Ireland with Sullie, Son John, and John Boles: We had No Choice

“Tá dul go hÉirinn cosúil le dul abhaile.”  (Going to Ireland is like going home.)

And so it happened that just a few times in Ireland proved to be insufficient for the likes of John Kennedy, Tom Kennedy, and Patrick Sullivan. After all, Pat had been to the island before but left before he had time to visit County Cork, the source of the Joliet Sullivans. It was a siren song that was heard but not yet satisfied, leaving one Patrick Sullivan dry as a desert and longing for the cool draughts of liquid served only in cousin O’Sullivan’s pub in Cork.

With no other choice left, another trip was planned in 2001 to quench the thirst plaguing our Patrick. This time, John and Tom Kennedy, were chosen to accompany Pat on our shared mission to the enchanting wilderness of the emerald isle inhabited by leprechauns, banshees, and fairies. Naturally, we would never have rested if we had shirked our responsibility to assist Pat in his next quest.

One of our first stops was in Limerick where we had dinner with John and Rosemary Boles.  John is one of my former students and a baseball player at Lewis where I was assistant coach to Gordie Gillespie. John and I remained good friends since that time back in 1971. More recently, John had been manager of the Florida Marlins baseball team. In May, of 2001, John had been released from the Marlins and was on vacation in Ireland.  It was timely and fortunate that the five of us were in Ireland at the same time.

During the previous year, the Marlins had a home series with the Rockies in Denver, and I invited John to a cookout at my daughter Jacquie’s house.  Before I picked him up at his hotel, he asked if he could bring a few of his friends and colleagues with him.  I assured him that would be fine since I was driving a Windstar van at the time.

As his friends were piling in the van, I was pleasantly surprised that my passengers included “Hall of Famer” Tony Perez, Tony Taylor, and Fredi Gonzalez. I called Jacquie and asked her to put on a few more steaks, drove to the house, and we had a great time.

Our dinner in Limerick was fine and we had time for plenty of conversation.  At one point, John Boles, in describing some of his disappointment with the new generation of athletes, looked at my son, John, and rather succinctly said “Don’t take this personally, John, but your generation of players are a bunch of a.. holes.”  We all laughed along with my son, who didn’t seem to take it personally.

On Our Way to Cork

No matter where we are going, you know that it will be an interesting journey with the likes of John, Pat, and Tom in the same car.  As we made our way through Cork, we met friends at every stop.  In our history together, we have never met any strangers.

This would be the case once again, when we saw a hitchhiker, our rule being to invite him/her for a lift, no matter the gender, the age, or stage of inebriation.  Our rule was honored, and we offered this 50-year old man a seat in our car. “Maybe he can help us with directions to the O’Sullivan Pub.”

In this particular case, our new passenger friend was less than helpful.  Obviously intoxicated and speaking with a brogue not only thick but slurring, he was no help at all. Not that we could describe Pat’s cousins in much detail.

Pat gave him the name, “Cornelius or Phillip O’Sullivan,” but there are so many O’Sullivans with the first same names in Cork there might be no way we could identify them.  Our new friend asked, “What’s their nicknames?” Nicknames evidently are one of the few means that people might be distinguished.

Without knowing their nicknames, our conversations continued but without the least amount of enlightenment on either part. Some illumination may have possible occurred except for the fact that we could barely understand what he was saying anyway.  We couldn’t understand him, and, by god, he couldn’t understand us.

So together we had a lovely time for several miles.

After dropping him off, we continued on a path in the general direction of Pat’s cousin’s pub. Still in need of directional assistance, I saw a car ahead of us turn off the highway, onto a long, winding driveway to a house.  As is my nature, I followed the car, and proceeded to ask the exiting driver if he might help us.  He actually did give us good directions (Pat knew his cousins’ small village, Adrigole) and then he asked us in for a “cup of tea,” in accordance to Irish hospitality.

Behind our schedule a bit, we thanked him and continued on our journey and succeeded in finding the O’Sullivan Pub. Below are Pat and his cousin at the bar with an adjoining picture that includes a fellow who could pass for an older version of Danny Sullivan.

Although the trip didn’t end there, we continued the next few days in Ireland and agreed that we had had a wonderful time in Ireland, and that John and I had successfully protected our friend Pat from all the dangers that he would have encountered.