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He played tourist this week, visiting the church in Ireland where great-great-great-relatives were married, christened and more, while conjuring their ancestral spirits. He also dropped in on a fellow living musical legend.
Bruce also had a mighty craic at a local pub, leading an impromptu singalong of (what else?) "My Hometown."
"You guys are all fired in the E Street Band, I'm hiring these people!" he told his new friends to raucous laughs at The Burrow in Rathangan.
The Boss then tried -- and sheepishly failed -- to pull a pint.
No matter, though. There wasn't a dryshite in the house.
Rathangan, in County Kildare, is where Springsteen's great-great-grandmother Anne Garrity lived before coming to America on the SS Artic in 1853 during the Famine.
She settled with her parents in New Jersey and had a daughter of her own -- Springsteen’s great-grandmother Jenni McNicolas -- who lived on the same block in Freehold where Bruce would be raised.
Shane MacGowan of the Pogues and his wife, Victoria Mary Clarke, enjoyed a spirited visit and received some rough mixes from an album that the 65-year-old Celtic punk singer-songwriter and Springsteen have been working on.
"Such a truly wonderful man and a total genius!” Clarke wrote in sharing a photo.
Springsteen received gifts, as well, including a St. Bridget cross, author Seamus Kelly's "A Rumble In Rathangan," a book of William A. Byrne poetry and a library card during his mini-tour, said Mark Stafford, a member of Kildare County Council.
He was also treated to a brief performance by a children's dance company (photo at top) and an undisturbed walk through the land that his ancestors trod.
Springsteen was brought to Mount Prospect "and shown the location of the two possible sites of the Garrity homestead," Stafford noted.
It was then on to Wilsons Bridge on the Grand Canal, "where his great great great grandfather worked guided by local resident Fergus Burke," he added.
Springsteen was then "taken to the old graveyard in Rathangan and shown the Rath," Stafford wrote, "then onto the former St. Patricks Church now the community centre where Christy Garrity and Catherine Kelly were married and where Annie Garrity was baptized.
"It was very much a private visit a last minute closely guarded secret," Stafford added. "I know many many people would like to have met him but those were the terms of the visit.
"[B]ut he did agree to an official visit in the future and to hopefully plant the tree!"
SEE STAFFORD'S FULL POST HERE: It's official! Bruce Springsteen comes home.
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