An affinity with Ireland

Over the last year or two I have dabbled a bit with ancestry.com and found an interesting character called Belinda but more about her later...

In short, she was my great grandmother and brought my grandfather and other children over from Ireland about 100 years ago.

One stolen afternoon last year at the end of summer term, I was off timetable due to always being so every Thursday afternoon for training but actually, the last training had happened the week prior though so essentially I was free for the afternoon. I left all the other poor souls at a sports' day in one of the first hot days of July. 

I went to a nearby pub and had lunch...a hanging halloumi kebab, rice, salad and garlic bread if you are interested!  While eating, a multi-generation family came in and one of the males had a very strong southern Irish accent. My first very weird thought was to tell him I had Irish family but of course I didn't as there was a real risk of them all thinking I was some desperate bar-lush.  I even had an imaginary conversation in my mind where I described where my relatives had hailed from and how although I had been to Dublin, I had not been to the area just outside of it that they came from to my slight shame. (Only slight because I didn't know the location until just recently). In my imaginary conversation I hoped that expressing an intention to go there very soon would 'do'. 

I then suddenly remembered being in Dublin all those years ago and how I felt so comfortable that I weirdly decided I was going to move there, even asking Lucy to do it with me and she had to tell me she didn't want to leave her university course etc.  I think I was at university myself at the time but somehow a job advert in the centre seemed like all I needed.  Anyway I didn't move there and haven't been back since but that's the explanation of my affinity with Ireland.