Cronin & O'Leary's in Boston.
Dear Ballingeary and Inchigeela Historical Society,
After searching for
almost twenty years for my roots in Ireland
recently
I found a positive piece of proof
of my grandmother's (Ellen O'Leary) birth
in
Inchigeela, County Cork. I'm of 100% Irish
descent, my mother being born
in Glenamaddy,
Galway and my father's parents in Inchigeela,
Cork. I was born
in Boston into a Boston
Irish Catholic family living in Brookline (birth
place of President Kennedy). In the mid
1970's shortly after High School and
the
death of my farther, but prior to the Internet
and Genealogy boom I
started to research my
family tree. While in the Archive office in the
basement of the Massachusetts State House in
Boston I looked through the
original old
archives and found that my Grandfather was
buried in Boston. I
visited my Grandfather's
grave, and was astonished to find a family plot
with
about a dozen family members buried.
They included the names Cronin, O'Leary,
and
O'Riley, from Inchigeela and area. My early
record keeping included
adding a small "RC"
next to information I viewed. This to prevent my
duplicating my research in the future. Soon
after my start the State House
archive
office was shut down to photocopy all the
documents and move them and
the office to a
new State Archives office building being built
next to the
John F. Kennedy Memorial Library
and University of Massachusetts overlooking
Boston harbor. One of my extremely organized
sisters, Maureen and her husband
Ed, got
interested and involved with the family search.
Maureen got some
enjoyment years later as
she kept coming across my early record keeping
procedure, the "RC" initial while she was
researching and viewing microfilm
documents.
During the 80's we pieced together much
information about my mother's
family but
little of my father's Cork family. In 1994
another sister from
Hollywood, California,
Pauline decided to get married at St. Patrick's
in
Glenamaddy. We used the wedding trip as a
chance to visit Cork and look up
the Cronin
name. Not knowing of our Inchigeela connection
we passed within 5
miles of your parish
on our way to Cork City and then the McCarthy
castle of
the Blarney Stone fame. To me it
was exciting to finally be on your side of
the Pond looking up family lore. I visited
Cork City Hall and as quickly
as possible
tried to find information on my Grandfather
James R. Cronin
(abt.1853) or his brothers
Denis (abt.1856) and Richard (abt.1872). City
Hall's record went as far back to include
Richard's birth in 1872. Without a
Street
address or exact birth location the clerk told
me I would be there all
day. I left and went
to the main Library. I planned on sending a
letter to
each Cronin listed in the
telephone book until I saw the number of
listings.
I started to photocopy the Cronin
pages and decided it would be easier to
just
buy a telephone directory. After leaving the
library to meet my wife
outside I spotted
her about a half block away walking toward me.
While
getting her attention I decided to do
my own Cronin census of Cork and
hollered
"Mrs. Cronin" to her and the sidewalk crowd. No
less than half the
crowd for twenty feet
turn to look at me, I quickly replied "The
pretty one
from Boston." My wife was
embarrassed, but one women came up to me whose
sister lives on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
She was on her way to the Post
Office to
mail her sister a letter. After speaking for 10
minutes I wound up
bring the letter home
with me and leaving it in her sister's mailbox
with
"HAND DELIVERED" written across the
envelope. I'm sure she was puzzled and
amused after she talked to her sister about how
the letter came to her.
The first time I
came across the name Inchigeela was while I was
at the
Boston Catholic Archdiocese office
near Boston College in Chestnut Hill. I
was
looking up my Father's and Aunts' baptism
records from St. James The
Great Church in
Boston. My Aunt Helen's record included a
marriage record
with a tiny notation off to
the side stating "Married 1912-William Riley;
born Inchigeela, Ireland." A lead, I was off
and running. I felt it in my
bones and made
Inchigeela my main focus. I looked up Inchigeela
in books, the
Internet, Casey's Black River
study of 1952, wrote Father Twomey at the
Parochial House and asked everyone I knew about
it. I got lucky one day when
a Mr. Peter
O'Leary of Inchigeela read a note I posted on
the Internet. Peter
O'Leary is involved with
the annual O'Leary Reunion held in
Inchigeela
at Creedon's Hotel. Peter not
only confirmed my Grandmothers birth in
Inchigeela, but that of her Father (Jeremiah
O'Leary abt.1825), her Uncle, a
Nationalist,
(Patrick "Pagan" O'Leary abt.1823) and her
Grandfather Cornelius
(abt.1799). Peter even
mailed me a copy of a Lee Valley News article
from
January 1996 about Patrick. The article
provided information about Patrick
joining
the U.S. army at 17 in California (then a part
of Mexico) and
becoming a wounded veteran of
the Mexican American War (1844), a carpenter,
traveler, New Yorker, an original Fenian
recruiter, and unfortunately also a
Mountjoy
prisoner. I am actively searching for
information about him, my
Grand Uncle
Patrick now, the O'Leary and Cronin homesteads
in Inchigeela.
In closing and due to Peter
O'Leary, my brothers and sisters and I are
planning a trip to Inchigeela next summer/fall
to attend the Cronin Family
Reunion being
held at the Creedon Hotel. Needless to say, I
look forward to
the day I'm back on Irish
soil in Inchigeela to complete one of life's
circles, the one my Grandmother started 120
years ago.
Ron Cronin