A fierce argument crept up in our house one night between Betty O'Brien and Canine Casey, a thin, wiry little fellow,
as to how long it was since the first Irishman set foot in America.
Weren't they short-taken for a topic of conversation?
I can answer that question, says Betty O'Brien, a man of huge proportions and an historian to boot.
The first Irishman to set foot in America was St. Brendan the Navigator,
for it was he discovered America, although he kept his mouth shut about it.
How long ago would that be so, says Casey, since the first Irishman set foot in America?
I can answer that too, says O'Brien, for St. Brendan was born in Feenot in the county Kerry about the year 500 A.D.,
and he died in Anacoon in the county Galway about 580.
We'll take it now that he did his navigating in his prime, say, between the years 500.
525 and 540.
Add all that up and take it from the year we're living in,
and it will bring you to within a hen's kick of 1,400 years since the first Irishman set foot in America.
Is that all you know, says Casey?
Irish people were going to America before that.
Can you prove it, says O'Brien?
Oh, indeed, says Casey, I can prove it.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have drawn it down.
My own granduncle, Ted Fleur,
he was going to America after the famine in a sailing vessel they were,
and they were becalmed one evening late about 200 miles out from the coast of the county clear,
so they throwed the anchor and they went to bed for the night.
What did they want up for?
In the morning there was a nice breeze blowing and they pulled in the anchor,
and what was caught onto the hook of it but the wheel of a horse car,
and what does that prove, says O'Brien?
It proves, says Casey,
that Irish people were going to America by road before the flood.