A series of posts by Daryanani & Bland staff sharing their own “immigration” stories—how they (or their families) came to America and/or how they came to work in the immigration law field.

My immigration story begins when I discovered my grandfather had an accent. As a child, I never recognized his Irish “brogue” (the word supposedly comes from the idea that the Irish sounded as if they spoke with a shoe in their mouths—“bróg” is the word for shoe in Irish), distinctive after more than fifty years of life in the US. I heard no difference at all in how he spoke compared to how my parents or grandmother (native “noo yawkahs”) spoke.

My grandfather was born in the Lanes of Limerick, Ireland in 1912. These same Lanes were made famous in Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, and there has long been speculation in my family that the hearse driver mentioned in the book was my own great-grandfather. Who knows—people love a good yarn! Certainly Summer Street in Limerick—where my grandfather grew up—is a short walk from the home described in McCourt’s book. My grandfather had a 6th grade education but was among the most intellectual and well-read people I ever met. As a child during the Irish Civil War, he ran across enemy lines to deliver messages to the Irish Republican Army fighting the Provisional Government over the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Following the war—as before it—he and his family struggled to survive in the urban slums, and it was no surprise that he would follow in the footsteps of millions of his countrymen and women and take the boat to America. He arrived in New York City at age sixteen in 1928. His name was Jack Bray.