Clifden man retraces road to Clare Island

WHEN Eily O’Grady and her sister, Grace were kids they arrived home one day from one of their many visits to Clare Island, to tell their Dad, Jackie O’Grady, that they discovered a 'green road.’It was this magic that Jackie conjured up from his daughters’ stories to spark off memories of his own youth on the Island, which has culminated in his memoir – “The Green Road to the Lighthouse – Memoirs of Clare Island and the Lighthouse Service.”Now, when he returns to his Island from his home in Clifden, he sees that “old moss covered roadway in a different light. It was a bog road then,” he says, “and I never thought much of it when I traversed it many times as a lad, drawing creels of turf on horseback.”Clare Island, with a population of some 130, was home four hundred years ago, to Gránuaile – Grace O’Malley, the pirate Queen. Born in 1931, Jackie was the eldest of nine – six girls and three boys. He lived for ten years with his grandparents whom he writes so lovingly about. His father, Michael O’Grady was...