The Gallaghers of Ballinrobe

St. Colman's Cathedral rises over Cobh Harbor in County Cork, Ireland, in this photo from a postcard. The
cathedral would have been standing sentinel when Aunt Delia boarded the Aurania on Oct. 12, 1924. Cobh was
known as Queenstown from 1849 to 1920.
at the nearby property, our grandmother’s very capable
young daughter was there to help her relatives with
household chores, maybe freeing Maggie to care for her
aging father. Delia's mother would have had three young
children at home in 1911 – Nora, 4, Peter, 3, and Pat, 2. But
she also had her husband and two oldest sons, Michael and
John. Delia's grandfather had only Maggie and a son, John,
at home. Her grandfather would die in 1917, and ”Uncle
Johnny” would take over the farm and marry two years
later. The hurt that our grandmother felt from Delia’s
absence would have been balanced by the comfort of
knowing that while her father lived, he had Delia to help
where she could.
Patsy DeAscanis said her mother always looked at
things positively and never gave a negative impression
about her time living away from home at such a young age.
She would only state a positive pleasure about the situation,
such as what a joy it was when her father would come to
visit on a Sunday. She would hang on the gate to watch for
him. Cornaroya, where both the Gallaghers and Sheridans
lived, is only a little more than a half square mile, so Delia
was only a fairly short walk from home.
Despite Aunt Delia’s willingness to work hard,
there was one chore she particularly dreaded from her time
with her relatives. That was when she had to go down to the
edge of the “dark water” to gather duck eggs among the
reeds in the mornings. She had an understandable fear of
the mother duck and would close her eyes and turn away as
she reached out to pick up the eggs. The water where the
eggs were found was likely a spring feeding into the
Bulkhaun River or the river itself, which runs along the
southern boundary of Cornaroya as it flows toward town
and into the Robe River.
In any case, Aunt Delia survived the ducks and
eventually returned to the family home on the boreen.
It was from there that another story has been
handed down. It involves Aunt Delia’s cousin and dear
friend Sarah Gallagher, later Sarah Connell. Sarah was a
sister of “Peter Gallagher Next Door,” two of the eight
children of Owen and Peggy (McCormick) Gallagher. On
this particular day, Delia and Sarah were leaving on a trip
to the Marian Shrine in nearby Knock. The friends wanted
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