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Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Stands of fate

I am fascinated by the history of my family, the strands of lineage branching off to so many lands, so many experiences of living and loving and dying.

I am fascinated by the strength of those ancestors, the immense courage in them, their endurance of times of terror, famine, war.

It is their will to survive that draws me to their stories, the fabric of their lives.

What was it that drove Eadie Burn from the fields of Ireland to the shores of Scotland?

What hunger sent Danny Murphy from his home in Galway to the dark iron ore mines of southern Scotland?

How did my father find the inner resources to survive the long Siberian winter when so many died?

What strands of fate drew together the descendants of starving Irish and war exiled Poles to Scotland.

Out of the maelstrom of their history, their lives, I was born.