I spoke of Father Noonan at Col. Dowling’s funeral; it is no harm to let him be seen in my book, in this letter of his:

St. Aloysius, Washington, D. C.,
September 29, 1886.

My dear Friend—Sister Stanislaus was my sister’s name in Religion. I received an account of her death from one of the nuns. While I naturally regret the death of my only sister, I am consoled that she died in carrying out the end of her vocation, viz: charity to the poor and suffering. All my relations are dying out rapidly, but we mourn—not like those who have no hope. I would have answered at once, but was away from Washington when your letter reached here.

Yours most truly,

James Noonan, S. J.

If I traveled from New York to San Francisco now, and stayed a time in every city on the way, I could find a family cousin or connection in every one of those cities—scores of them in these two cities I name, among people who do not even know me. The mother of the children of Alderman Henry Hughes, of New York, was an O’Donovan-Maol; her mother was an O’Donovan Rossa, the daughter of one of my grand-uncles. The mother of Counsellor McIntyre’s children, of San Francisco, is an O’Donovan-Ciuin; her father is Martin Ciuin, of Sawroo, the son of my mother’s sister, Kate O’Driscoll.

I could go into any parish in the Province of Munster and find family relations and connections in it. Even in England I found relations in whatever city I entered. In London the member who gave me a ticket to go into the House of Commons in May, 1895, was one of my Old country cousins—Ned Barry, of Newmill, one of the members for Cork County.

Then, when I went up to Newcastle-on-Tyne, a man called on me who told me he recollected seeing me at his father’s house, in Dunmanway, when he was a child. He was a grandson of old Jerrie Donovan, of Nedineh, whom I met in my early days—Jer-a-Bhaaid, who belonged to the family of my grandmother, Mauria ’n Bhaaid. This New Castle Irishman was half a Tipperary man. His mother, before she married his father, Tim O’Donovan Baaid, was a Miss Doheny, the niece of Father Doheny, of Tipperary, who was a parish priest in Dunmanway.

The day before I left Chatham prison I had a visit from a man who was living outside the prison walls. He said I may want some money, and he put into my hand eight or ten sovereigns. He was Bildee Barrett, of Ross, the son of Ned Barrett, whose mother was an O’Donovan Rossa, the sister of my grandfather.

In 1894, when I was in Ireland, a double cousin of mine wrote me this letter: