The O’Connors Who Stayed

In 1901, James O’Connor O’Brien and his family lived here on Ballyhooley Road. His late brother Michael’s family lived right down the street. They were the ones who stayed in Ireland when seven siblings had left, one by one, for Boston. James was at the end of a military career that had taken him around

Street Fighting Man

Digging up research on our ancestors unearths bad news with the good.  Michael O’Connor was arrested for street fighting on December 13, 1880 in Cork City. He was fined and spent four days in jail. Police described him as 23 years old, 5’8,” with brown hair, grey eyes, and a sallow complexion. Because the report

St. Finbarr’s

St. Finbarr’s South Church is the oldest in Cork City — open since 1766. Named for the legendary founder of the city, it sits on a side street near the River Lee. It’s thanks to their deep records that I know my maternal ancestors go back pretty far in this very old neighborhood called South

Departure

It was from here in Cobh, on the southern coast of Ireland, that the last 123 passengers of the Titanic walked these planks on April 12, 1912, setting off on their fateful trip across the Atlantic. Bound for New York, most never arrived. But you know that story. Now decayed and known as “Heartbreak Pier,”

Empty Mine

I found this metaphor for my research project sitting in an empty field on the far southwest coast of the Beara Peninsula, in County Cork, Ireland. This is the Kealogue Copper Mine in Allihies, a small village that sits between the mountains and the sea. The structure is an engine house which held a steam

Mysteries

Angela Lansbury lived nearby, of that I was certain. She had a nice house a short distance down the road, overlooking the Irish Sea, surrounded by fields of barley. What I was less certain of, is whose farm lay before me. My research led me to believe that it is a place of my family’s

The Short Tragic Life of Bernard O’Connor O’Brien

Thin alleyways used to spindle off the main roads of Cork City back when my ancestors lived here in the 1800s. Most are gone now, but Sullivan Alley remains. Accessible through a hole in the street’s facade, it’s like a secret place. For my family, it holds a long-lost tragic story. In 1921, this was

Evicted and Returned

The O’Keeffes go back a long way in East Cork. The earliest record I can link to my direct family is from in 1813 — the baptism of my third great-grandfather James O’Keeffe. But there are older O’Keeffe records than that. A recent trip to the area brought me to Churchtown South near Cloyne where

Drizzly and Grey

My two days of meandering in the South Parish section of Cork City were drizzly and grey, affording only a few opportunities to stop and draw on the sidewalks. A number of families that fed into my family tree lived here in the 1800s and I was on a mission to record these places using

The Forge

This charming, thatched-roof house in the tiny crossroads hamlet of Churchtown South, County Cork, is where my great-grandmother Ellen Ivers was born in 1874. She was married in the church behind the house and emigrated to Rhode Island in 1906 with her husband, Daniel O’Keefe, and her two baby boys. Other Ivers and O’Keefes preceded