An Irish emigrant with all her worldly possessions packed into cardboard suitcases. Carved from an ancient and rotten oak tree that grew in the grounds of Killorglin train station in County Kerry.
She and thousands of others left Ireland for the train that took them to Queenstown (Cobh) to board a ship to the America and the new world and England like my dad did in the "Black Fifties" when he was just seventeen.
Old train station. FEXCO now use the old building for their business headquarters.
Talented artists.
Monument to someone who drowned in Castlemaine bay trying to save some one.
Bronte having her dinner with us at a picnic bench in a petrol station forecourt.
Puck goat mural. I have featured the world famous Killorglin Puck Fair on here before.
An important monument to so many of those hardworking Irish migrants. What a journey. Into the unknown hoping for a better life.
ReplyDeleteWhat's your father's story?
Definitely Linda. My great grandfather's sister sailed back on the Jefferson from working many years in a big house in New York state. My grandfather's sister went working in a big house in Cheshire and met a groom and they bought a pub in north Manchester. They put up my dad and his brother and my dad worked on railways, cotton mills and met my Lancashire mother at a local dance hall or Palais. We use to visit my Irish grand parents for a two weeks haymaking holiday in July. They died and I would visit less frequently. 24 years ago we moved here and built an house and my parents moved over here and passed away. That's it in a nutshell Linda.
ReplyDeleteNoted the emigrants is wearing her hat - desperation but determination. People like her built the country I call home and memorials like that alway choke me up. There is one to the Windrush generation in Waterloo Station.
ReplyDeleteYes TM. I am an hat wearer also. It's good to see female memorials and working class people for a change. I found it quite moving thinking about people like her having to move to another country to live and work.
ReplyDelete