Are We Related?

I see a name and feel again connection

With people I have never ever known

Back in my father’s father’s place

A place he left hoping to return

But in the end he left for good

And came to Tyldesely town

My grandmother could not settle

In an Ireland not her own

So granddad was uprooted

Plucked up from out that ground

And with that transplantation

We lost our earthed connection

To Slingaun and Mayo

 

And here today I see a quiet notice

A lady who has died in old Mayo

And the names I spy are Tyldesely names

Of a hundred years ago

Of simple Irish emigrants

Who knew they had to go

Cooney and Walsh and Fahy

Were related long ago

And came from Islandeady

And from Slingaun as I know

 

The old house now is looking fine

Passed through various hands

I visited a few years back

Stood on ancestral lands

But the last of my relations

Died some time ago

And only the names now linger on

To call us back to dwell upon

The ties that really bind

 

Fahy is gone from Slingaun now

But Walsh and Cooney stay

The people of that neighbourhood

I wish them all good day

For I belonged among them

Although we’ve never met

But my grandfather came from Slingaun

And that I can’t forget

 

Brian Fahy

11 July 2022

 

+ The death has occurred of Margaret Cooney, nee Walsh, of Islandeady and late of Slingaun, Westport. This notice caught my eye today and prompted my lines.