New York family discovers connections to 'ancestral home' in Athlone area
By Rebekah O'Reilly
New Yorker Ben Chipman went viral recently, after his family of six took a 'pilgrimage' to Ireland to explore their ancestral roots.
The Chipman family spent a full week exploring the Emerald Isle, from Galway and Dublin, to the world famous coast of Clare.
"The visit to Athlone was definitely a highlight, it was very special," Ben said, adding that it was especially moving for his father to share with his three children.
"It was so fun watching my dad's face light up. You get very few moments with your parents like that.”
The content creator, who has over 19.6k followers on video sharing platform TikTok, amassed over 64.6k views on his video in Athlone as of Tuesday, September 30.
The clip showed Ben arriving in his "ancestral home" in Athlone, stopping off in Sean's Bar, and taking a walk around the town centre, before heading to Drum cemetery to pay their respects to their ancestors.
"It's not my first time completing this pilgrimage," Ben said in the video. "It was much more beautiful when it wasn't the dead of winter.
"Walking around I did see my families surnames on several things like [a] sign about John McCormack, and the Harney Lock and Safe company. So if you have those surnames, and you're still in Athlone - what up cuz?"
It's not Ben's first time to go viral in Athlone either, with a video from a previous visit to the Midlands in December 2022 garnering a total of 94.1k likes and 1.2 million views as locals questioned what exactly brought an American to Athlone.
Family Heritage and Irish Identity
Ben, a fifth-generation American, explained that his ancestors left Ireland in the 1850s.
They first discovered their connections to Athlone after doing an Ancestry DNA kit, which provided them a match in the town.
While Ben doesn't claim Irish identity outright, he sees the family’s history as an integral part of his Irish-American heritage.
"For me, the claim to heritage is kind of that piece of Irish-American identity that carries over and becomes so important to us,” he said.
"It seems strange to say in the current political climate - but America was built on immigrants. It's the project we do every school year from First Grade, to explore our family roots and where we originated from."
The Chipman family have connections to the McCormack and Harney families. During the trip, one of the most moving experiences was visiting Drum Cemetery, where many Harney family names appear on headstones.
“My dad said later that night he wasn’t sure it was going to mean so much,” Ben said. “But going to the cemetery and seeing all of the Harney names was really poignant… it was so fun watching his face light up. You get very few moments like that with your parents.”
The family also connected with Athlone Tours guide Vincent Harney, who is a distant relation of the Chipmans.
"His daughter actually found my post on TikTok and sent me a DM and was like, Hey, I don't know if you're still here, but like I can totally connect you with my dad. That was really cool."
A Warm Welcome
Across both visits, Ben said he was struck by the warmth and hospitality of the Irish people.
“I don’t feel like I can claim Athlone or Ireland as my home, but as a place that has been so inviting and welcoming to me… absolutely, I’ll come back,” he said.
He noted he was glad he got to the “cottage-core” image of Ireland popular on social media with his own experiences of modern Irish life.
“Even in Athlone, my family was very surprised how built up it was. They definitely thought this was going to be a lot smaller of a town than it ended up being.”
Ben credited his more realistic view of Ireland to his Irish friends at home in New York.
"To really get a proper, modern, real Irish person's view and perspective on Ireland and what Irish hospitality looks like… I feel like I've been lucky to not have just a very like Americanized vision.”
From TikTok to Real-Life Connections
Ben’s videos also led to daily encounters with locals who recognised him from TikTok.
“Almost every day of the trip, someone came up to me and said, ‘Excuse me, I don’t mean this to be weird, but are you the guy from TikTok?’” he said. “I really felt like I just gained 3,000 new friends.”
For Ben, that sense of connection is the real purpose of creating content.
"I think social media can really be such a tool when it's used right," Ben said.
"It's just insane to me as a concept how small the world can become when you're putting yourself out there and you're using social media as a place of connection.
“I’m literally just like anyone else. I do it to make friends. That’s my mission: to try to make a bunch of friends all over the world wherever we can."