded my hard work with a good grade.

Later in life I had my next brush with Ireland when my employer, First NH Banks, was the first banking company outside of Ireland to be purchased by the Bank of Ireland. The year was 1988 and they bought at the top of the market. Soon streams of BOI executives toured all over New Hampshire, even our office in North Conway, to visit their new investment. They included Chief Executive Mark Hely-Hutchinson, a Brit who previously chaired Guiness, and Deputy Chief Executive Frank O'Rourke, an Irishman, but born in Chicago. BOI was optimistic that with 18% unemployment at home, their path to growth was overseas. By the time I left the company in 1991, due to the inevitable consolidation of bank-wide departments, the Irish were regretting their purchase. It took many years for them to recoup their intial losses and sell their share of Citizen's Bank at a profit.

Now the "Celtic Tiger" is at a slight downturn mirroring the world economy, but coming off an extended period of growth that coincided with its menbership in the European Union and lowered the unemployment rate to 3.5%.

Fast-forward to September 2008: youngest son Jacob, a senior majoring in Political Science at Northeastern University, leaves for a semester-long program with the Institute of Public Administration in Dublin. Jacob is taking courses in Irish Literature and History and interning in the Dail (Irish Parliament) with Timmy Dooley, a member of the ruling Fianna Fail Party from County Clare.

Beth and I are headed to Ireland for the Thanksgiving Holiday to see Jacob and a 4-day motor-tour of the country, including Dublin, Belfast, Cavan, Galway, Limerick and as many more sights as we can see. Beth wants to see the Cliffs of Moher and my old First NH White Mountain Bank boss, Mike Kirk, recommended driving the Ring of Kerry, so we'll have to move fast to see all we want to see in 5 days.

To be continued.....