Anna Burns traveled to Ireland to connect more with her Irish heritage. In the process, she met and fell in love with a Dubliner with whom she has experienced a journey of ancestry and citizenship in the last six years.
The road has been winding, but it has certainly risen up to meet them. Celebrations like this weekend’s St. Patrick’s Day in her Waseca, near her hometown of Janesville, brings it all into greater focus.
“My grandparents, Matt and Mary Burns, were two of the founding members of the Irish American Club of Southern Minnesota in 1968,” she said of the event’s organizing group. “So growing up, my Irish heritage was super, super important.”
Her grandparents were also voted Mr. and Mrs. Emerald Isle at the event, and her sister ran the pageant for some time. Anna now runs it. She also was Miss St. Patrick while in high school, so it’s possible that her blood runs green.
When she decided to visit Ireland through a summer program at Gustavus Adolphus College, she chose to study Irish political history. It was really just a reason to visit her family’s homeland and fill in some gaps in her own knowledge and understanding.
Before leaving, however, her grandmother may have set the course of her visit.
“She jokingly told me, ‘Don’t find anybody over there because Waseca County already has too many Irish people,’” Burns laughed. “Yeah, so it’s too, too funny that it ended up happening.”
As luck would have it, that Irishman’s name was Andrew Whooley, and she is now Anna Burns Whooley.
This is the 56th year of the St. Patrick’s Day events that have been held in Janesville and Waseca, according to committee member Faith Ryan. She said about a dozen people bring it together each year. That’s a bit different than the original committee that was, essentially, a couple of guys sitting around the bar, she said.
The celebration happens the Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day and usually kicks off with an Irish Catholic Mass, she said. During COVID it was scaled back a bit, and other years there wasn’t a parade. And now that they have a good permanent location in Waseca, it doesn’t alternate between there and Janesville, she said.
“Now, since we have The Mill event center over (in Waseca), and it’s big enough to hold the group, we have just kept it over there,” said Ryan.
For Ryan, the St. Patrick’s Day celebration has always been more of a family reunion, when the Ryan clan came together to party. And she’s not alone feeling that way, she said.
“We have people that plan their vacation and this is when they’re coming to meet up with family,” said Ryan. “It’s just kind of like a mini reunion every year for people from all over.”
Speaking of family, let’s get back to Anna and Andrew.
One night, as Anna was preparing to join her study abroad housemates for a night at the pubs, one of her friends asked the group if they could invite the friend of a man she was sort of dating. Everyone said yes, and Andrew came into Anna’s life.
“When we met, he was so incredibly kind and genuine,” Anna said of Whooley. “We started talking about my Irish heritage and how important it was to me. And in talking about that, we talked a lot about our families.”
He is one of seven and Burns one of five, and they connected on how close they each are to their family. Among the things she learned was that his brother, Simon, also met his American wife when she studied abroad in Ireland. They now live near Boston and form a close family bond for Anna and Andrew.
Anna said, “It was kind of like, I don’t want to say love at first sight, but I enjoyed spending time with him.”
It’s also easy to see why Andrew’s Irish eyes are smiling.
“Honestly, I remember walking into the living room of the house they were living in and the first thing I noticed was how her smile and her eyes lit up the room,” he said, surrounded by a sea of green at The Mill on Saturday. “And that was so eye-catching to me, and it really drew me in.”
They dated for the remainder of Anna’s stay in Ireland. The Burns family had arranged for Anna’s parents and an aunt to come to pick her up for an Irish family vacation before heading home.
An unexpected part of that visit, as it turns out, was having them all meet Andrew.
“It was a little bit of pressure,” said Andrew. He and Anna had been talking about how they would proceed and had decided to continue the relationship. Then came the opportunity to meet Anna’s family.
“It was a little overwhelming. I’m so thankful that I went and I met them,” he continued. “It really cemented in me that they were so welcoming and so excited to meet me. …I like to think that my nice Irish charm won them over.”
The group that quickly filled The Mill following the Parade of Clans on Saturday made him feel at home, despite the differences between Irish and American celebrations. Without a doubt, though, it makes Andrew feel welcomed in his new home.
“I love how in touch so many people are here with their Irish heritage. It’s very touching to me, being a first-generation immigrant, seeing how so many people have clung onto their roots and celebrate it so deeply every year,” he said.
When they decided to get married in September 2022, it shut down all efforts they had put in toward Andrew attaining his residency visa, Anna said. In a very real way they started over. But because of how they’d had to manage their relationship to that point, they had become very good at communicating and learned more about each other in the process.
Andrew is working with Anna’s family now, learning the ins and outs of American agriculture. His residency visa, which he just received on Feb. 17, is good for three years, at which time he can apply for citizenship. That’s what he plans to do.
“Long term we are staying here,” Andrew said. “We are setting our roots here in Minnesota. Yeah, we’re going to grow our own family here.”