Minu iiri vanaemaga - Keohane (Crowley)

As I plan my trip to Ireland; finally settled on a place, one place and then go forth from there (thanks brother Paul; mulling over what you said about a “home base” rather than lugging my luggage around, and given I’ve rented a car) to…where the Spirit leads, in speaking with my sibblings I was provided with a copy of my grandmother’s birth certificate, I am even more determined to try and “dig up” some of my “long lost relatives.”  In the quest for more info, I came across a Keohane web site in West Cork County – where my relatives are from.  They had a reunion in 2006…perhaps they shall have another soon.  I also came across another blog and a person was asking about someone with the same name as my grandfather, from the same district, so I responded; kes teab?

My grandmother is from Glengarriff County which is south and west of the City of Cork.  The place where her family lived is by the sea in the area of Bantry Bay.  My great grandfather is listed as being a ship’s carpenter and builder.  It is interesting to note that my grandmother would later marry a man who was the son of a ship builder and who himself was a ship builder and finally a fisherman settled on the shores of Cape Breton Island.

A lot of the Keohanes are living in the United States.  My grandmother’s family settled in the Boston area when they emigrated, and my father was born in Cambridge, Mass and ultimately his family moved to L’Ardoise, Cape Breton; or should I say they returned to L’Ardoise, my grandfather’s place of birth.

My family name, I find most interesting, on my father’s father’s side: my birth certificate shows it spelled with a “p” in it, aga, originally it is spelled without the letter “p” in it and my baptismal certificate shows it without the letter “p”.  This is an interesting thing, trying to find out “where you came from.”  Otherwise, how do you know where you are going.  I’ve found out that the original spelling is in fact Samson (without the “p”) and it had to do with anglicizing it in order to get along better with the English (British) in Canada, which of course was under rule of the Queen of England.

I am wondering if this is an age thing.  I recall my father’s longing to go to Ireland, which he finally did – in his early 80?s!  He was sorry he took the “tour bus” thing because he would have preferred to do, likely as I plan on, his own thing, and search out his own roots.  I wish he were still alive and I was doing this trip with him.  All I can say Dad is cheers, and here’s to ya and all y’ere Irish relatives!  I’m sure I’ll find some of them hanging out in a pub in West Cork, chugging a Guiness or port or some like thing (guess I’m not that Irish…can’t stand those things).

This is some of the information from my grandmother’s birth certificate (can’t even begin to pronounce some of the names…):