I have always known that I was partially Irish. Certainly not the biggest part. But it has always been the part that seemed to have the strongest pull for me. I had been to Ireland once before, many years ago and I didn’t want to leave. It would have taken very little encouragement for me to pack up and move there. That’s how strong the pull was and is. But at that time, I had no idea where, when or who my ancestors were. This time was completely different.

My mom’s mother was fully Irish and died when my mother was 2. Out of what I believe was deep grief, my grandfather never talked about her and would never allow anyone else to talk about her. While my mother was able to see my grandmother’s half siblings, they were never allowed to talk about her mother because if they did, they would never see my mother again. Over the years, she and I talked about her. But we didn’t even know her name, just Nellie Olson, her married name.  Once my grandfather died, my mom reached out to a cousin, and he was able to begin to fill in some of the blank spaces. She also received a couple of letters from her uncle, her mother’s half-brother. All of which gave us some clues, the biggest one being her name, Ellen E. Kennedy.

Over the last several years Mom and I have been slowly gathering bits and pieces of information from the few items she had, pictures, a couple of old letters, and of course tons of time on all the usual websites looking for clues. This gave us names of people and places, basic details about who Nellie’s family was. Newspaper articles, tiny bits of information from distant family all helped, but nothing that could have prepared me for the feeling that I had the day I went to Gortahumma, the place where my great grandfather Michael Joseph Kennedy is from. Something that would not have happened without Tom Kennedy! I never would have found the townland, much less all the places that we discovered.  Thank you still doesn’t seem like enough, Tom. And a thank you to Dan Ryan, who happened to be walking along the road as we were on this adventure and agreed to come along with us and show us the way to the places he knew about.

It has been several months since that day and I still don’t have a lot of words to adequately describe what it was like that day, other than the phrase from an old John Denver song, “coming home to a place I’ve never been before”. First, it was just plain fun! Even without the connection, it was just fun to explore the places where the pieces of cottages still stand. But the feeling of knowing that these cottages belonged to my ancestors, that I was walking where they spent their day to day lives, was humbling and grounding and still brings tears to my eyes.  Second, I felt like I had finally filled in a missing piece. All the years of wondering, searching and speculating finally had something tangible to anchor to. Third, it was immensely satisfying. I have done a great deal of work on this side of our family tree. It was like history had come to life, my history.

To give you a bit of my family tree and a little context to the pictures Michael Joseph Kennedy was the son of Edward Kennedy and Bridget Crowe. He was one of 8 or 9 children:

Mary Anne (b.1855) who married James Spillane (b. 1845)

Nora (no D.O.B.) who went to Clinton, Iowa and married John Delaney also from Ireland.

Johanna (b. 1859) who also went to Clinton Iowa and married William Dinan – eventually moved to Chicago but went back to Clinton when her health failed and eventually died there.

Dennis (b.1860) – the story goes that he got mad when his father gave the farm to the oldest daughter, Mary, as a dowry. He also went to Clinton Iowa, lived with Nora until he married Ellen Hayes. Eventually he moved his family to Chicago. His grandson wrote that he never spoke of his parents again after he moved. He was murdered in Chicago in 1908 in a fight over the operation of a crane.

Bridget (b. 1862) who married Patrick Murphy

Margaret (b. 1866) who married Richard Burke

Michael (b. 1867) – my great grandfather – he too moved to the US and lived in Chicago. He married Bridget Fitzgerald and they had one daughter, Ellen, my grandmother. Michael died in 1902 by sleepwalking into an air shaft of some sort and falling through a skylight 4 stories.

Edward (b.1869) who died as an infant

Sara (b. 1871) who also died as an infant

The 1911 census had Bridget Kennedy still living at Gortahumma with her daughter Margaret and son-in-law Richard Burke. I have no death records for her or for Edward (possibly Edmund).

            It was a trip of a lifetime and I can’t wait to go back.