Old house on The Kerry Way My friend Simon had graciously offered to come with me on a family history tour of some of the sites of my ancestors’s lives in County Kerry, in Ireland. We had been walking in the mountains of Kerry for … Continue reading Dromore
Category: Identity
Back to Kerry. Part 2
This is the second part of my reflections about returning to one of our ancestral homelands. Various members of two families, the Hicksons and the Byrnes, left the County Kerry in the southwest of Ireland some 150 years ago to make new lives for themselves … Continue reading Back to Kerry. Part 2
Back to Kerry. Part 1
A good few of my ancestors came from County Kerry in southwest Ireland. They went by various names - Hicksons, Needhams, Ruddles and Byrnes. I visited Kerry for a few days in August and found myself thinking a lot about them, my forebears. I marvelled … Continue reading Back to Kerry. Part 1
Munster: Kenmare River
I found an old book on my father's shelves. It is called "Munster, Pictured by Alexander Williams, Described by Stephen Gwynn,” and on the frontispiece in elegant cursive writing: "Kathleen Byrne. 1913. From Mother.” Opposite this inscription, on the inside of the cover, my mother … Continue reading Munster: Kenmare River
Templenoe to the world
An unconquerable passion for the sea shaped the whole course of my early life. No wonder it was so. I was born by the ocean; on the shores of Kenmare Bay in the South of Ireland, not far from the beautiful lakes of Killarney, with … Continue reading Templenoe to the world
Forgotten tales 