Finding New Home in Old Country

In 1956, Frank O’Kelly and his future wife, Agnes, left Ireland for a new life in North America. But in a twist on their immigrant success story, their youngest son is hoping to make a permanent home in the country they left behind.

“He’ll probably reverse the trend that I started,” Frank said. “He’s thinking of staying.”

Frank Jr. was one of the medical students “rescued” by the U.S. invasion of Grenada in October, 1983. Not wanting to return there, he was at a loss; Frank Sr. suggested his own alma mater in Galway, on the west coast of Ireland.

In the six years since moving there, Frank Jr. has gained an Irish bride, a baby daughter and a love of the country to which he displayed only a “weak attachment” as a youth, according to his father. “As a matter of fact, he’s even picked up an Irish brogue,” Frank Sr. said.

But while Frank Jr. has been able to take advantage of one of Ireland’s excellent universities, the chances that he will be able to put his education to work there are slim. “It’s a completely closed shop there as far as the medical profession is concerned,” Agnes O’Kelly said. “If he could make a living there, he would.”

The medical “closed shop” is the same dilemma that led Frank Sr., a urologist, and Agnes to leave Ireland. The republic, with its stagnant economy, has little hospital construction or expansion, and thus little job opportunity.

Out of 45 graduates in Frank’s class, 40 left the country. He went to Toronto for his training, thinking that he might return in a few years, but he stayed. He married Agnes, a nurse, and together they had three sons.

“I got to like the life,” Frank said. In addition to the economic opportunities, he found that he enjoyed the less restrictive social structure: “That’s probably the classic immigrant discovery--that there’s more freedom on the other side of the world.”

The O’Kellys moved to South Carolina in 1975, and to their home in Corona del Mar in 1979. Their hillside house commands a sweeping view of the ocean.

Though Frank, 58, and Agnes, 55, have now spent more than half their lives in North America, they still maintain a hint of their accents and strong attachments to the old country. Their social circle includes Irish friends, and every week they listen to a local radio program broadcasting news from Ireland. Orange County even has its very own branch of the Galway Medical Graduates, to which they belong.

They travel to Ireland frequently--twice a year since their son moved there--and now they have a piece of land on the island’s west coast, where they hope to build a vacation home. While California is home now, “it’s still nice to go back,” Frank said.