:idea: :arrow: Next year, 2016, will be the 100th Anniversary of the Easter Rising. This was the revolution in Ireland which brought about the end of English rule after 800 years. It also marks the 100th anniversary of our family in America. On Christmas night, 1916, my grandpa, along with his pregnant wife, his brothers and their pregnant wives and children left from Cork, never to return. They dodged German submarines and icebergs on a ship called the Atlantic Star and sailed passed the Statue of Liberty on New Year's Eve, 1916. Our first day in America was New Year's Day, 1917. They would never talk about it: never. The Gaelic language was forbidden in our home. They just wanted us to become "good Americans" although my grandpa never stopped hating the English. During WWII, he wanted the Germans to kill as many of them as possible, despite the fact that his only son was serving in the US Army Air Force. I always had the suspicion that they had escaped from Ireland after doing something. Nobody just wakes up on Christmas night, at age 42, and decides to leave everything behind and move to a foreign country... Michael Collins (The Big Fellow): my grandmother knew him. They grew up near each other in Cork, which was called "Queenstown" at that time. <iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zqdq65m78Ks?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0"></iframe> Eamon De Valera: (The Tall Fellow): was born in New York City to an Irish girl who returned to her native country when her Spanish boyfriend abandoned her and the baby. <iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/i2NXjpnPwOA?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0"></iframe>