The Gallaghers of Ballinrobe

Uncle Owen, the youngest of the Gallagher brothers, sits outside the family cottage and joins Aunt Ann in a nearby
field in pictures that are from a series of photos marked 1949 that were in the possession of Uncle Pat. He may have
received them from Ann when she emigrated that year.
that it was Delia who realized Uncle Owen had trouble with
his eyesight. “They were all very capable, and he was too,
once he got his glasses,” Patsy said.
There was no bitterness when Uncle Owen talked
to his visitors in 1993. He became wistful at one point
about himself as a boy not buying a small flute or whistle
from a passing merchant. He wondered if he could have
made a living with his musical talent. He was full of stories
about all his brothers and sisters, particularly Uncle Jim.
Memories seemed fresh in his mind about them working at
the Convent of Mercy, in the bogs and on the farm. One
story he shared was about how “Jimmy,” as he called him,
was stronger than himself. He laughed about a time he
challenged his brother to a race. They ran about 100 yards
across a field, and Uncle Owen said Jimmy beat him by a
healthy stretch – the length of his own kitchen, Uncle
Owen said.
When Owen and Lynn first arrived, he brought
them around the back of his home and into that small
kitchen, where three chairs were sitting at the table next to
an old, yellow, turf-burning stove. Uncle Owen offered his
visitors tea, brown bread and scones. He did not expect
them to be accepted, he said, “from an old man with
unclean hands.” It was learned later that a Sister Carmel
from the convent ducked out the back of the house as Owen
and Lynn approached after spending the morning tidying up
and providing the treats for Uncle Owen’s guests.
Talk around the kitchen table ranged from Uncle
Tom’s failing health to the families of all his brothers and
sisters in America. The discussion of the good old times
continued with a visit down the boreen to the home of
Maureen and Peter Gallagher, Uncle Owen’s cousin. Over
tea and homemade rhubarb pie there were plenty of
compliments about those who were hard workers – and a
few asides about those who weren’t. “Aren’t we Irish good
for criticizing?” Uncle Owen observed. “It’s what keeps us
going,” he added.
A NEW HOME
By the late 1950s, the old family home in
Cornaroya had outlived its usefulness after providing
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