Today it's a good day to know where you came from. Particularly if you're Irish.

In my home growing up, I always knew where my mother and father came from, what town they were born in and how two countries formed one piece of land no bigger than Rhode Island called Ireland and Northern Ireland.My mother came from Cloneslee, County Leix, Republic of Ireland, my father from Bellaghy, County Derry, Northern Ireland. I had my first passport issued in Philadelphia when I was 6 months old. Growing up, we averaged the journey to Ireland every few years or so and the last time I was in Ireland was when I saw the Bears play the Steelers in Croke Park in Dublin.My father served in the Army when he arrived here, my mother worked as a nanny for a family, and both met each other at an Ancient Order of Hibernian dance, the AOH Club in Philadelphia and married.Much later in life they moved here to the mountains because of the likeness to their homeland. Unfortunately, like the troubles in their homeland the division in their marriage carved the border; divorced they never lived 10 miles apart but rarely if ever spoke.It was the sixties when I was born, the Kennedy's, Nixon, Watergate, Civil Rights, the Vietnam War, but more familiar to me, was the Irish politics into the seventies and eighties. Bloody Sunday in 1972, with a myriad of events culminating in 10 deaths in 1981 from a Hunger Strike from prisoners of Long Kesh, Maze Prison.Bobby Sands began the hunger strikes seeking recognition as a political prisoner. Rubber bullets were made that were supposed to only maim and not kill. I saw first hand what they did. There were parades and protests, men with hoods, petrol bombs, funerals, petitions, human rights, amendments, and sit ins.My Grandfather paraded with the Hibernians, some paraded with the Provos, the Provisionals, There was the Ulster Defense Regiment, The Irish Republican Army, there was always movement, a unity, a cause, the troubles. They wanted a voice in their government is all. To be represented.I was proud to be a part of these people, I am proud to be Irish. Our history is long and intricate like a finely woven fabric inlaid with tears and laughter and blood and sweat and for those of us who didn't take the pledge, a shot or two.It was important to my father that my brother and I knew where our parents came from, not just the country, but the place, the people, the sounds. I can sing Lovely Derry, Spancill Hill, Four Green Fields and most other songs that would make an Irishman cry.That was not my intention, my intention was to keep a steady supply of chips and Cokes and sweets in steady supply as I sat my time on the family side of the Irish pub. As times got better economically for everyone in all of Ireland, I stopped singing some songs, in fact the songs that Ireland began to sing were in my opinion songs of hope and a future. The younger generations of Irish benefiting from a voice in government and many programs of unity gave birth to a new hope in the future.Educated first generation Irish American men and women contributed greatly to the surge in promoting Ireland's vast resources. While today Ireland is not a Unified country it acts as if it were because it has a voice and representation in its government. Violence isn't an option today. There is a future of hope.The crisis besetting Irelands financial situation at the moment is nothing compared to what they can make out of a potato. I can assure you, if you leave a lone potato with an Irishman in a room on his own long enough he will emerge with enough gas to blow apart the Marcellus Shale from here to Canada. My confidence is with him.We are a resourceful people and always have been. There is no crisis with us. There is only opportunity around the bend for us a proud and resilient people.Once we know what our problem is and what we have left, there is nothing more to do than to roll up our sleeves.My mother died a week before Christmas and I couldn't convince the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue that her safe deposit box that she kept for many years at Mauch Chunk Bank was void any major gems or gold, nothing of any real value to the state or anyone except me.An inventory was scheduled anyway, at a certain set time two weeks ago. At exactly 3 p.m. according to state law we sat there in a very dignified conference room at a long conference table, Agent Rose and I.My mother would have been proud of me. I wore a suit and carried a briefcase prepared of course to look the part of a person who has something of value, major value, in a safe-deposit box in a bank. Because why in Gods name would anyone pay each month for a box at a bank without having anything of value in a bank box except to make people think you have something of value? And that is nuts, is my thinking.But, I'm thinking I know my mother, and I know, she didn't have too much but she was a proud woman, she was an Irish woman. Paying for a safe-deposit box at Mauch Chunk Trust every month for this privilege would have been worth it to her, is my guess, not so much to impress others as to impress herself. And I know how she would have loved to have a key to come into this very privileged part of the bank to be private with her box and her things and now "we" have to inventory it.Agent Rose handed me my mother's original birth certificate in Gaelic, that language that sounds like they are all shouting and spitting at you. It's lovely to hear if you are far enough away and they are all without colds, and most of them aren't except when they are all aiming into the fire. Every passport that was issued to her, was there in the box.Her immigration and naturalization papers were there, perhaps just in case if she ever needed them to verify where she actually belonged or where she actually came from. Agent Rose had me sign that we both found no value and she verified again aloud no value in its' contents and left me there.I stood there in my suit with my briefcase and looking very valuable, I realized then and there that I had no idea where my papers were.My father was born in a building in what they call the Bellaghy Bawn, it resembles a fortress in the small town of Bellaghy. It is a museum now that houses centuries old artifacts dug up from the excavation of the area and also includes Seamus Heaney's school desk and other personal effects. Seamus Heaney was the Poet Laureate and Nobel Peace Prize winner if you recall in 1997.They will never be able to excavate my family from there however. As a child I loved the 3rd floor window. Looking out, you could see the entire Bellaghy country side from the Bawn. If you go to Ireland, it's an amazing place to visit.Being American to my mom and dad meant my Dad taking two weeks off one summer at the Acme docks in Philadelphia and seeing "America." That was, stopping at every state border sign welcoming us to it's state to prove to everyone including ourselves that we were actually there, that we were in America.I don't recall the Grand Canyon or the Petrified Forest but I can tell you every "Welcome To THE STATE OF …" sign and getting our picture taken and getting back into the woody station wagon and stopping to get gas at the Gulf Station on the Gulf card, getting the state decal for the side of the wagon window and staying at the Best Western Hotels and Mom and Dad sitting poolside drinking 7&7.Remember, it was the sixties into the seventies; I wore a Vietnam POW bracelet, we wore tye dye jeans ... we were trying out our individuality, fitting in. Being American and in my minds eye, I was Mary, my mother was Mary, her mother was Mary and it doesn't stop in what one would say is a long line to the divine herself. That's not saying we had virgin births whatsoever; perhaps a link is all.I've heard this from other first generation adults growing up under the insecurities of their parents in a new country, the sometimes faked bravado, the fears, the joys, the hopes of a new life, the let downs, the dramas, the regrets, the failures, the highs and lows.Every single immigrant encounters a unique experience to his or her own being.Perhaps it's made more real after the death of a parent.Perhaps it's because it's St. Patrick's Day, and I'm Proud to be Irish.