Heirloomica

By Alexander Ziwahatan (first-person narrative) People imagine trumpets when they hear that my ancesto r carried the blood of Irish kings. They want banners, stag crests, a green ridge in Cavan lit by myth. But the power that shaped Sgt. Edward Maelmórdha Riley (1758–1821) was quieter and more useful. It was parish and courthouse, bond and deed, handshakes that meant something, roads that stayed passable after the thaw. And threaded through all that practicality ran a startling, documented kinship: Edward was first cousin to Thomas Jefferson —both grandsons of Colonel Isham Randolph of Dungeness . Jefferson supplied the sentence of an age; Edward supplied the steadiness to live it. I tell his story the way I learned to see him—at the crossing of memory and mechanism, of lost crowns and working counties, of ideas and obligations. If he had a kingdom, he carried it quietly. If he had influence, it came not from spectacle but from belonging. I. The Two Inheritances Before there was Edwar...