Chauffeurdrive tour with my new friends. April 2017.

My new 2017 season began this past week with my new friends, Peter and Iren Nelson , and their Swedish friends Jan and Annika Ericsson. 

I collected my party in Cove, where they had been staying the night before. The above picture is of the river Lee at Cove (Cobh).

Here, we have, from the left, Annika, Iren, Jan and Peter, seated at the memorial statues of Annie Moore and her two young brothers, outside the Heritage centre in Cove (Cobh). Eventhough my friends looked all wrapped up against the weather, it was actually really lovely for the full duration of our time together. Not bad for April.

Our mission on this trip was to try to discover as much as we could about the birthplaces of Peter's ancestors, and as it turned out, we had a most successful few days, and could not have asked for more. Peter did have a lot of useful information from research done before he came over, and this was most helpful.

Our first destination today was the town of Castletownroche, a small town not far from Mallow in County Cork. Peter's great grandfather lived and worked on an estate there called Annesgrove, before emigrating to the USA in the eighteen nineties, and to the Boston area.

We had no great difficulty in finding the church which was located nearest to Annesgrove, and which would have been the most likely one that the family had attended. The church was still the original one, and dating back into the eighteen hundreds, and the baptismal font was also the original one, and possibly the one where family members would have been baptised. Pictured above, we have Peter, standing behind the font.

Another stroke of fortune today was the arrival of the parish priest, Fr O'Brien, while we were there. He was most helpful, and felt that we were correct in deducing that Peter's family would have attended this church. The next closest church would have been Ballyhooley, which we also went to see.

Here we have Peter, pictured outside the church in Ballyhooley.

It is possible that the Ballyhooley church played a part in some of the ceremonies for the family, and here we have Peter posing at the baptismal font there.

Then it was on to Annesgrove , but unfortunately renovations and restoration work are being carried on there, and it was off limits. Here we have Peter, pictured at the entrance gates to Annesgrove. Peter is determined to return here and visit this estate in the not too distant future. The gardens here were famous and it is good to know that they have been protected, and will now be in the hands of the state, and become a national treasure once again. It was here that Peter's Great grandfather spent his young working years before making a new life for himself and his family in the USA.

Now we were off on the second leg of our family history discovery road, as we made our way from East Cork to West Cork, and the town of Ballyvourney. It was here that Peter's great grandmother was born in a place called Dangeanuisalach, adjacent to Ballyvourney. Nobody seems to know how Peter's Great grandfather and Great grandmother met, but they did travel to the states together, and were married over there.In the picture above, we have Peter and Jan outside the Mills Inn in Ballyvourney, where we enjoyed a lovely snack.The family, the Kelleher's, also have strong connections with the town of Ballymackeera, which is actually a connecting town with Ballyvourney. Kelleher seems to be a very common name in this region, and Peter has much information available now which will surely lead to him locating more family relatives.

This area has a strong connection with one of our most famous saints, Saint Gobnet. She had a settlement here, and her own old church, and a holy well, and this place is a most popular place for pilgrims, who come here for help with all kinds of illnesses. Many cures have been claimed due to the intervention of St Gobnet. In the picture above we have, from the left, Peter, Iren, Annika, and Jan with St Gobnet's ancient church in the background.

Finally, on this day, we visited the church in Ballymackeera and once again had the good fortune to find the Parish priest there.He was also most helpful, and a very nice man indeed.

 i can only add that we seem to have been guided by Peter's ancestors today, as we had such good fortune, and discovered so much. Maybe Saint Gobnet had something to do with it also, but it was a great day for all, and i do know that Peter will return home feeling more Irish than ever before. 

Later today we made our way to Kilklarney which was to be our base for the next couple of nights.

More to follow.

If you want to contact me you can write to me at dovechauffeurdrive@gmail.com