Last February Clive managed to erect the Family Tree on the wall on our hall here in Thezan.
As it had been rolled up in a cardboard tube for as long as I had had it, I promised myself that now, I could at last have a good gander at it.
I didn’t.

It wasn’t until last week when Clive was again hanging up some more ephemera of my family in the hall that a little piece in the corner, read years ago and forgotten, caught my eye.

This is a story about my Great great great grandmother one Mary Downey who was born in the parish of Ballinakilla on Bere Island Co. Cork in 1781 , a mere 230 years ago.
She told a story to her grandson, William Martin Murphy and he has passed it down through the family.

When Mary Downey was ” a slip of a girl” – her exact words he says- she climbed up the hill behind her fathers farm in Ballinakilla and found Bantry Bay full of the French Fleet .
History now tells us that the year was 1798 and Mary was then seventeen years old.

Strange to think that , 213 years later, her great, great, great grandson is feeding their descendants breakfast !