Family Stories

Family Stories

CLIFDEN IN THE EARLY 1890s – Anonymous memoir recounting a childhood in Clifden in the early 1890s, with introduction by Kathleen Villiers-Tuthill.

CLIFDEN IN THE EARLY 1890s – Anonymous memoir recounting a childhood in Clifden in the early 1890s, with introduction by Kathleen Villiers-Tuthill.

The following is a short memoir by an unknown author, recounting a period in his youth, some 70 years earlier (probably in the early 1890s), when he lived with his family in Clifden. The typed script was found among some family papers, with no information or background on the author. […]

November 10, 2020 × 17 comments

Family Stories

The Olden Days in Connemara: Nees, Collins, Mannions, Tooles

The Olden Days in Connemara: Nees, Collins, Mannions, Tooles

I have many unanswered questions about the olden days in Connemara.  Perhaps writing will help to crystalise them and assist in the process of answering some. Having, now, some rudimentary knowledge about my forebears I can’t help but wonder about the day to day quality of their lives. What was […]

February 28, 2015 × 26 comments

Family Stories

Lacey and Faherty Family Story

Lacey and Faherty Family Story

Lacey and Faherty Family Story by Mary Lydon Simonsen   I saw on the Clifden/Connemara site that you are interested in emigration stories for those who went to North America as part of the Tuke’s Emigration Scheme. This is my family’s story.   My great, great grandparents, Michael and Bridgit Mulkerin […]

February 10, 2015 × 8 comments

Family Stories

The John Bernard Coyne Family in America

The John Bernard Coyne Family in America

An excerpt from “The John Bernard Coyne Family in America” by Robert Paul Hoffman We are not alone in this life. We take comfort in knowing that the spirits of our ancestors surround us in many ways, especially in the form of their teachings and the enrichment they have given […]

November 10, 2012 × 6 comments

Family Stories

Healy/Mulkerrin Family, Ardbear Clifden

Healy/Mulkerrin Family, Ardbear Clifden

Healy/Mulkerrin Family, Ardbear Clifden Patrick Healy was one of the early settlers of the new town of Clifden. The first documented mention of him is the list of freeholders published in the Connaught Journal in 1830. In the same newspaper published Nov 20 1834 he appears on a list of […]

May 22, 2012 × 1 comment

Family Stories

From Connemara to Coomooroo and beyond

From Connemara to Coomooroo and beyond

From Connemara to Coomooroo and beyond (with a few places in between) John Mannion, Australia. I will probably never know what my paternal, great, great grandfather, Michael Mannion, his wife Mary and their infant son, John Francis Mannion thought as they looked back at the shores of Ireland in c1865 […]

February 22, 2012 × 4 comments

Family Stories

Convict makes good in Australia, Greg Monaghan

Convict makes good in Australia, Greg Monaghan

My great great grandfather, Patrick Monaghan, was born in Clifden about 1826, the son of John Monaghan and Mary Kennealy. I know nothing of the early life of Patrick or of his parents or if he had any siblings. During the period of 1845 to 1849, the West Coast of […]

February 22, 2012 × 9 comments

Family Stories

Evans Family History, by Barry O’ Sullivan

Evans Family History, by Barry O’ Sullivan

Three O’ Sullivan headstones on Inchagoill, Sarah O’ Sullivan, nee Joyce   Who was Elisabeth Evans? When I was a young boy my father would bring my brothers and I to Inchagoill on Lough Corrib, each year in early August, to attend mass and pray that we would not drown […]

January 25, 2012 × 8 comments