Irish

Well, through the luck of my dad receiving a family Bible from my aunt, God rest her soul, I have found that my paternal great grandmother's name was Margaret McCoy. They said she liked to be called Maggie. 'Maggie McCoy' sounded Irish to me, so I did a search on the surname and found it is indeed originally Irish and is a derivation of 'Mag Aodha' meaning 'son of fire' in the old Irish. I haven't yet found out if Maggie had red hair, but I'm going to take a wild guess that she did.

I know it's kind of silly to many, tracing family roots and that sort of thing, but I'm at the stage in my life where I've gained a little self wisdom and consequently, like having sugar in the system, I want more. This is just one more way in which to understand myself, that I'm part Irish.

I have to admit, I'm a little stricken by the Irish bug. I've read some books and discovered the rich, romantic history of the Irish and the Scotts, which apparently originally came from the Picts, and them from the Celts, on from them the Tuatha De Danaan, and mythologically on back to the Hyperboreans according to Aristotle, Plato and other Greek sources.

I've read up on Celtic Christianity and have discovered (see below my personal creed) an affinity with the tenets of this expression of the faith, and I've become more interested in Nature at large, and the heavens, discoverig I have quite an interest for things as they occur naturally.

As I've talked to people, I've found you don't have to go back very far in any family's history before you run across some very interesting characters, some very intriguing events, and a history that all are always great reading where the truth is truly stranger than fiction.