Champion reunites family after 70 years

SEVENTY years after the now 80-year-old Gerard Glennon last met his cousins in Clare, contact has again been established. Following an appeal in last week’s Clare Champion from Kieran Glennon for his father’s cousins to contact him, the Clancy and Glennon families have spoken over the telephone and are due to meet in the coming weeks.
It has emerged that Gerard’s mother, Nan Clancy died in September 1934. She lived close to Lahinch at the time. Subsequently, Gerard and his father, Tom moved back to Belfast, where Tom’s mother and brother lived.
Gerard was aged three when his mother died and doesn’t remember anything about her. Although Gerard recalls meeting some of his cousins in Dublin in 1941, contact was lost between the families in Clare and Belfast until this week.
“Two of my grandparents’ surviving nieces, Mary Cahill and Mary Clancy, and one of their nephews, Tommy Clancy, recognised enough of the details in the article to recognise who I was talking about,” Kieran explained.
“As a result, after decades of my father wondering what happened to his mother and his mother’s family wondering what happened to her son, Gerard, the connection between the Glennons and the Clancys has at last been re-established and we have begun to fill in the gaps in each other’s knowledge,” Kieran added.
Gerard hadn’t known that his mother died in 1934 and was buried in Clare.
“As a child, Gerard was always led to believe that his mother had died in childbirth in Australia when he was still very young and that his father and himself then returned to Belfast, where Gerard grew up.
“Any questions he raised about her were gently rebuffed, which he always assumed was due to grief at her passing,” Kieran said.
“It turns out that after returning from Australia, my grandparents and father all settled in Clare (near Lahinch) and lived there for a couple of years. However, my grandmother had returned from Australia in poor health and sadly, she passed away.
“My great-grandfather in Belfast had also died in 1934 and after suffering these two bereavements, my grandfather and father then moved back to Belfast,” Kieran explained.
“As you can imagine, when I told my father about the article and the response it had prompted, it was an overwhelmingly emotional moment, with tears and smiles mixed in abundance.
“Hopefully, we will shortly be arranging a return visit for him to Clare when he and the cousins who, until now, had been lost to each other, can finally be re-united,” he concluded.