Somewhere in a shoebox in North Carolina, there is a bundle of letters tied with a ribbon. They are written in an elderly Irish hand, postmarked from Roscommon, and addressed to a young woman in Maryland who had come to visit once and could not quite bring herself to stop.

Anna Marie Jehorek has been coming to Boyle since 1983. She is a travel blogger, a novelist, and an award-winning Irish dancer. But the thread that connects all of it goes back to a three-room cottage in Croghan with a turf fire that had not gone out in decades, and a grand uncle she had never met until she was nineteen.

A First Trip That Changed Everything

Anna Marie grew up in Maryland, in the suburbs of Washington D.C. Her mother’s maiden name was Mullaney, and her grandfather had been born in a townland called Ina, near Croghan in Co. Roscommon. He had a brother, Ned, who had stayed behind. None of them had ever met him.

In 1983, Anna Marie and her mother flew to Ireland to change that. They met Ned. They cried when they left. Anna Marie looked at the three of them and thought: this just will not do.

She started writing letters. Ned wrote back. The letters were brief and warm and entirely typical of the era: the weather, the arthritis, the photographs he called snaps, and always, how are ye. She went back to visit when she could. She took photographs of the cottage. She went to Sunday mass with him, collected the papers from the shop across from the church in Croghan, and spent the morning reading by the fire.

“I can almost smell the turf burning as I turned down his road,” she told Carlo and Florence. “I just knew: I’m almost there.”

“The minute I got here it was like I was just calm. I call it my happy place. There is just something about being here.”

The Cottage, the Letters and the Goodbye

Ned’s cottage had been in the family since around 1830. Three rooms. A turf fire that had burned continuously, Ned told Anna Marie, for decades, possibly since the previous generation, banked at night and stirred back to life in the morning. The house was essentially unchanged from how it had always been.

Anna Marie took a photograph of it on one of her visits in the early 1990s. A friend painted it in watercolour. When she came to publish her first novel years later, she knew immediately what the cover should be.

Her mother came back to Ireland with her in 1993. They both knew it was likely a farewell visit. Ned was elderly and in a nursing home. He died the week before they arrived.

They went to the cemetery. A neighbour stopped them. He had visited Ned not long before the end. He said: he knew you were coming. That was all he talked about.

“He spared us that goodbye,” Anna Marie said quietly.

Staying at Glencarne House

Anna Marie and her mother found Glencarne House, near Ardcarne, on their very first visit, booked through the tourist office in town. When they arrived, Agnes Harrington was not there, but her young son Paul served them tea and pie. Anna Marie’s mother was charmed.

The welcome was so genuine that Glencarne House became Anna Marie’s base for every subsequent visit. On one occasion she rang ahead through a travel agent only to be told there were no rooms available. She could hear Mrs. Harrington on the other end of the phone. Then came the response: well, why didn’t you say it was Anna Marie? She found a room in the back.

“That was when I was like, I just love this place,” Anna Marie said.

The experience of staying there, the breakfast table with other travellers comparing notes on where they had been, the warmth of being treated like family, directly inspired her second novel.

Two Novels Set in Boyle and Lough Key

Anna Marie’s first book, The Cottage on Lough Key, grew from a simple image: what would it be like to live in a little cottage on the lake? The story moves between Lough Key and North Carolina, with the landscape of the area at its heart. Her mother had given her a journal on that very first trip and told her to write everything down. She never stopped.

The second novel, The House with the Georgian Door, was inspired by Glencarne House, though the story and its characters are entirely fictional. It follows a woman who returns to Boyle from London and takes on the renovation of a Georgian manor to run as a bed and breakfast. Writing it, Anna Marie could picture every room.

She is currently 48,000 words into a third book.

She held a book signing at Una Bhán in Boyle in May 2016, filling her suitcase with as many copies as she could carry without going overweight on the flight. She says it is something she will always remember.

“There is no soil like Boyle soil. There is just something about being here. Like a magnet.”

Pull Over and Let Me Out

Anna Marie’s travel blog is called Pull Over and Let Me Out. The name came from a road trip she took with a childhood friend, recreating a Girl Scouts journey from Maryland to Williamsburg, Virginia. She insisted on stopping at every historic marker along the way. Her friend eventually gave in. The phrase stuck.

The blog launched in 2012 and focuses largely on the United States, because Anna Marie believes each American state is its own distinct country with its own flavour. But Ireland features regularly, and the northwest of Ireland in particular. She says she has to tell most Americans where Roscommon is. She gets her nose bent out of shape about it. She considers it the best part of the country.

She launched a podcast of the same name in August of the year this episode was recorded. She also helps plan Irish itineraries for American travellers who want guidance on where to go and how to manage their time.

North American Irish Dance Champion

In 2003, Anna Marie was looking for a tap dancing class for adults when the Inishkarta School of Irish Dance in Raleigh, North Carolina appeared in her search. She had always wanted to try Irish dancing. She signed up for a beginner adult class, learned to skip, and has been dancing ever since.

