Céad Mile Fáilte

Arriving in Dublin from the West, looking East to the Irish Sea.

As the power pulled back on the four massive engines of the Aer Lingus Boeing 747, I was awakened from my overnight nap by the sensation of the aircraft making its descent. Flying over the Atlantic at such velocity, I realized the six hour flight would have been a harrowing 6 week journey by sea for my ancestors of 150 years ago.

Gazing out the window to the Emerald Island below, which indeed does glisten with forty shades of green, I couldn't help the overwhelming sensation that I had come home.

I am of Irish descent on both sides of my family.  My surname, Cleary, is descended from the Irish chleirich, meaning a clerk or cleric.

Although my maternal grandparents would eat corn beef and cabbage each St. Patrick's Day, regularly play old Irish folk music albums, and have cute little Irish tchotchkes around the house, with pictures of shamrocks and leprechauns, and featuring Irish quotes such as "you're never drunk as long as you can hold on to one blade of grass, and not fall off the face of the earth," they had never been to Ireland.

They were Irish-American, which meant they wore their Irishness with a sense of pride that would exceed that of anyone back in the old country.  Still, it was quite a shock to my mother and her sisters when my grandfather, who had never set foot on the auld sod, would start to recite ancient Gaelic prayers that my family had never heard pass his lips before upon his deathbed.

An Aer Lingus Boeing 747 arrives in Dublin.

As Irish as he truly was, as Irish as my paternal grandparents had been, with the Irish surnames Cleary and Morrissey, they were all still a couple of generations removed from the old country.  And to my knowledge, I was the first of my family to return to Ireland.

It wasn't until I boarded the plane in Boston seven hours before, that it really started to hit me that Dublin would be my home for the next four months.

The gigantic plane with the distinctive, green Aer Lingus livery - the huge white shamrock on the tail - was my first reminder that I was indeed on my way to Ireland.  The flight attendants chatting with their Irish accents as they walked through the cabin, the Irish pilot making an announcement detailing our route and the expected weather in Dublin upon our arrival (the possibility of "some good sunny spells"), the safety instructions in the seat pocket written in English and Gaelic.  It was all unmistakably...Irish.

It seemed like such a short time had passed since my mother informed me that my younger brother was going to study abroad for his Junior year in Seville, Spain.  She wondered if there was some place in Europe where I would like to study for a semester.  Ireland.  Only Ireland.

The airborne behemoth continued its descent, lumbering left and right, straightening out, and then finally touched down at Dublin Airport.  Ireland.  I was now on Irish soil.

The flight attendant started her arrival announcement in Gaelic with "Céad Mile Fáilte," Gaelic, or Irish, for "a hundred thousand welcomes," a traditional Irish greeting.

Departing the aircraft and walking down a labyrinth of hallways until I came to two lines of passengers, I stopped, and then patiently stood in the shorter line to the left, labeled for Americans only,  and proceeded up to the Irish immigration officer.  I took my blue American passport from my pocket and placed it upon the counter.

"Good morning. Where are you from?," the officer asked, grabbing the document, not looking up.

"California.  Los Angeles, California," I replied.

"And what brings you to Ireland, Mr. Cleary?," he continued to query, now running my passport through a scanner next to the keyboard of his computer.

"I'm a student.  I'll be studying this semester at N.I.H.E. in Glasnevin."

N.I.H.E. in Dublin.  No expense spared on the sign.

He looked up for the first time, comparing the picture in the passport to my face.  I stared back.  Satisfied, he turned his attention back to my passport,  and reached for an instrument next to his right hand, which he raised and then brought down on my passport with a loud "thunk," placing the arrival stamp of the Dublin Airport on the first page.  He closed the passport and slid it across the counter.

"Welcome home, lad."

I was officially in Ireland.  Another subversive Yank successfully smuggled into the country.

In moments I would meet the Irish host family who had been prearranged to provide room and board during my stay in Dublin.  They would be MY Irish family, MY Dublin family, by the time I would return to America in four months.  They still are twenty-five years later.

Pinewood Crescent in Glasnevin, Dublin.

(Pinewood Crescent (LEFT) , Glasnevin North, Dublin 11.  Number 24, a "semi-detached" home - what Americans would call a duplex -  halfway down the street on the right, was my Dublin home for the Fall of 1986.)  

I stepped out of the Terminal and into the "soft" Irish morning, as they'd say in Dublin, exhausted, or "knackered," from the overnight flight; unaware that I was arriving as a young Yank, and would depart four months later as a lifelong Dubliner.

Yes, some tea and soda bread would be lovely.  Both.  That's grand.

Céad Mile Fáilte.  A hundred thousand welcomes.