When Irish Eyes Are Squinting

A couple of nights ago, we had corned beef and cabbage for dinner. We don't especially like corned beef, but my wife is very fond of cabbage. Why then, did we choose to extend our food budget for such a delicacy? Well, it has become our family tradition to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day in the best Irish tradition since we like to think of ourselves as having some large stake of our heritage in the Emerald Isle. I have spent many years rehashing my father's rather lofty claims to have roots in the north of Ireland, County Cavan.
There may be some truth to this, but it has always been more of a family agreement that it was a fact. It made sense, after all. The notion that our family name had once been "Cavanaugh", or literally "of Cavan" didn't seem like much of a stretch at all. And then those clowns at Ellis Island had casually oppressed my ancestors, all those generations ago, to drop the "augh" and then simply misspelled the rest, leaving us without a link to our nation, our home. It makes a nice story, but I honestly don't know if there is any truth to it at all, since the people who care most about it have passed quietly on, and I use it primarily as a reason to wear my green shirt proudly every March 17. As far as I am concerned, my ancestors all came from Kansas.
I once related this bit to a friend who was born and raised in Ireland, and even brought a considerable amount of his brogue with him. He told us that he knew exactly the place that we were talking about, and that it was possible that some or all of the story was true. My wife, who is always keen to go off on an adventure, asked him what County Cavan was like. "Oh, it's fairly boring. Pretty flat. Mostly farming country. A lot like your Kansas." Makes sense to me.