The Gallaghers of Ballinrobe

Father Michael
DeAscanis gets a
taste of very hot
Irish tea during his
2004 visit to
County Meath.
Sipping with him
is James Kerrigan,
a brother of Jane,
who hosted the
gathering in the
family home in
Swords.
someone from the family he left behind in Ireland
came when his niece Beno, the daughter of Bridget and
Joe Norris, visited America in the late 1950s. She
would eventually attend both Patsy's and John's
weddings. Her cousin Jane, the daughter of Ann and
James Kerrigan, joined her for John's wedding in 1976.
In a letter the following March, Jane told Patsy she
wished she could visit again and regrets living so far
away. She jokes it is just as well she doesn't have a
Leprechaun's gold, or else she would be at the house so
often “you would get fed up with us.”
When Uncle Mike and John traveled to
Ireland after Aunt Delia's death, he rekindled many
more family relationships that had been constrained by
the years and distance. Those relationships have
continued with many subsequent visits from family
members on both sides of the Atlantic. Patsy
DeAscanis says she has always been grateful for the
hospitality her father, as well as his grandchildren,
enjoyed when they have visited County Meath. The
Kerrigan family and Lauri and Joe Ross have been
particularly welcoming. Lauri is the daughter of Uncle
Mike's sister Julia and her husband, Peter O'Brien.
Julia, Patsy says, may have been her father's favorite.
Tom Kerrigan, who worked for Aer Lingus, came to
the rescue of Patsy's son Colm when his party came
close to missing their return flight to America after a
visit to attend a college football game in Dublin
between Notre Dame and the U.S. Naval Academy.
The following letter from cousin Beno to
Patsy illustrates how close all the families grew. They
include O’Brien descendants in County Meath and
elsewhere in Ireland. The letter is dated Aug. 1, 1984,
but not finished and sent until the new year in the wake
of Uncle Mike’s death in July 1984:
“At last the long overdue letter. Pat, I don’t
have to tell you how sad I am for you and how sorry I
am for not being in touch. But I just could not put pen
to paper.
“It is true Uncle had a long and very fulfilling
life. But the longer you have them the harder it is to
part. As for me, I just always wanted to have a Mom
and Dad and never felt so lately out of as when Mike
left us, as he was my last link, the very last one I had,
and I know he understood that very well. He knew the
great love and need we had for him. Thank God we
had all got together for so many years. Pat, you see, in
Ireland family is, as all over the world, very close. But
here, I think, we tend to be very clannish and cling to
each other and hate to let go. But that is life. And as
your Dad would say, sure it is great.
“I spoke to Johnny on the phone last night. It
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