As I sit down to write this week, I must admit to myself that I am a bit disappointed by Dublin. This produces feelings of guilt because I have no right to be disappointed, nor are the reasons I am disappointed even valid. I’ll explain.

According to 23andMe, I am 65% English/Irish. Why they put these two together into a single category is surprising to me given the history of the countries. However, I know that my mother’s side is 100% Irish, with Irish marrying Irish going back at least five generations. My father’s side is traceable back to Wales but the Lennert name (a derivative of Lion Heart) is actually French/German, another combination category. But I understand this one as the area that the family name comes from, Saarland, a border region, has been in both French and German possession multiple times over the centuries. It is currently in Germany. We Americans are all mutts, unless native, so it’s incorrect to say I am Irish, yet we all claim the heritage we most identify with.

At 59, I have had a lifetime to build up my conception of Ireland. I have heard stories passed down to me over the years by my mother’s family, of their visits, and of their experiences of feeling somehow connected, or “home” when they went back. “Everyone looks just like you,” is the one I liked the most. I heard about how wonderful the people were, and this was backed up by just about every travel show, YouTube video, or blog that I’d seen or read. Fifty-nine years is a long time to build up an idea.

The first steps on the island for me were leaving airport in Dublin and getting into a cab to go to our hotel. The driver was as ideal as I could have conjured. He was chatty and charming, and his brogue was so thick that I only understood about 75 percent of what he said. Poor Chien-hui understood nothing. By the time we arrived he had given us an entire itinerary for our week and had done so with such Irishness that I was floating a little. But he was going to be the last Irish person I spoke to for quite some time.

Dublin is no different than New York, it turns out. Walking the streets I heard German, Russian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Italian and some other languages I didn’t recognize. It might be easy to say that these were just tourists, and that’s probably true, however everyone we have dealt with—all in the service industry, which is often the case when you travel full-time—had an accent, but they weren’t Irish. Usually it was a mix of the Irish accent they had picked up blended with their native accent when speaking English. The waitress last night at the Irish restaurant we ate at was Chinese and her English accent was this charming mix of Cantonese and Dubliner.

Before you determine that this is some kind of racist screed, let me clarify that I think the diversity is a wonderful thing. After looking up some statistics yesterday, I was happy to see that 2024 has had the largest influx of immigrants to the island since the 2008 crash and that twice as many people moved here as had left. Over 30,000 Irish had returned home but it was only a small part of that mix. Dublin is booming and you can see it and feel it. To be Irish these days is very different than it was a hundred years ago.

We went to GPO and the EPIC museums while we’ve been here. The General Post Office (GPO) is where the 1916 Easter uprising started and the “Every Person is Counted” (EPIC) Museum is a museum of emigration. We learned that Irish history is dominated by conflict, and in turn, the Irish diaspora, of thousands of people left the despair, the hunger, the lack of opportunity, and the oppression. This is how my great-great-grandfathers came to the United States in the 19th century as teenagers. This is why there are more Irish outside of Ireland than on the island itself.

But in 2024, there is more peace, and therefore more opportunity, than ever before in Ireland, especially here in Dublin where 25 percent of the island’s population lives. Whereas I am used to the “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” of America, it turns out one has other options and perhaps not quite as far away. And like America, the young people who make the decision to start anew someplace else, they work in the service industry to start their journey to wealth and prosperity. So, it makes perfect sense that the people who checked us into the hotel, the man who works at our corner market, and all of the wait staff at every restaurant, nearly everyone we have interacted with, has come from someplace else. I think this is beautiful, and very humbling. How naive I was to think this was going to be my Grandfather’s Ireland.

I wasn’t expecting leprechauns or redheads everywhere I went, but I am embarrassed to admit my ideals were something close to that. (I have seen some beautiful redheads.) So, yeah, I am a bit disappointed. Walking around Dublin has been just a little too much like home. It’s a thriving metropolis with representation of all of humanity doing their best to be successful in this beautiful country. But it doesn’t feel different and that, it turns out, was what I had anicipated all of these years.

My fantasy of Ireland surely exists, but I am guessing I’ll need to leave Dublin and go into the country to find it. Or I just have to catch another cab.

Not My Grandfather’s Ireland

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Not My Grandfather’s Ireland

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