In 2023, her team won the North American championships in the ladies eight-hand ceili, dancing a piece called Trip to the Cottage. When you are dancing, she says, you are not worried about anything else.

On this particular visit to Ireland, she was attending the TBEX travel writers conference in Donegal when she found herself in a pub during a trad session. She mentioned to the woman beside her that she was an adult Irish dancer. The woman said she was too. They got up and did a jig together. The woman turned out to know Anna Marie’s dance instructor back in Raleigh.

The Heart of Ireland

The episode ends with Anna Marie reading a passage from the author’s note in her first book. She describes being given a T-shirt during one of her visits to Boyle. On the T-shirt was a drawing of Ireland with a red heart marked exactly where Boyle sits on the map. Inside the heart was the name of the town. The shirt read: the Heart of Ireland.

She got emotional reading it aloud. She always does.

For Anna Marie, the connection to Boyle is not just ancestral, though it starts there. It is the turf smoke she can smell before she turns down her grand uncle’s road. It is the warmth of a room found in the back for her specifically. It is the neighbour who said: he knew you were coming. It is Lough Key, which she climbed the tower of alone on her first visit, knowing it was extraordinary and that most people would never find it.

She has been coming back for over forty years. She plans to keep coming back.

“Why would I go anywhere else?” she said.

Listen to the Full Episode

This conversation is warm, funny, and genuinely moving. A beautiful episode about what this part of the world means to people who were not born here but found their way here anyway.

Anna Marie’s travel blog and podcast: pulloverandletmeout.com

Her books The Cottage on Lough Key and The House with the Georgian Door are available on Amazon.

Instagram: @annamariepulloverandletmeout

Key Timestamps

00:00 — Welcome from Carlo and Florence

00:20 — Who Anna Marie is: Maryland, North Carolina, and the Mulany connection

01:00 — First trip to Ireland in 1983 at 19, meeting grand uncle Ned Mullaney

01:29 — Pen pal letters that started after the visit

02:12 — Memories of Boyle in the 1980s: vibrant, discos, young people everywhere

02:42 — Staying at Glencarne House with Agnes Harrington

03:08 — Ned’s cottage in Croghan: three rooms, turf fire, Sunday mass and newspapers

03:50 — The fire that had not gone out for decades

04:25 — The cottage as the cover of her first book, now in ruin

05:00 — Glencarne House and the Mrs. Harrington room-finding story

06:53 — The second trip with her mother in 1993, Ned passing the week before they arrived

07:50 — The neighbour who said: he knew you were coming, that was all he talked about

09:25 — The pen pal letters: weather, snaps, how are ye

09:32 — Letters tied with ribbon in a shoebox

11:25 — Getting a phone put in, the first phone call from America

14:56 — Favourite memory of Boyle: Lough Key, climbing the Moylurg Tower alone

16:00 — The castle, the tunnels, the Norman history

16:23 — The travel blog Pull Over and Let Me Out, started 2012

17:00 — How the blog got its name: historic markers and a road trip

17:47 — Off the beaten path: the house built in the shape of a shoe in Pennsylvania

19:20 — Favourite destination outside Ireland: the US itself, and Quebec

20:46 — The books: The Cottage on Lough Key

21:02 — Her mother’s journal advice from the very first trip

22:15 — The story of the second novel: The House with the Georgian Door

25:13 — 48,000 words into a third book

28:21 — Launching a podcast: Pull Over and Let Me Out

29:04 — The future of storytelling and blogging, and the return to authentic voice

34:10 — Irish dance: Inishkarta School in Raleigh, North Carolina, started 2003

35:25 — Winning the North American championships in 2023

36:12 — Doing a jig in a pub in Donegal, meeting a fellow dancer who knew her instructor

37:01 — The TBEX travel writers conference in Donegal

37:51 — Helping plan Irish itineraries for American travellers

38:46 — Championing Roscommon and the northwest to American tourists

39:19 — Connection to Thomas Mullaney, who has appeared on the podcast

40:15 — Family trip to Boyle in 2016, staying at the Abbey House

42:19 — Reading the author’s note from The Cottage on Lough Key

42:58 — Boyle is the heart of Ireland

45:05 — Where to find Anna Marie: pulloverandletmeout.com and Amazon

Guest Bio

Anna Marie Jehorek (nee Dunbar) is a travel blogger, author and Irish dancer based in North Carolina. Her mother’s maiden name was Mullaney and her connection to the Boyle area traces back to her grandfather, who was born near Croghan, Co. Roscommon. She first visited Ireland in 1983 at the age of nineteen and has returned regularly ever since. She is the author of two novels set in and around Boyle and Lough Key: The Cottage on Lough Key and The House with the Georgian Door. She runs the travel blog and podcast Pull Over and Let Me Out (pulloverandletmeout.com) and is an award-winning adult Irish dancer at the Inishkarta School of Irish Dance in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her team won the North American championships in the ladies eight-hand ceili in 2023.