When young Cornelius “Connie” Larkin first arrived on these shores, for once he thought to himself, Truly I am the luckiest guy in the world...

Just seven days earlier he’d stood at Cobh Harbor, dressed in his good suit, and said goodbye to a trickle of friends and relations (what few had not yet emigrated) who had followed him to the port for what little send-off they could muster. As Ireland’s redundancy rates soared in 1949, and its young people fled in record numbers, the fanfare long associated with Cobh’s port – the legendary “American Wake” which entailed days and nights of song, dance and drink for a compatriot who would soon be as good as dead – had dissipated. Instead, the goodbyes at Cobh had turned to quiet handshakes or hurried pats on the back.

From the gangway, Sixteen-year old Cornelius waved to his two aunts, one cousin, and his best chum Jimmy Traynor. Only then was he reminded of the whistle he’d been clutching all the way from Gleann na Ndeor; always ready for a seisún. He lifted it high now in salutation to those he was leaving behind, giving his best look of celebration, and confidence.

To him, the eeriness of that evening was only made worse by the circling gulls and crows, who seemed to make more noise these days -- whether lamenting or singing or generally raising hell -- than the people bidding farewell. The boy’s lonesome feeling only occasionally gave way to sudden bursts of excitement for the loads of friends who’d be awaiting his arrival in Boston. Of late he had started to joke around, saying that all his friends were on “the other side,” by which he meant America.

Cornelius gripped the woolen pouch filled with scapulars and medals and sewn shut by his mother before she’d been taken from this world (she had succumbed to TB just a year ago to the date). “Sure, you’ll be needing this now,” said his aunt before he had walked away. She’d pressed it firmly into his hand, and a hidden pin pierced the flesh of his palm. He said nothing, let out no cry. He looked at his minor wound now and laughed, but then wondered what she meant by his “needing” the holy objects. His heart sank for only a moment as he wondered, What does she know that I don’t know about what awaits me? His aunt always was a spooky one. All he knew about the scapulars and medals was that they belonged to ancestors and relatives he’d never met, including his own father who, having died “suddenly” while Cornelius was in the womb, had simply taken his place in the pantheon of family saints.

Cornelius picked up his suitcase and moved to the ship’s bow. He couldn’t remember what Jimmy Traynor had told him he’d read in a letter from the other side -- whether one ought to face forward or backward on a ship, to avoid getting sick. But since he could no longer see his aunts, his cousin, and his best chum Jimmy, and since looking backward was making him queasy now, he decided to try the only other option: face forward. Besides, Ireland was becoming a speck in the distance, barely distinguishable from the encroaching night. And though he’d convinced himself he was glad to leave such a Godforsaken place, he still couldn’t bear to see home disappear forever. His ship sailed toward a blackness blacker than he’d ever known, even in rural Ireland. Still, he had no choice but to face it, only occasionally stooping out of the sight of other passengers to heave. Connie Larkin did not know what lie in store for him in America (or even if he’d make it there) but there was one certainty he would insist to himself throughout that night: that the passage out of Gleann na Ndeor was a luxury beyond luxuries.

With each day Cornelius felt luckier and luckier, until he walked off that ship in Boston, to the cheering throngs of strangers awaiting other passengers, the luckiest guy in the world!

How do we know what Cornelius Larkin was thinking and feeling when he was a sixteen year old immigrant? Because when he passed away on New Year’s Day, 2011, at age seventy eight, his son Robert found that very same suitcase filled with letters the man had kept throughout life, beginning on that day in 1949 when he set sail from Cobh Harbor.

Cornelius Larkin Jr. (who, as an adult changed his name to Robert, and prefers “Bob”), is the the eldest of eight children. The eighth and youngest son, Michael, died in 1980, a tragedy the Larkin siblings still never discuss. Robert checked in on his father, having not been able to reach him on New Year’s Day. What he found was a man who looked as if he was resting before heading to a party: he was wearing his good suit.

On his night table lay a pile of songs. The top one looked freshly penned, and was based on recent news stories about 57 Irish immigrants who’d laid a mile of train track in 1832 and had allegedly died of cholera. New phorensic reports suggest the men had been murdered, and like most of the found writings, Larkin’s song expressed a kind of kinship with the forgotten men. On top of the scrawled song lay Cornelius Larkin’s well worn whistle. And pulled from underneath the bed was the open suitcase...

...to be continued.

READ MORE by Michael Patrick MacDonald.