An adventure and a homecoming

Albert Bentley "Bert" Sanford and his wife Kathy at
 their vacation "van" on the Irish Sea at Blackpool  in 1986.

Coming "home"

It's an adventure, and, in a sense, a homecoming.

My spouse, Sara E. McNeil, daughter, Kate Zibluk, 13 and a half, and I are heading for Ireland and the UK as part of the Ieimedia program in Armagh.

 http://ieimedia.com/armagh

I will be leading the journalism part of the program with three students, including Savana Maue, the new editor of the Arrow, the student newspaper at Southeast Missouri, where am I chair and  professor of mass media. I have been this way before, half a lifetime ago, in 1986. My mother's first cousin, Albert Bentley Sanford of Norden, Rochdale, Yorkshire, UK, my mother's first cousin, turned up by surprise in Connecticut a few years earlier, and I returned the favor. My grandfather, Nathaniel Austin Bentley,  was the younger brother of Bert's mother. I visited him and his wife Kathy  in Yorkshire; as well as my English former roommate, Paul A. Wheeler in the Richmond area of London, and I also visited Athlone, Ireland, from whence the Bentleys originated. I am Jack Bentley Zibluk, and under the Acts of Patriation, I have been told I qualify to be an Irish citizen. On this trip, I aim to document whether that's true.

It was a "lovely" trip in 1986, as they say. But the world has changed. There was no social media, no cell phones and no "interweb" 27 years ago, and the Internet was just beginning. Ireland was engulfed in "The Troubles," and a group of IRA supporters I knew asked me to deliver a "package for them" to a "Mr. Brown." I declined.

Now "The Troubles" are far less violent, though the tensions remain. I am no longer a young newspaper editor from Connecticut; I am a middle-aged university professor from Missouri. And I am not alone this trip as I was before. Though cousin Bert sadly died a few months ago, the family continues.  His brother Dennis, a retired MI5 spy-agency employee, is still there. He and my mom are the last of their generation. Bentley cousins Simon Mahon and Rachel Sanford Aston have kept in touch through cell, text and social media. Simon, who live near Sydney, Australia.  also holds a Ph.D. in communications, as do I. His mother and mine were pen pals and first cousins, though they never met. We will meet in a fortnight.

And there will be adventures and travel in our five weeks abroad. We will build on earlier experiences abroad in India asuindia2011.blogspot.com. With a little luck, we hope to build the ieimedia programme (I am spelling in British already) and bring more of our Southeast Missouri students and others next year.

So here we go, from Cape Girardeau to St. Louis to Chicago to Dublin to Athlone, Armagh and the UK.