Her name was Margaret Davis and she lived in Reno. She also went by the name of Maggy and her email handle was SageMom. Both of us subscribed to several Rootsweb Irish Message Lists. One day in 2002 Margaret posted that she had traced her Regan ancestor back to Cloonloo, County Sligo and she wondered what Cloonloo looked like. As my wife and I were about to embark on a trip to Ireland and were planning to stay for several days in the vicinity of Boyle, County Roscommon, I contacted Margaret and offered to take some pictures of Cloonloo for her.
So the day after we found my Gallager relatives in Sheegora we drove to Cloonloo, which is only a few miles west of Boyle. We drove all the way to the West end of town where we visited the Catholic Church. Then my wife drove back to the sign marking the East end of town and waited for me while I walked back up the road clicking away at the sights.
The sign at the East end of town.
Bee at the shrine outside the church.
A Jubilee Stone outside the church.
St. Joseph's Church.
Another view of the shrine.
Inside St. Joseph's.
Plaque inside the church near the front door.
Side of the church.
The back of the church.
Now I'm walking East along R294 toward Boyle.
A mixture of old and new buildings.
The village began on the shores of Lough Gara but I couldn't see the lake from the road.
The entire place seemed peaceful.
That's the church way in the distance.
I saw more animals than humans on my walk.
Cloonloo cow.
Cloonloo cat.
Back home, Crow Canyon turns brown in the Summer. Not so in Ireland!
The West end of Cloonloo -- at the end of my walk.
That was the last we saw of County Sligo on our trip. We drove back to Boyle and visited a Sheerin relative our Gallagher cousins told us about and then we drove southeast along the Shannon to Rooskey where we attended a Ballykilcline Society convention for the next four days. We spent most of the following week in Tipperary looking for my O’Dwyer ancestors and then moved on to Cork and Kerry and Waterford and finally back to Dublin. We saw hundreds of little places like Cloonloo and they all looked pretty similar. Except the larger villages would have a pub or two or three. Or maybe even four.
A couple of years ago one of Margaret’s children sent me a message telling me that her mother had passed away. She must have emailed the news to everyone she found in her mother’s address book. Margaret never got to see Cloonloo but she told me that she liked the pictures. I hope you did, too.
Nice post, yes really.
I liked in it Your great photos from churches and I appreciate that You showed inside photos of St. Joseph’s Church. Doing it that way I could see it better. Outside photos are enough. I have some church photos on my site. Why not take a look. If so, then start from wooden churches. How does it sound in Your ears for example: “100 angels’ church “?
I am so happy that I had possibility see Your lovely post.
Happy Sunday!
Thank you for the photos of Cloonloo my dad was from the tiny village of Duballa but went to school and church in cloonloo. The photos brought back sweet memories
Loved looking at pics of Cloonloo,I grew up in Cloonloo and we had a little shop right next door to the church
lucy Tune(Mc Dermott)
Beautiful glimpse into this seemingly timeless place. Great images. My wife and I hope to do a similar trip and explore of the Count Meath area where her mother’s lineage had a farm. M
I had relatives in Cloonloo John and Maggie Kelly. Now deceased for some years. They had two children John James now deceased as well. He died in the Brown Trout a few years back. His sister Kathleen Kelly married Paddy Joe O’Gara and now lives in Tivannagh on the Gurteen Road. The Kelly home is taken care of by Padraig O’Gara of Tivannagh.
I first visited Cloonloo in 1961 and have been back there many times over the intervening years.