The Gallaghers of Ballinrobe

to look their finest for the excursion. They took great care
to choose the best from their few simple outfits. Sarah
came to the cottage door and called in to Delia – to the
never-ending amusement of her brothers at home at the
time – “Is it your brown shoes you’d be wearing, Delia?”
She, of course, had no shoes other than her brown ones.
On another occasion, the two friends were
together behind a wall as they watched a group of soldiers
march by, likely on their way to the infantry barracks,
located across the Robe River along High Street. The
soldiers may have been among the usual British forces
stationed in the garrison town or possibly local recruits who
volunteered to fight at the beginning of World War I. By
March 1915, more than 100 men from Ballinrobe had
enlisted in the army, tempted maybe by the promise of
Home Rule for Ireland or a quick victory over the
aggression of the German kaiser. Enthusiasm faded as the
horrors of war dragged on. It was gone by the time of the
1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. Politics aside, Aunt Delia
and Sarah thought the boys quite handsome and swore to
tell no one of their escapade. Oh well.
In 1920, when Sarah married Richard Connell, a
farmer from Glebe Street in Ballinrobe, the two witnesses
listed on the marriage record were John Tierney and Delia
Gallagher.
Sarah Connell’s daughter, herself named Delia,
wrote to Patsy DeAscanis when Aunt Delia died to make
sure she knew of their mothers’ friendship.
OPPORTUNITY BECKONS
The early 1920s were an eventful time for the
Gallaghers in Ballinrobe and Ireland in general. With the
birth of Mary in 1922, less than a year after Michael’s
death, Patrick and Mary Gallagher had 10 children,
including four less than 10 years old. Young Mary was born
into a country about to plunge into a civil war that split the
country after the approval that January of the Treaty that
created the Irish Free State.
In reflecting on her mother’s motivation for
leaving Ireland, Patsy said it was clearly escape. Not that
Aunt Delia would ever have anything disparaging to say
about Ireland. But the lure of the land of opportunity in
America was overwhelming. The sentimental idea of
longing to return across the sea to the Emerald Isle was not
something Aunt Delia dwelt on. She never complained
about the hard work that was required to get by in Ireland,
either while living with her grandfather, aunt and uncle or
back at home. But Aunt Delia was ready to embrace a new
The Bulkaun River flows along the southern boundary
of Cornaroya before joining the Robe River. It was
likely somewhere along the Bulkaun, or a stream feeding
into it, where Aunt Delia had to overcome her fears of a
mother duck to collect eggs in the mornings while living
in the home of her maternal Grandfather John
Sheridan.
life in a new land.
“She just put her arms around this country and
taught Johnny and I to love it,” Patsy said of her mother
and America. “Of all the people I’ve encountered in my
life, I never met someone who loved this country more than
my mother.”
Playing an important role in this longing for
change was Aunt Annie Sheridan, who had immigrated to
America years before. On an early return visit to
Ballinrobe, she brought along her two young nephews from
Philadelphia, John and Francis Sheridan. Aunt Annie made
the boys wear new, wide-brimmed sailor hats she had
bought them with blue ribbons hanging down the back.
“You can just imagine the Gallagher boys when
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