‘It wasn’t that I was ungrateful to America because America had been good to me, and still is, but even the very bird prefers the area where it was hatched’
Tomás Ó Cinnéide – The Wild Rover
(trans. Pádraig Tyers)
I have seen many nicknames on headstones on my rambles through cemeteries. The term ‘The Yank’ struck. Maybe it was because I had not long finished the book by another returned Yank, Tomás Ó Cinnéide. Maybe it sparked a memory of the tales told of Kruger.
As possibly the only returned emigrant in the area, use of ‘John O’Donoghue’ was likely to cause confusion in the area, whereas there was, most likely, just one ‘Yank’.
This morning, I spotted a tweet about a recently released book by Sinéad Moynihan on the ‘Returned Yank’ that will probably be requested of my local library in the near future.
It brought back that minute on two standing with John O’Donoghue on a lovely quiet Kerry morning.