Boyne area exploring roots through twinning partnership with Boyne Valley, Ireland

BOYNE CITY — The people of the Boyne area will have the opportunity to get back to their Irish roots as the city moves forward with its twinning partnership with the Boyne Valley in Ireland.

The idea for a sister city/twinning relationship between the two Boyne Valleys first came to hospitality and tourism consultant Gerry Meade in 2017 after he met two tourists from Michigan who explained that they had a Boyne Valley of their own.

Boyne City was established in 1856 by a couple named John and Harriet Miller who landed near the river and were struck by how much the landscape reminded them of their home in the Boyne Valley in Ireland, so they decided to name the region after it.

“That's where we tie some of our original settlements' beginnings to. That's what created the basis for wanting to reach out and twin with the Boyne Valley in Ireland, is basically the heritage of the area's first permanent settlers in what ultimately became known as Boyne City,” Boyne City Manager Michael Cain said.

Meade reached out and eventually, in 2018, Boyne City in Michigan asked a delegation of students from Voices Without Borders who were going to Ireland to bring a message and act as a first in-person contact between the regions.

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The following year, a delegation from Ireland visited Boyne City and officially sealed the twinning of the two Boyne Valleys. This twinning relationship is significant in that it is between two regions that encompass multiple cities and towns, rather than a sister city bond between two individual municipalities. Because of the unique nature of the relationship, the Irish side had to involve the local government minister Damien English, the Irish government department of heritage and culture, the national minister for tourism and the Irish ambassador to America, as well as the Irish Consulate in Chicago and the Trim Tourism Network team for the project. While the relationship encompasses the whole Boyne Valley, it is primarily between Boyne City and the Town of Trim in Meath County, Ireland.

Those involved in making the partnership happen are interested in much more than a symbolic relationship.

“We've been slowly working to build a relationship that will encourage visitors from Michigan and from our area to go over to visit the Boyne Valley there and visitors from the Boyne Valley in Ireland to come over and tour our areas as well too,” Cain said. “We're also trying to build economic relationships and things of that nature.”

The twinning project has been broken down into phases — education, tourism, culture/heritage and economic. The education portion has already been implemented with students at the elementary, middle and high school levels interacting with each other and learning about their heritage and another culture.

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The tourism phase is currently being organized and will include a twinning page on Boyne City’s new website and guided tours of each area.

Brian McClory is helping to put together the travel program for visitors to Michigan. He got involved in 2019 when his cousin David Gorey, who helped to launch the twinning project from Ireland, came to Michigan for the dedication ceremony. McClory was asked to speak during the dedication about his grandfather, who emigrated from Ireland’s Boyne Valley.

“So I sort of provided a connection between the Irish side of this and the American side of things,” McClory said.

With the help of Sharon Phelps and Bonnie Newcomer from Departure Travel Management in Birmingham, McClory has been creating a guided tour of Michigan, primarily the northwest region.

The tour starts with a direct flight from Dublin to Chicago where visitors will spend a few days before heading up the west side of Michigan in buses. They’ll stop at Sleeping Bear Dunes, Traverse City, Charlevoix and Boyne City where they will stay at Boyne Mountain before ending the nine-day trip in Mackinaw City and Mackinac Island. The longer version of the tour will be two weeks long and will continue from Mackinac to the U.P.

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“Travel and economics are sort of linked. The tourists come to spend money here, as do the American tourists who will be traveling to the Boyne Valley in Ireland and so it's an economic boost for the area as well as it's culturally enlightening for the people who are traveling,” McClory said.

Eventually, the regions are hoping to establish economic connections outside of tourism by encouraging businesses to sell local products to the other region and possibly opening locations in each region, like an Irish pub in Boyne City.

As part of the cultural exchange, the twinning project is aiming to establish mutually-celebrated events around holidays like Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day.

Outside of holidays, Meade said they want to do genealogy work with Boyne City residents to trace their Irish heritage.

“People can really track their roots, so if they are coming from Boyne Valley, they might even be able to go around Ireland and find out whereabouts their ancestors came from,” Meade said.

Connections beyond heritage have already been discovered. The East Jordan Foundry, or EJ, is a global iron works company with its American headquarters in East Jordan, Michigan. The company has a manufacturing facility and sales office in County Offaly in Ireland.

Representatives from the company attended the first ceremony in Ireland in 2018 and made a ceremonial plaque to mark the occasion, which is now on display in Boyne City Hall.

“Boyne Valley is such an important part of Ireland. It's so historic and all our major history happened here,” Meade said.

“I guess that's probably one reason why John Miller and Harriet, the founders of (Michigan) Boyne City and Boyne Valley, were probably thinking ‘Wow if ever an area in this part of Michigan deserves a name that's called after what we think is the most important, the most beautiful part of Ireland.’ That would have been another reason why he put Boyne down as the title.”

— Contact reporter Tess Ware at tware@petoskeynews.com. Follow her on Twitter, @Tess_Petoskey.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Boyne City builds on twinning partnership with Boyne Valley, Ireland