Come Back to Erin

Over the green sea, Mavourneen, Mavourneen,
Long shone the white sail that bore thee away,
Riding the white waves that fair summer morn in',
Just like a Mayflower afloat on the bay.
Oh! but my heart sank when clouds came between us.
Like a gray curtain the rain falling down,
Hid from my sad eyes the path o'er the ocean.

These few lines from the popular Irish Folk Song, Come back to Erin, make me think of the ancestors I will be chasing when I visit Ireland later in the year. I imagine that my ancestors' parents' hearts also sank when they farewelled their young adult children to the land down under and far, far away.

The home my great-grandmother, Mary Kealy, left behind in Ballyfoyle, Kilkenny

My two DNA tests confirm that I am more then half Irish - Dad's side is all Irish while Mum has a famine orphan and a convict from County Down.

As I prepare for my pilgrimage I am concentrating my clean-up/do-over efforts on the Irish branches of my tree that have been sadly neglected and relegated to the too-hard basket. This is a time consuming task as, years ago, I was not to so particular about recording my sources and now I am paying the price. So I am spending my days finding those sources and checking out new resources that have come online. I have been able to find several records in the National Library of Ireland's Catholic Parish Registers but scrolling through these is very hard on the eyes.

I only have ten days in Ireland which Mr GeniAus has agreed can be totally focused on family history. Working out an itinerary that fits in with the repositories I want to visit is proving to be quite a challenge. I also want to revisit ancestral towns and villages, wander through a few cemeteries and find some living cousins. That's a tall order for ten days!

Meanwhile I'll go back to cleaning up the files I have on my Irish immigrant ancestors:

Catherine Connolly, Mary Cregan, Patrick Curry, Eliza D'Arcy, Mary Kealy, Catherine Maxwell, Michael Molloy, Ellen Moore, Bridget Ryan, Denis Tierney.

I'll need the Luck of the Irish to sort this lot out.