Michael Kilkelly, of Rye Hill is my grandfather who moved to the USA and lived in Nashua, New Hampshire until the winter of 1907 when he died leaving my father John Thomas Kilkelly (later Kelly because of a birth certificate error) and his mother Nell Gilhooley of Arigna, Letrim and his three brothers James Kilkelly, Frank Kilkelly and Thomas Kilkelly without a father.
When I visited Ireland with my children in 1982 and our hostess in a bed and breakfast in Galway told us to walk with our back packs to Rye Hill "up that road to the Kilkellys" we began walking and after a bit Kevin Kelly of Monivea picked us up in his car and headed us in the right direction to go to see Mick Flesk, a cousin in the cottage on the left after we walked by a stone house on the left which Mick later said was Michael Kilkelly's birth place.
Gus, Lonya and I had a wonderful visit with Mick Flesk (thanks to a cousin in Massachusetts) who lived beyond - a wooden house with tower behind on the right which he said was the Kilkelly family's current home.
Mick served us a drink and we chatted a while before his peat fire and as we left he gave us a view of his land and then "waxed poetic" about it being "grand on the bog"... Mick owned bog rights and grazed 80 sheep on his land and hearing the lilt of his words was a gift.
With Mick's encouragement we stopped by the wooden Kilkelly home with horses in the field out back and no one answered the door so we kept walking to Kevin Kelly's Inn where we had a bite to eat before he took us to a hotel in Athenry....
Later in the 1980's, my red headed sister Joyce drove a rented car to the wooden Kilkelly home and visited with the family and so this note from me now is sent to thank Kevin for so kindly driving my two children and I and to reconnect with him if possible and just for fun - I believe he was studying computers at that time...
I'd like to visit Ireland again, maybe with my sister this time.... just for "old time" sake... and, I wonder if the old stone house has survived and would love to connect with any part of the Kilkelly family who may still be there....
I lived in the USA until 1996 when I came to Mexico and built a stone house in a land group which adheres to Permaculture Principals... and now I understand that Michael's wife, Nell Gilhooley (my father's mother) from Arigna in Letrim, was born in and lived her early life in an area which is now "the Permaculture center of Ireland"....
So, it would also be fun to trade houses with another Permaculture person, or just visit the west again.....and finally get to Letrim and the Shannon River too.
Thanks for any assistance anyone can give .....
Mari Patkelly .....
