SUSAN Boyle has hinted she may swap Scotland for her ancestral home of Ireland.
The singer has already started researching her family tree back to the emerald isle and hopes to return to her Irish roots.
Susan, speaking ahead of St Patrick’s Day, said: “I love Ireland. Everyone is so welcoming – they make me feel at home every time I go back.”
Asked if she was thinking about moving to live there, she replied: “There’s a big question mark over that. Nobody knows the future.”
The 50-year-old star of Britain’s Got Talent revealed that she had been laying some of the ground work for a possible move.
“Someone dropped a family tree over to me,” she said. “It’s a huge mystery. I’ve got a lot of Celtic blood. I know it goes back to the 1850’s to Ireland, Scotland and England.
“I’d love to know more,” said Susan, speaking at her home in Blackburn,West Lothian.
Family History
Susan’s family history has been linked to Buncrana, Donegal, and she has visited several times since she was a child.
She said: “I went to Buncrana and spent some time there in my twenties. I used to go to the pictures with my uncle Michael. I love it, it hasn’t changed a bit.
Although it has been widely reported that her parents were Irish immigrants from Donegal, a check at the General Register Office for Scotland, in Edinburgh, shows the truth is closer to home.
Both her parents, Bridget McLaughlin and Patrick Boyle, were born in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, in October 1915 and April 1916 respectively.
Her maternal grandparents, John and Mary McLaughlin, married in Londonderry – “Derry” in the 1914 marriage certificate – show that John was a tramcar driver but the records stop there.
And her paternal grandparents, Mary and Patrick Boyle, a private in the Scottish Rifles, married in Motherwell in 1915.
The certificate records their parents as Patrick and Jane Riley and Patrick and Ann Boyle.
Again, the trace goes cold, strongly suggesting any further research by Susan will have to be done in Belfast and Dublin.
The news that Susan is considering moving to Ireland, prompted concern in Yule Terrace, Blackburn, where the singer still lives in the former council house she once shared with her parents.
Brian Smith, 54, who lives three doors down from the star said: “We want her to stay. I’ve known her for forty years, she’s one of my closest friends.
“I knew her mum and dad very well and it wouldn’t be right for her to leave.
“It would be better for Susan to stay where people will look after her and care for her, and it would be better for us because it keeps Blackburn on the map.
“She gives the town a good reputation. It would be terrible if she left after all this time,” he added.
But Martin Gallagher, 42, owner of the Halfway House pub in Inishowen, Donegal, said: “I’m single so if she’s looking for someone, I’ll be here waiting for her.
“It would be great. I met her last time she was here and she’s a lovely woman. It would be brilliant for Buncrana if she lived here. She has relations here and visits quite a lot so people are well used to her here. She’d be welcomed with open arms that’s for sure.
Claire McGowan, owner of The Beach house restaurant in Buncrana aslo added that Susan would be welcomed in the locality.
“We’d love it. She had lunch here last time she was over and was saying how much she loved Donegal. It would be great for the village if she came to stay.”
