The Family News Letter Vol.7 |
Articles: The Irish Catholic Parish Registers
Killeeshil Parish American Prospects (No Irish Need Apply) The Latter Day Wild Geese |
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The Ardagh Chalice |
Above Panel: This volume center panel features Hugh O’Neil 2nd Earl of Tyrone and Irish freedom fighter. He led an unsuccessful rebellion against English rule and Irish domination by Elizabeth 1 and her
successor James 1. The O‘Neil and the O’Donnell clan fled Ireland after their defeat at Kisale in what is known as The Flight of the Earls.
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The Duffy Family Dungannon, Tyrone
First Generation |
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Our American story is much the same as so many other families in that we can
trace our roots to a different place and time where the promise of
economic and spiritual fulfillment was becoming increasingly difficult. My
mother came to America from Drumnafern County
Tyrone Ireland in 1929 when she was seventeen years old to find work and
help to support her family. I’m not at all sure if she thought of the move
as permanent, because I felt initially that she had every intention of returning
and making a life for herself back home. It is not as though she did not have
any family here, her brother John had come just six months earlier, and her
uncles Mick and Terance had been here for a dozen years. She was not
alone. Over the years I came to realize that there was a much broader network
that held them together, gave them strength and solace through the difficult
times, a community that made the transition less difficult. They were her
family, friends and neighbors, what I refer to as Ireland’s Latter Day Wild
Geese.
In my early childhood years I off course knew my mother’s brother, my
Uncle John, and I have many pleasant memories of our visits to his home in
Brooklyn, NY. When I began to put together my genealogical tree almost
thirty years ago and pull together all those early memories, the source for all
those names became clear. Places such as Drumnafern and Reaskmore,
Killeeshil, Tullyallan. Names like Mallon, McCann, Lucas, Duggan, McCool,
and Comac appear in the census records of 1901 and 1911 and those names and are
part of my earliest memories. When Terance Duffy passed away suddenly in
1939, Pat McCool became a guardian for Luke, Terance and James. Evelyn,
their sister was taken in by Terance’s brother Mick Duffy and his wife Bridget.
Pat McCool left his job as a construction sandhog and purchased a farm in
Poukeepsie, NY, a place I had visited in 1960 with my mother and my Uncle John.
The McCanns were related through marriage to the Mallon family in Reaskmore and
they came to Brooklyn in the 1920’ and were instrumental in sponsoring several
of the Mallon and Duffy family members soon to follow. John Lucas and Lizzy
Duggan who became husband and wife were both expatriates. John Lucas
became a very successful contractor and helped build much the town of Long Beach
NY in the 1940’s. Rose Comac was arguably my mother’s closest friend and
confidant through the years. When difficulties arose they would come to
the aid of one another, just as their families had done back home in Ireland.
Practicing genealogy is like building a house. We
study and put together the structure, but there is more that makes it a home.
The stories passed down from generation to generation are the furniture, and
decorative artifacts that bring warmth and comfort to our lives. As I
pursue our story further, I am sure that more of those people that touched our
lives will be added and maybe bring back another name or face from the distant
recesses of my mind. After all this is an ongoing discovery.