This article is from page 32 of the 2007-06-26 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 32 JPG
AN OUTING involving 27 members of one family would be a big enough deal if the family were going down
the road for a picnic.
But 80-year old Eileen Springer from the US took the family outing concept to a whole new level when she brought the clan back to Cratloe, Galway and Kerry to revisit the fam- ily roots.
The Chicago octogenarian has wanted to give her family a gift of joining her on a trip to Ireland for
many years, her daughter in law Kit- ty Springer explained.
“This is something my mother in law has wanted to do for a long time. There’s so many of us that the easiest thing to do was to hire a bus to bring us all around,” said Kitty.
The party is made up of several generations, consisting of Eileen’s six children, their spouses and a gag- gle of grandchildren.
Eileen’s father, Patrick Cherry came from Cratloe and her great- erandfather from Galway, so the grand Springer tour started in Crat- loe last week.
“Her father, Patrick, came to the US in 1924 to become a priest but left before taking his final vows. He met and married Elileen’s mother in New York and the rest is history,’ said Kitty.
This trip was Kitty’s third visit to Ireland but she hadn’t been here for 33 years.
‘| have many cousins here and now this time, there were two new gen- erations to meet.”
The Springer family on tour visited east Clare, Galway, Kilkenny and the Dingle Penninsula, Kitty explained.
“We even got to kiss the Blarney
stone – you can imagine how much noise there was after that with 27 of us all gabbing away.”
The week-long visit finished with a visit to Bunratty Castle where the Springers enjoyed a banquet and me- dieval entertainment before flying home via Shannon.