LISTEN: "You are what your mother is" - the bar line that led André Archimbaud to his Irish roots

André Archimbaud carries a French surname, an Italian American and Irish American upbringing, and a heritage that took a stranger in a bar to unlock. On the latest episode of Irish Stew, recorded at Ryan's Daughter on Manhattan's Upper East Side, he explains how five words set him on a path through U2, a 1997 road trip around Killarney, and a double rainbow over Inchydoney Beach in West Cork.

Andre Archimbaud spent his life carrying three passports' worth of heritage: a French surname, an Italian-American and Irish-American upbringing. While André's Irish identity may be masked by his last name, there is little doubt about the depth of that legacy. This episode, recorded at Ryan's Daughter on the Upper East Side, traces how Archimbaud came to understand that inheritance at a deeper level.

It started years earlier at a bar in Washington Heights, where a stranger, several drinks in, turned to him and said, "You are what your mother is," invoking a mitochondrial logic André had never considered. Two weeks of digging into his maternal line turned up a great-grandfather from Sligo and a great-great-grandmother born in Dublin. From there, U2, a 1997 road trip through Killarney, and a growing engagement with Irish radio and Irish Twitter did the rest.

André’s other education came from his father, a man who rose from a cramped East Orange apartment to sit on the US Olympic Committee, and who taught his son to network simply by being watched. "It imprinted in me the sort of how to do this," he says, a skill that now underwrites Clearly Now Media, the digital agency he launched after nearly two decades in paid search and social advertising.

Even the agency's name has an Irish thread: a Hothouse Flowers cover of "I Can See Clearly Now," framed on his living room wall, that his girlfriend pointed to when he needed a name.

André closes on a quieter note, reflecting on two days alone on Inchydoney Beach in West Cork, sun and rain, and a double rainbow that stayed with him through a season of change.

Up next week on Irish Stew, Irish jazz singer Austin O’Brien, fresh from his recording session in one of the most storied recording studios in jazz.

Listen to Andre Archimbaud on "The Irish Stew" here: 

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