Ancestral Calling

This is a personal journey from time spent living at the home and farm where my paternal grandfather was raised in Ireland. In 1890 John Joseph O´Mahony was born in Bawnea Kilbritain, a farmhouse, outside of Kinsale, in County Cork, Ireland. He was one of nine children and the second eldest boy. It was the beginning of the “troubles” with England and times were tough, so like many Irish, in 1915, John boarded a ship in Cobh, Ireland and immigrated to America. He never stepped again on Irish soil. His nephews Bob O´Mahony, and Dan O´Mahony, live in the house where my grandfather was born. On a neighboring farm, my cousin, Michael O’Donovan, manages the farm where he lives with his mother, father and sister. None of them have ever married, so they share the work on the farm and look after one another. Michael has pushed for Bob and Dan to modernize but they continue to manage the land and animals using traditional methods and have modernized slowly. As Dan says, “while we be here, we´ll be doing it our way.”

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