Connecting across the generations

MINNESOTA woman Mary McGrath first visited Ireland with her family in 1987. It turned out to be a pilgrimage, one she has repeated many times since.

 

 

MINNESOTA woman Mary McGrath first visited Ireland with her family in 1987. It turned out to be a pilgrimage, one she has repeated many times since.

Mary always felt a bond with Ireland. Her grandmother, Catherine Fogarty, emigrated from Aglish, north of Corofin, to the United States in 1880. Mary’s mother often remarked on the similarities between her mother, Catherine, and her daughter, Mary.

This inspired Mary, now a regular visitor to her ancestral home, to write a series of letters to her late grandmother, which she has decided to publish. These, she hopes, will help her gain a better understanding of the woman who left her home on a coffin ship to make a new life in America.

“I am my grandmother’s only grandchild and my mother used to tell me that I reminded her of her, so I always felt a connection with my grandmother, even though she was 25 years dead before I was born. I always wondered what it was that made me like her. This is my attempt to connect with her, I think,” Mary explained.

On Mary’s first trip here, over a quarter of a century ago, she paid a visit to the house her grandmother was reared in. The experience affected her profoundly.

“I visited the graves. I went to what was left of her home. I connected with people who I think are related to me and I felt very moved. I had been reading about the Famine and coming to America on the coffin ships, which is what my grandmother did, so I had a desire to connect with her directly and it was hard to do it. It is hard to do that with people who are dead. Then the letters started erupting. It is not like I decided to do this, they just came out,” she outlined.

“It sounds so weird but I feel a connection through the letters; they started forming themselves really. Then I arbitrarily chose to write 12 of them. The first three fell into place straight away. After that, I found that when I finished one, it inevitably led into the next. It has been a surprise to me how they evolved and the form they have taken. I feel like a midwife catching the baby. The content of the letters is not something concrete. It has been a surprise, especially for me,” she added.

Sharing private correspondence is not done lightly and Mary thought carefully about publishing them.

“There is part of me that doesn’t want to share them because they are so personal but then I think this is where she lived and I want these letters out there in the air. The desire to share them is stronger, I think, than to keep them to myself,” outlined Mary.

“My husband is very enthusiastic about it. He has done this sort of thing in England a bit. My kids, some of them are very interested and some are not,” she continued.

The expanse of years between Mary and her grandmother also made the decision to publish the letters easier.

“The past for me is a very long time ago because my grandmother was born in 1862. That seems like eons ago. I come from a line of women who had children in their 40s so that the next generation was a very long way back. I am an only child too and part of this is about looking for a familial connection,” she said.

Her childhood was heavily influenced by her Irish roots and while she would listen to Irish songs, laden with lyrics of pain and sorrow, they never made the young Mary sad.

“People who were here in Ireland don’t understand the legacy of the sorrow that people brought to the United States. People here thought they were going to a better life and in some cases they were but my mother once told me that her father cried every day. In some way I wanted to have a better understanding of that sadness,” she outlined.

Mary is currently on her 10th letter but how will the series end?

“I think they will be about the Famine but they evolve. Sometimes I think I know what they will be about and I start to write and it just comes,” she said.

Mary isn’t sure either what the end of the series will mean for her. Will it complete her journey?

“I don’t know… I wish I could give you an answer but I don’t know. That is part of the mystery of all of this.”

 

Dear Grandma Catherine,

This feels strange, writing to you, as I have never seen you in person or heard your voice.
I have only one picture of you with your husband, John O’Mahoney my grandfather, and two of your children. The oldest of your three children, Catherine, looks like she is about two or three years old and your only son, Bill, looks to be about 10 or 12 months old. My mother, Madeline, wasn’t born yet.
I received the picture many years ago from my Uncle Bill. I never saw it displayed in his home. One day, he just gave it to me. I had it framed and it has hung on the wall of my home for over 30 years.
Sometimes when I walk by it, I stop and look at you. I wonder what you were thinking at that moment. I search your face to see any resemblance to my mother or myself. I wish your photo could speak. I wish you could see me, looking at you.
I am your only grandchild. Neither, Catherine, ‘Cocky’ as I called her because I couldn’t say her name when I was little, nor Bill had children. ‘Cocky’ was in her 60s when she married. Bill was in his 50s when he married. My mom, Madeline, married at 42 and gave birth to me when she was 45-years-old.
When I look at the dates of your life, I find you were born in 1863, the third of eight children, to Patrick Fogarty and Mary Maroney. You died in 1923, at the age of 60. Your children were 24, 22 and 20-years-old at the time. You didn’t live to see them grow into adulthood.
That makes me think about you when you were young.  I remember my mother telling me you were 17-years-old when you left Aglish, Corofin, by yourself, for America. Going on that information, you would have left around 1880. No record of your passage at that time can be found. Further search indicates that just one Catherine Fogarty, born about 1862, arrived in America on May 25, 1885. She disembarked at Boston Port from the ship, Cephalonia, having sailed from Queenstown, County Cork, now called Cobh.
I think this must be you.
This is where I start brimming over with questions. If I could have known you, I suppose I’d have asked you these questions gradually, over the years. Now, they come tumbling down all at once, like crackers spilling out of their tin.
“How was the decision made that you would leave Ireland for America?” “Who made that decision?” “How long ahead of time did you know that you’d be leaving?” “Were you afraid?” “Do you remember the last time you saw your mother and father and brothers and sisters?” “Did your family and neighbours have a goodbye ritual of some sort before you left?” “Did you sleep the night before you left or did you stay awake?” “What did you bring with you?” “What were your thoughts as you boarded the ship?” “What were your feelings?” “Was anyone with you as you traveled to Cobh?” “How did you get there?” “Did you realise you would never come back to Ireland?”
While you never were able to come back home, my husband and I bought a home close to Corofin and we live here part of the year. I like to think I have come home for both you and me. Maybe in some way, my being here is lessening the sorrow of your leaving. I wonder.
Your death in 1923 and my birth in 1948 put 25 years between our time on this earth. Not much of a chance to know one another.
What I would give to sit with you, a pot of tea and two cups. I’d ask you all these questions over many afternoons. If only I could look into your eyes, touch your warm hands and hear the lilt in your voice as you told me, your only grandchild, the stories of your life.
I will say goodbye for now and I will write again, soon.

Love Mary Clare
PS. My mom named me after County Clare.