A Visit with Kilcommons Relatives

While I was in Ballinsloe, Martin Curley, whom I have gotten to know through the Internet, graciously offered to take me to see Keelogues East, the townland where Thomas Kilcommons, who is a close relative to my great-grandfather Daniel Kilcommons, came from. We asked about any Kilcommonses still living there, and were directed to the house of Michael Kilcommons. As we approached the house, we stopped to ask a farmer who was clipping hedges at the intersection if he knew Michael Kilcommons. It turned out that he was Michael Klcommons. He immediately invited us into his house and introduced us to his wife Marie, who was very interested in the family history. She gave us tea and showed us the information her family had put together about the Kilcommonses. She mentioned that there were supposedly two other brothers, Daniel and Thomas, who had gone to America and were not heard from again. The "missing" Thomas was the Thomas I had identified in the Pennsylvania records. In the meantime, Michael had called his sister Bernadette to come over. The two of them took us to the old Kilcommons house and to the cemetery.

Michael and Marie Kilcommons

Looking at some family records

Michael and Bernadette Kilcommons

In front of the Burke castle

In front of the Owen Kilcommons house

Kilmainham Jail, Dublin

On one of my last days in Dublin I went to Kilmainham jail. This is the jail that most Irish revolutionaries, from 1798 on, spent time in, and most died in.

Hangings took place above the main door, where they could be seen by everyone. 

This wing was added during the Victorian era, offering a lot of light, but keeping the prisoners isolated from each other, and in silence.

A view inside one of the cells

Many of the cells have the names of famous prisoners who were incarcerated in them.

Eamon de Valera's cell is on the left.

Crosses mark the execution sites of the 1916 rebels.

Daniel Curley was put to death for his role as one of "The Invincibles" who assassinated the newly-appointed Chief Secretary  for Ireland and the permanent Undersecretary in Phoenix Park, Dublin, in 1882. I haven't figured out yet if he is related.

Visit to St. Columcill/Columba's birthplace

I am going to abandon the chronological posts and do topical ones.

Fr. Eamonn Kelly, the administrator of the cathedral parish, took me to visit some places associated with St. Columcill.

We first went to the site of Columcill's birth.

Marker on the site of St. Columcill/Columba's birth

We then went to visit the site of his first monastery.

Columcill's Monastery

These two crosses mark the boundary of the monastery lands.

The Holy Well