True story: Many years ago, my direct ancestor Uncle Seamus left the County Antrim for London and a hard-earned but long and eventually prosperous career as a Barrister. But not at first. He had to quit drinking–but even after making that change, he couldn’t shake the image that, after all, he was just an another no-account Irish bloke who would sooner or later disappoint everyone. He suffered, I think, and so did his family, but generally he and they kept it to themselves. If he had a blog or blawg–which the UK didn’t have in the early 1900s–I doubt that he would have named it Thoughts of a Belfast Protestant Barrister Who Quit Drinking And Had Quite a Few Enemies He Never Tried To Make .

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