St Patrick's Day and my Irish Roots.

With the high holiday approaching, I thought that I would go through my Irish roots. There are at least three major ties in my family tree that go back to Ireland.

The first being that I am a Burke from my mother's side. The Burkes originated in Galway, Ireland, and date back to the medieval times. They are of Anglo-Saxon descent and have a Germanic tie. If you visit the western part of Ireland you will still find a lot of Burkes in the area. William Burke came to America at the beginning of the Revolution. Upon arrival here, after a free ride from the British in hopes of being part of the military sent to quell the rebels, he quickly went AWOL and became a blacksmith and supplied nails and other metal works to the colonists and the revolutionary war effort.

The second is that I am a Moclair. Now the name breaks down into two parts, 'moc' meaning 'son of' and Lair, who was the first king of Ireland. I guess this would make me royalty. The Moclairs hail from County Down in North Ireland (explains my rebellious side). I still have personal connections with members of the family in Newcastle-on-Down (home of the Royal Family's private golf course, which I have played on- told you I was royalty).

Now for the Bush side, you may have heard of The Bushmills. This is a distillery that dates back to the early 1600s, and still produces fine whisky today. Now the Bush family were not the actual producers/distillers of the liquor, but owned the mill that prepared the grain for the distillation of the fine libation. That is where the name comes from 'The Bushmills'. The original mills and distillery are located, once again, in the North in County Antrim in a town called Bushmills.

Now my first name is Herbert. Not Irish you say? Really....for your information Mount Herbert is an area in the Bainsbridge section of Dublin. Herbert also means 'glory of war' in the Anglo-Saxon language, who settled that area just to the northwest of Dublin.

There are other families of Irish roots that have married into the family, Mulligans, Quinns, Kellys just to name a few. So those are my Irish roots, now kiss me.