The Arcade, Ross Carberry,
June 5th, 1894.
Dear Mr. O’Donovan—We regret very much not having the pleasure of seeing you in Skibbereen last evening, but we are glad to learn from James Donovan that you will visit Ross Carberry shortly, when we hope to give you a hearty welcome to your native town. If my father (Rick Donovan-Roe) lived, how delighted he would be to see you.
My husband is also a cousin of yours—a grandson of old Garrett Barry. I remain, your fond cousin,
Ellen Collins.
When I think of how many ways that girl is related to me it looks like a labyrinthian puzzle to go through the relationship. I have to travel through all the bohreens of the barony to get to the end of it. Her father was Rick Roe; Rick Roe’s father was Paddy Roe; Paddy Roe’s wife was Margaret O’Driscoll; Margaret O’Driscoll was my god-mother, and she was the sister of my grandfather, Cornelius O’Driscoll. Then that Ellen Collins’ mother, Rick Roe’s wife, was an O’Donovan-Island—a cousin of that Ellen Collins, though she was her mother. Ellen Collins is also related to her husband, as he is the grandson of Garrett Barry, for Garrett Barry’s mother was an O’Donovan-Island, the sister of my great grandmother.
That Ellen Collins has bigger cousins in New York than I am. The Harringtons of Dunmanway are the biggest and the richest butchers in the city. I was going up Second Avenue one summer evening last year and I met Charles O’Brien, of Clare, at Forty seventh Street. He keeps an undertaker’s store. Two or three men were sitting on chairs outside the door. He brought out a chair, and invited me to sit down, which I did, for of all the O’Briens in New York, I love to hear this Charlie O’Brien speak of Ireland—he has such a pride in his name and his family, holding his head as high as the richest man who walks the earth. Among the neighbors I was introduced to, was a Mr. Harrington, about seventy-five years of age. When he spoke, and while he spoke, his tongue was sounding in my ears as if it was jingling on the hearthstone of my childhood.
“Where in the world, Mr. Harrington,” said I to him at last, “were you living when you were growing up a child?”
“I was living in Dunmanway,” said he.
“I have never met you before,” said I, “but your voice sounds to me as if I heard it before; I must have known some people belonging to you. What was your mother’s name?”
“My mother’s name,” said he, “was Donovan; she was a sister to Tom Donovan-Roe of Ross.”