Back To Knocknagoshel

We headed out this Monday morning to the little village of Knocknagoshel---which translates as "the hill of the happy sportsmen." 

We had stopped there last year since it has a lot of "Keane's" living in the area. The church records didn't go back far enough to see if our great-grandfather Mathew was from there, but we were able to pick up the annual book, "Then and Now," written by Luke Keane when we stopped there last year. 

Mr. Keane wasn't available last year because he was "making hay"---you know, "when the sun shines," so this year we called first to see if he knew of any old records. He was enjoyable to talk with on the phone, but he didn't recall any "Mathew's" from his area.

We forgot to ask if his yearly book was still available, so we thought we'd drive to the post office in Knocknagoshel where we had purchased one last year.

Here's a photo on our way to Knocknagoshel. Lots of big rolling hills with small mountains in the distance---that sort of sums up this part of County Kerry.

We got to the post office, but they were all out of books, so the post mistress called the little grocery store and they were sold out as well. Then the lady called to Luke Keane's and he said he'd bring one over to the post office.

Well, not only did he bring over the book, but he told us all about his village and his family's background there. He even serenaded us with a verse of a song about the village.

The book is an annual summary of the events taking place in the Knocknagoshel area over the year, combined with historical articles and stories from the past. (Get it? "Then" and "Now.")

Then Mr. Keane had us follow his car out to his farm, about halfway down the hill and---wouldn't you know it---down the dangerous road with green grass growing down the middle.

Here's Luke Keane's farm which he has traced back to being the original homestead of the first Keane's that settled the area when there were only three Keane families making up the entire area.

Here's Luke and our correspondent at the Keane farm. The sign translate into "The Priest's Road," since this was the road the country priest traveled in the early days from the next town over, Brosna, to get to Knocknagoshel.

Mr. Keane's farm is on more of the lovely hillsides in this area as seen below.

Mr. Keane led us next to the old cemetery to see all the "Keane's" buried there. He did recall that there might have been a Mathew Keane from this village long ago, so it's a possibility that our ancestors could have been from this area, but there is no "hard" evidence to prove it.

Here's one of the older "Keane" headstones.

And here's one of the more recent "Keane" headstones.

Luke took this photo of us and asked us to mail him a copy with the request to let him know how we progressed on our "needle-in-a-haystack" search.

We went on from there to look for more possible "Keane" records in another area with many "Keane's" in the area that took us through more of the pretty, rolling hills.

And some of the road wound up the large hills in a very snaky fashion. [Insert your favorite "St. Patrick driving out the snakes" joke here ;-).]

Here's the church in the Gortglass/Scartiglin area, but no one was around to request records from.

When we saw that it was "Our Lady of Lourdes" Church we figured everyone there had gone to Lourdes in France for the 150th celebration. But when we talked with a lady in the nearby cemetery she said this was a newly consolidated church, along with two others. (Sounds a lot like things back in the USA.)

We headed back down those "snaky" roads again and stopped at a "green grocer" just to see all the fresh fruits and vegetables. Here's some white carrots fresh from the fields.

And here's some of the standard orange ones. The two are often mashed together and placed on our "pub grub" plates---with a lot more flavor than any carrots we've ever had.

Back at the hotel we grabbed some of that "pub grub" for supper and then went for a swim before going out to see a performance of the National Folk Theatre that we'll tell you about next time.

In the meantime, please be aware that this coming Sunday is the "All-Ireland Football (soccer) Championship," between Kerry---here shown in the yellow and green---and Cork. They are neighboring counties that have long been rivals, so things are getting "heated up around here."