I remember the first time I learned from my father that we are Irish.  I was a little girl, not even old enough to go to school yet, and he told me that our name, O'Brien,  means that we are Irish.  I cannot explain it, but from that time forward, I was so very proud of my last name.  In the years that followed, I became more and more interested in my heritage, a past that was not shared with my father by his family.  I discovered that my father's great-grandfather had come to the United…