You might say that my Irish heritage is fairly strong as my father was born in Rathcormac, County Cork in 1921 and all my mother’s grandparents were born in County Cork in the 1800s. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Ireland five times (1973, 1998, 1999, 2009 and 2016). During those visits I met great aunts and uncles, and Cahill and O’Flynn cousins and they always made me feel very welcome about coming “home”.

This site will chronicle my recent ancestral research  and my ongoing visits to Ireland. The purpose of my recent trips is to go where the online genealogical just can’t go — graveyards, only family homesteads, and interviews with some of my older living relatives.

So come along on my search for the missing “O” on my way back to Ballybrowney.

Ballybrowney, by the way, is the area just outside of Rathcormac County Cork where my grandmother Molly Cahill’s family lived as well as my mother’s grandfather Patrick Farrell lived before he immigrated to Canada in the 1840s. But it represents much more than just a single area of County Cork, it really represents the ancestral home for all my Irish relatives and I’m proud to call that area home.

Feel free to leave your thoughts, comments, suggestions.