The story begins in Ballysallagh, a townland within the village of Doolin on Ireland’s rugged Atlantic coast in County Clare, a place the family remembers as breathtakingly beautiful, with rolling green fields, stone walls, and music in the air. Patrick Joseph Byrnes was born there in 1902, the second of 14 children and the oldest son.
Politics have certainly left a bad pong in the air in the US and everywhere else right now, but all is not lost. If you think that we have some funny ideas about elections, we are not alone. Many people think that Catherine Connolly, the newly elected Irish president, put the election in the proverbial bag when she displayed some serious “football” dribbling skills.
“It was at these gatherings that I was first exposed to the joy of the music and humor of storytellers and knew that I wanted to be part of that as much as possible,” he said.