Day 8 - Ancestral trails

Our hotel in Bearna, just outside Galway City is a bit 70's gothic but comfotable nonetheless. Today we set out to explore the lands of the Keelys - my great grandfather, John Keely, was supposed to have come from Loughrea, in Galway. His birth certificate says he was born in Gort and his father came from Peterswell. All three places are on the same section of road within about 20 ks so it seemed likely that we would find some clues.

Loughrea is a pretty town on a smallish lake. The name means 'town on the grey lake'. It has a moat and town walls and an abbey' (not a priory, mind you). The abbey is a fully functional Carmelite outfit but there is also a ruined abbey with burial ground that we decided to check out. The ruins are courtesy of Cromwell. He seems to have been very active in Ireland.

When we arrived at the abbey we were greeted by a large gentleman, Mr Shaughnessy, who immediately picked us as tourists and asked where we came from. 'Do you have any Irish connections,' he asked. Well yes, I explained my great grandfather's presumed association with Loughrea. He involved his friend Emmet and they were immediately on my case to solve my genealogical origins. These guys were there in the graveyard to do voluntary cleanup and maintenance work on the graves and had actually catalogued all the burials in the graveyard so they thought they knew it all. They invoked another friend, possibly 4 ft 8in, at least 80 and with no teeth who had never heard of Keelys in these parts.

Emmet volunteered that one of his rellies had gone out to Australia in the fifties and one of his sons was now almost running the place. The name was Lougnane, did we know? Oh yes, we knew of Brian Loughnane and Peta Credlin. Apparently, he is due to visit Loughrea soon. Small world!

So we decided to head to Peterswell, just down the road where my great great grandfather was born. There is a new church there with no burials but we spotted a signpost to an old burial ground. Sure enough we found three Keely graves, which suggests that they were here at some time and may be still. The town of Gort is larger still and there may be other Keely possibilities.

It's interesting that there are so many monumental masons in Ireland and people have a culture of maintaining graves and graveyards. Even in very old graveyards we noticed that old stones had been replaced with modern ones and there are services to maintain or restore old stones.

Peterswell is also home to the St Thomas hurling team which has made it into the finals of the All Ireland hurling finals this weekend. All the houses were bedecked with red and blue bunting and flags. So I feel we must add our voices. Go the Toms!