The Gallaghers of Ballinrobe

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PAT GALLAGHER AND MARY SHERIDAN
Uncle Owen's dog Prince walks along the boreen in 1993. At right in this view looking toward the Convent Road are
the remains of the old Gallagher home and related buildings. The Gallaghers owned land on both sides of the boreen.
Take a walk down the boreen from the Convent
Road in the Cornaroya section of Ballinrobe and small bits
of the Gallagher family history will unfold around you.
Of course, the scenery has changed over the
decades. Today you will first pass modern developments
that have been built with the boom, bust and boom of the
Irish economy. Not too long ago, before those homes were
built, the view from the Convent Road would have been of
green fields, an old house or two and stone walls not too
dissimilar from the view a century before.
Farther down the boreen – the Irish term for a
usually unpaved country lane – the road narrows and the
contrast between modern Ireland and the past comes more
into focus. You will soon come to a home on your right
where the last of our grandparents’ children to stay in their
hometown lived out his final days. On the other side of the
boreen, is the site of the cottage where Pat and Mary
(Sheridan) Gallagher’s young family grew. Little visible
evidence of the cottage remains, but a quarter century ago,
you could still walk inside three remaining stone walls that
once surrounded the close-knit family. Walking farther, the
boreen darkens before bending past the homes of friends
and relatives of the Gallagher family before heading off
toward the town itself.
The Gallagher family was certainly more blessed
than not, but you cannot deny that the traditional expression
(or curse, depending on your point of view) “May you live
in interesting times” applied. Our grandparents, their
ancestors and their descendants lived through periods of
famine, sickness, battles over land rights and the mixed
emotions that must have come as so many people left for
America, Britain or elsewhere. Over three decades, Pat and
Mary Gallagher would see three of their first four children
die young, a world war, a continuing bloody struggle for
Irish independence from England and a civil war. Yet
through it all they raised a strong, determined family. All
the adversity just seemed to temper each member of the
family. It made them stronger for their own challenges
ahead. Like those who came before and those who would
come after, we will see in the coming chapters how they
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