Reilly? Who's That?

I've been writing Reilly's End of the Day Stories for about 13 years, and going by the name Pat Reilly Harbo. Now, I'm writing Reilly's OTHER End of the Day Stories. Yesterday, a new friend who had read my first story on this site asked me who Reilly was. Well, I'll tell you.

My maiden name is Reilly, and I'm proud of my Irish heritage, even though my Dad never told me much about it. I only knew that we were Irish, and our relatives were "from" Cleveland, Ohio. My parents had four girls, no boys to carry on the name, so whenever I wrote for a newspaper or magazine, I used Reilly as my first name, just to keep the family name going. I chose Reilly Romer when writing, during my former marriage, and now I go by Pat Reilly Harbo.

It's truly ridiculous that I didn't know my family's true heritage. When Ancestry.com first came about, I signed up and put all of my close relatives in their proper places. Then I'd see little green leaves wiggling above those names, giving me hints to everyone's parents. As my tree's branches expanded, one day I noticed a place in the top right hand corner of my screen that said that I had some messages. Someone said, "It looks like we're barking up the same tree.", and his last name was Djordjevich. I didn't like the idea of getting a message from a stranger, especially if his name wasn't familiar, so I ignored it. Whenever I signed on though, there was another message pleading with me to respond. When I finally did, the person sounded nice and believable, had been doing extensive research about the Reilly family, and said he had tracked down relatives in Ireland that he believed we shared. I was never the historian in the family, so I sent him over to my sister Marilyn, who was 19 years older than me, and had adopted that role.

Marilyn and Alex Djordevich became fast friends over email. His mom, Mary Reilly and he even flew from Washington DC for Marilyn's 80th birthday, and we all were amazed that there was a strong family resemblance between Mary and my sister Lorraine.

Alex had sent Marilyn several pages of our shared family history. It turns out that three of the Reilly brothers, one of them my great-grandfather, William Reilly, along with James and Matthew, had immigrated to the US together, landing eventually in Cleveland, but another two brothers that we had never been informed about, had stayed behind in Slane, Ireland. They raised their families there, and Alex was a descendant of one of them -John!

Over time, I digested all of this information, and eventually I, through a connection from Alex, contacted what I call, a long-lost cousin of ours, Phyllis. My husband Doug and I arranged a trip to Ireland in 2019 by way first, of England. A couple of other cousins who's grandfathers had emigrated to England, heard we were coming and made a plan to meet me near where we were staying. The friends we were visiting told us that we could set up our meeting at their nearby yacht club, in Shoreham. I was nervous at first, but when we saw each other, that melted away.

Ann and Linda, sisters, told me of even another cousin who couldn't make it that day, Amanda Graffith, who had written a book with her father, John Reilly, who was one of the immigrants to England. "My Soul Swims the Boyne" tells of his life on the river Boyne, where his parents managed one of the locks, while raising their family in a cottage alongside it. I was astounded that all of them even considered to drive to meet me, but here we were.

The next day, we flew to Dublin, where we rented a car to drive to Trim, to meet more of my Reilly cousins. I hadn't driven on the left side of the road for quite awhile, and was kind of dreading it, but when it came down to it, I wasn't too nervous. I was even a little proud of myself to be able to drive a stick shift with my left hand, while sitting on the right side of the car! We drove on to Trim, and found our AirBnb.

We were surprised, (but we probably shouldn't have been), by the greeting that we experienced by my beautiful, Irish family. Doug had taken me to Ireland two other times, but I didn't want to go around knocking on any Reilly's doors expecting a warm greeting. This time cousins gathered at a restaurant close by our hotel.

First, I met my long-lost cousin Phyllis, and we connected with our first hug. We kept making teary eye-contacts as we became convinced that we were really related. I gave her a copy of my little book I had written called "Capitola Days" for her to read later and hear stories of the Reilly clan in California in the 1960's.

When the group started to enlarge, Doug offered to move us all into the connected bar. I brought Zip-loc bags full of my earrings and bracelets that I had made, and offered them all around. In doing so, I got to relax and visit cheerily with all of my new relatives.

Doug got along famously with cousin Banno

The next day, some of my cousins volunteered to take us out for tea, and then on a tour of the graveyard where some of the Reillys had been buried. They especially focused on the headstone that my great-grandfather William Reilly had sent to commemorate several of the relatives. He had arranged for it to be erected, but he hadn't come over with it.

The proprietor of our hotel informed me that that's the way it is. "There is an old saying", she said, "They leave, but they don't come back." She told me that's why my relatives were so happy to see me. I came back.

Later in the day we hiked up the Hill of Slane with my new-found cousin, Banno and his wife Rosie. It is famed to be the place that St Patrick lit the Pascal fire. It was amazing to me that among the few graves in the cemetery, was the one of Phyllis' mother, Alice Reilly. Alice and her husband raised their several children, the youngest of them Phyllis, along the River Boyne. They lived in a lock house, allowing horse-drawn barges, (tugged along tow paths alongside the river), to pass through the different levels of the river.

When we came back to where we had left our car in Slane, Phyllis and her husband Ultan drove up to surprise me with a gift. It was a piece of a slate shingle that had been on the roof of the cottage that she grew up in on the lock. I wrapped it up carefully and took it home with me. I ended up putting it in a little display cube to commemorate our trip and my history.

So there you go. I've still been in contact with Alex and Phyllis. I'm still hoping that some day I'll be able to see my Irish family again......or maybe they'll come to see me.