He\u2019d visit me often in New York<\/a>, a city that was supposed to have been my temporary home. Life, however, got in the way. I was hired as a sportswriter for an Irish newspaper and that was it. Decades later, I\u2019m still here. A dual citizen married to a California girl, with three children born in a Hell\u2019s Kitchen hospital. <\/p>\n \u2018I began to dread our trips home. I\u2019d wonder what version of him I\u2019d see, none of which were the way I\u2019d remember him\u2019<\/p>\n During his visits, my father would point out Irish contributions, as if I\u2019d been unaware of them. I often pretended I was. The Hunger Memorial in Battery Park City; St Patrick\u2019s Cathedral; the 9\/11 museum where he\u2019d poignantly remarked upon the hundreds of Irish names; and the dozens of bars we\u2019d passed: McSorley\u2019s, Eamonn\u2019s, Langan\u2019s and O\u2019Brien\u2019s. <\/p>\n A proud Irish man who immersed himself in our literature and history, he\u2019d glow with pride when strolling the city\u2019s sidewalks, as if to say, \u201cYeah, we helped build this place.\u201d <\/p>\n On one stateside sojourn we walked the Brooklyn streets, chancing upon a long-standing Jewish bakery which he insisted upon visiting once the aroma of fresh challah hit us from a crosstown block away. <\/p>\n He chatted with the owner, an elderly native of the now incredibly hip Williamsburg neighbourhood, who\u2019d been opening his store every morning for almost six decades. An award-winning baker himself, with a 40-year career behind him, my Dad delighted in hearing his stories, and told a few himself. They talked of Brooklyn and babkas, Gaeilge and gur cake. Had they been 50 years younger, these two men would no doubt have established a transatlantic Instagram friendship. <\/p>\n [\u00a0From a Monaghan farm to New York high fashion: \u2018Ireland is still a very big part of my life\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n It was just another New York moment that he\u2019d contributed to my Big Apple days. Like when we met the boys from the Bronx. <\/p>\n We\u2019d stopped at a bar on the Upper East Side. He got talking to construction workers beside us. Lenny and Pete, Bronx boys on a break from a scaffolding project on 74th Street, who were fascinated with this retired baker from Dublin\u2019s inner city. <\/p>\n His accent, his manners (\u201cA goddamned gentleman\u201d, according to Pete), his interest in their lives, enthralled them.<\/p>\n These two lifelong pals told him about the Bronx, where they grew up in a Puerto Rican neighbourhood, and apologised with a \u201cso sorry about my language, Liam\u201d every time an F-bomb landed. Pete told how he\u2019d once dated \u201can Irish broad\u201d and that her people came \u201cfrom County Connemara or some place\u201d.<\/p>\n My Dad told them tales of Crumlin and the Liberties in the 1950s. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd I thought we was poor,\u201d quipped Lenny.<\/p>\n They didn\u2019t want us to leave. \u201cYou\u2019re no craic, Mike,\u201d said Pete, erupting with laughter at getting to use the word he\u2019d just learned from my Dad. <\/p>\n New York City, and its accents, attitudes and atmosphere, didn\u2019t belong to my Dad, but he did like to borrow them from time to time. As he progressed in age, though, a cruel illness was in its infancy. He\u2019d mix us up, calling me by my brother\u2019s name, and he\u2019d repeat stories he\u2019d only recently told. Questions just answered were asked again. He\u2019d confuse the phone with the remote control, and worried if our Mam had to leave the house. <\/p>\n I got \u201cthe call\u201d in the summer of 2022. It was something I\u2019d been semi-prepared for. As an immigrant, it\u2019s always a possibility that something could go wrong \u201cback home\u201d. Dad had fallen outside our home in Lucan, Co Dublin. He\u2019d struck his head on the concrete pavement, resulting in some worrying lacerations and severe facial bruising. <\/p>\n![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/HN6EQILJUZGCBIV5EAO6KIXJRM.jpg\")
Michael Fitzpatrick lives in New York with his wife, Mei, and their three children, Liam, Emmett and Fiona <\/p>\n
![\"Margaret](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/CIPG7V5NHZDABOYWVPFWFZZYDI.jfif.jpeg\")
Margaret and Liam Fitzpatrick on the New York Subway <\/p>\n