One of the prompts this week was “List 7 reasons why you would love to visit Ireland.” At this stage of my life, I probably never will, because it involves getting on an airplane, which I did enough of when I was working, and I have no desire to do that. Plus, Mary hates to fly. So, I doubt it’ll happen.

“Love” is maybe too strong a word for my feelings on visiting Ireland, so here are seven reasons I’d like to visit there.

1. I’m Irish. This has been confirmed by two DNA tests, one through Ancestry.com and the other through 23andMe.com, both of which tell me I’m as Irish as Paddy’s pig. That came as a great surprise, because Holton is an English name, Welch (Grandma Holton’s maiden name) is Welsh, so you’d think at least one strand of my DNA would be English and Welsh, but no.
2. I have friends and family who have close ties to Ireland. Either they were born there, lived there, and/or still have family there.
3. I’ve been told it’s beautiful. Everyone I know who’s been there tells me it is.
4. It sounds like a fun place. I occasionally turn on Galway Bay FM on TuneIn, and get a good feeling when I listen. Can’t understand a word they say, which might be the reason why.
5. I’d be able to say “Yes, I have” when people ask “have you ever been to Ireland?” I used to get asked this a lot.
6. It was the one thing Mom wanted to do and never did. Mom always talked about going there, but somehow never got her butt on a plane and went there. I talked to her lifelong best friend Peggy not long after Mom died, and she told me that they were making plans to go, but then Mom got sick. Peggy said she was going to chuck the idea, but her kids told her to go for my mother, and share the place with her memory. I hadn’t fallen apart over Mom’s death until I heard that.
7. I like the music. Although, as I understand it, they like country music. My friend Will (Peggy’s son, as it happens) is a fantastic tin whistle player, taking it up not long after I started the bagpipes (I quit playing over thirty years ago, and no, there are no pictures of me in a kilt, so don’t bother asking), and he got me into it.

Notice, no mention of the pubs. In my youth, I enjoyed (maybe a little too much) a Guinness Extra Stout or a shot of Old Bushmill’s whiskey, but I stopped drinking when I started taking all this blood pressure medicine, because I didn’t think they’d mix that well.

So, there’s my seven reasons. How about you?