SNIPPET: Readers of Dublin's "Ireland of the Welcomes" magazine shared their thoughts in the Nov-Dec 2005 issue:. Katherine Russell WILSON, Hemet, CA wrote: "I just love your magazine - my son Steve gave me my first copy, after we returned home from Ireland last year. We both fell in love with your country, a place I never thought I would be able to visit. It was made even more special, because I was with family. I look forward to receiving each copy but I can read it all in one day and then I hate to think I have to wait two months before the next one arrives. I'd like a copy every month. I especially like reading all the letters which people send to you about their trips to Ireland and of their family history that brings them to your shores. Are we all realising the dream of our forefathers who could not return to their homeland? When I was growing up in AZ, my mother often spoke about her father, who left Ireland as a child, with his mother and two brothers. They were from Birr, King's County, now Offaly. Most of the information from my mother came in bits and pieces with many stories and not a lot of facts; it has been hard to research my roots in Ireland. We visited Cobh, as this is from where my grandfather had left for America. As I stood on the dock and looked out to sea, I felt I could see the ghost ships leaving with so many Irishmen for so many different countries, never to return. How sad, that they were leaving loved ones behind knowing they would never see them or their homeland again. In Birr, we visited St. Brendan's Catholic Church where I found records of the MANNION family - their dates of birth and where they lived. It's not easy to explain the emotions one feels seeing a true record like this; I just wish that I could have shared it with my mother and wished my grandfather had known that I made the journey back to his home. Birr is a great town to visit and Birr Castle is a must-see. It has the largest telescope in the world in its grounds; it still looks and moves just like it did over 150 years ago. I would like to go back to Ireland in a heartbeat. I'd like to come back to research my other grandfather's family, the RUSSELLs, who left Antrim back in the 1800s, however I don't know where they left from, so I just wish there was an easy way to do this research.". The editor suggested she contact the Ulster-American Folk Park Centre for Migration Studies.. Roger PETERSON, Ossining, NY shared: "After reading your wonderful magazine, I would like to find out one thing - what is a shillelagh? In your article about County Antrim, you say that Victor McLAGLEN in his part in 'The Quiet Man,' carried a shillelagh. But all I've ever seen him with is a rosewood walking stick. I was always told that a shillelagh was about two feet long with a knob on the end. Please let me know that I'm walking with a shillelagh and not a walking stick? I have been using this rosewood cane since 1975, following a car accident in 1974. This stick has helped me get around. My mother Kitty GRAHAM was born in Co. Cork around 1899. She married a Swede in the 'Roaring Twenties.' My lsat trip to Ireland was in 1993 and I can't wait to get there again. Everyone was so nice and polite, no matter where you went - day or night - and it was always as clean as a whistle. Your magazine is great and it makes you feel like you are in the heart of the Irish world." The editor wrote - "A shillelagh is indeed a walking stick with a knob on the end, it is traditionally made from Blackthorn and the natural growth of the wood gives its distinctive style, so no two shillelaghs are the same." John SAUNDERS, Argyle, NY wrote: "I've been receiving IOTW since 1972, when my company was doing business with Neodata headquarters, in Limerick. My gggrandfather came to America from Northern Ireland and I've visited there many times and will visit again soon. Unfortunately, I've lost contact with Mike McMAHON from Neodata but I hope to get in touch with him again on my next visit."