A small photo album connects unassuming American tourists to iconic Kerry Island across the bay. West Kerry women appear in black and white, wearing glitzy American apparel, reflecting how emigrant families carried Irish identity abroad. John and Joe grew up in Springfield’s “Hungry Hill,” surrounded by West Kerry emigrés and ex-Blasket Islanders. John Boyle O’Reilly Club pilgrimages to the area keep memories alive through a bi-annual ritual. John emphasizes the need for roots, saying without roots people drift away. Joe describes a neighborhood filled with Irish family names and community ties. Mike Carney, a Blasket-born islander, helped drive the 1953 evacuation of the Blaskets by lobbying Éamon de Valera to relocate islanders.
"“There's a certain pull for me, I can't explain it,” he said. “My father used to say, without roots you would just roll up, turn into rag weed and blow away. You've got to have roots. Know your roots. It's important.”"
"Both John and Joe grew up in 'Hungry Hill' in Springfield, an area teeming with west Kerry emigrees and ex-Blasket Islanders. Joe's neighbour, Eileen Carney, was the sister of well-known islander Mike Carney, who played a pivotal role in the evacuation of the Blaskets in 1953, lobbying Éamon de Valera to relocate the islanders who were living in increasingly desperate conditions."
"“It was the Cahalanes, it was the Walshes, the Garveys, the Quinns, the Fitzgeralds, the Sullivans,” said Joe. “John's grandparents lived two blocks over from me. Up and down the street everywhere I went, there was the Rooneys, the O'Connors, the Grimseys.”"
"This nexus of Irish culture in western Massachusetts was formalised by the John Boyle O'Reilly Club back in 1880, named after the great Irish journalist and poet John Boyle, who was instrumental in the famous Catalpa rescue of Fenians from western Australia."
Read at Irish Independent
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