Our Irish Family

My husband John, cousin Breda, cousin John, brother-in-law Matt, cousin Anne, sister Cynthia, Carrick-on-Shannon, Aug. 30, 2013

I have been away from blogging for a while as I indicated in my last post.  The picture above is the last day of our visit to Ireland less than a month ago.  We were getting ready to board a bus for a 2 hour ride to Dublin Airport for a short visit in Scotland before returning home.  My sister, her husband and my husband had a week long trip visiting our Irish cousins and the homestead lands where my great grandfather was born and from which he departed for new opportunities in the USA in the 1850's.  The actual story of my trip starts in March of 2012.

Aer Lingus flight from Chicago to Dublin

My traveling companions, Day 1, Dublin, March 2012

One of my coworkers had found a wonderful deal on a trip to Ireland and was looking for people to join her in March 2012 with plans on being in Ireland for St. Patrick's Day.   So a group of us (eight ladies) made our deposits and departed for a 10 day trip to Ireland arriving in Dublin and driving to Adare on the West Coast of the Emerald Isle. I was super excited because seeing Ireland had always been on my "Bucket List". 

Everyone had their "must do" list for our Ireland trip.  Some of my companions wanted to see castles, the Ring of Kerry, the Dingle Peninsula, a St. Paddy's Day parade, etc.  My desire was to travel north to Roscommon Co. and search for the birth place of my great grandparents, Bartley Conlon and Catherine O'Byrne.  Years ago I had been given an account of my Conlon family history by my father's sister which included the birth place of both of my great grandparents in Ireland.  As far as I knew, none of our American Conlon clan had seen the lands that my grandparents left nor made any contact with relatives there.  On March 16, 2012 I decided to hire the driver who had taken our group to Dingle to take me north to the town of Carrick-on-Shannon and search for Curries which I knew to be the birth place of my great grandfather.  It took us about 3 hours of driving from Adare to reach Carrick.  My driver stopped in town and started asking workers along the river front if they had heard of Curries or of any Conlons in the area.  Within about 45 minutes of landing in Carrick-on-Shannon my driver was knocking on the door of John Conlon.

I couldn't believe my eyes.  There was no doubt this man was related to me.  He could have been the twin of my cousin in Warrenton, VA, Bart Conlon, Jr.  John knew of my grandfather, Peter J. Conlon and had been trying to make contact with the American Conlons for years.  John took me to the place where my great grandfather was born pictured above on the river Shannon.  John now owns this land.  After exchanges of documents and family histories we finally determined that our great great grandfathers were brothers.

In September of 2012 my sister Cynthia arranged for a Conlon family reunion in Alexandria, VA.  My cousin John flew from Ireland to meet his American relatives (about 100 of them),  I flew from the West Coast to meet John again and attend the reunion.  I believe that as far as air miles were concerned, I had the longer trip.  I promised John that I would return to Ireland in the fall of 2013.

In April of this year my sister, Cynthia and I began plans for our trip.  My journey started by flying from Medford to Portland to Washington, DC to meet my sister and her husband.
From DC we all flew to Boston where we picked up our Aer Lingus flight to Dublin.
The day after we landed in Dublin we took the train to Carrick-on-Shannon.  None of us were brave enough to drive in Ireland (the left side of the road and all that).

John and his wife Anne put us up in one of the fishing cottages that John owns, feed us, entertained us and carted us about showing us the beautiful land and hospitality that is Ireland.  We had the opportunity to get to know our cousins better and to appreciate the lands that our forefathers left.

 
   Next post...I will share more of our Ireland trip and some wonderful pictures.