Highlights of the Trip

Since coming to Belfast for work with students from Queens University and Ulster, I have been hoping to get the chance to drive down to Galway and revisit the areas of Menlough and Skehennah, those places from where the family migrated over a hundred years ago.

A Galway Phone Book

In June of1999, the chance came to take the Galway tour.  I got hold of a Galway phone book and looked up all the Costello's listed in and around Menlough. What I found was at least  8 Costellos with Menlough addresses. I started to call them to prepare for the visit.

Reconnecting with Sean and Mary Costello after 15 years

What I found was a great response and interest, but no one with any real memory of Costello's who had gone to Australia. The only Costello with a clear Australian connection was the family of Sean and Mary Costello who run the shop ( meaning pub) beside the church at Skehenna. This was the same family that we had been able to contact  in 1984, when I called Sean. His wife, Mary, informed me that Sean had passed away in 1985.

 A Fortune in Australian Gold

Sean's father, Mary told us, remembered his father John coming back from Australia with a fortune in gold. With his fortune,  he built his shop and pub. He had first gone out to California  (1849?) before winning his fortune in Australia's  own gold rush. (1850's?)

He made the gold into gold buttons that he gave to his daughters when they were married. Mary had a bill of sale that went back to 189. It seemed a reasonable chance that John was the brother that returned leaving his brothers and sisters in Australia.

But Mary informed us that John was born in 1841 and died in 1902. When  he survived the famine, he set out to make a new life for himself. This means he is too old to be the son of Bridgett and Thomas, who only marry in 1844.

Priests in the family?

Mary's brother in law, Tom, Sean's brother, told us that our family were connected to a Fr. Patrick Costello who is a priest in Tuam 00353 093 47613 and his brother Tom and Anne, at 0353 0905 84793. I called them and again seemed to draw a blank, for neither seemed to recall any Australian connection.

Driving from Belfast to Galway

All that remained now was to check it out on the spot. We drove from Belfast and made for Menlough via Enniskillen and Sligo and Tuam. We arrived at Menlough and stopped at Glyynn's pub and shared a drink with Rose Glynn who told us that she was from Donegal. She didn't know the local families from way back but explained how the neighbors didn't live far from one another and usually ended up marrying each other.

"I thought it was just himself"

When we dropped in on Rose, we passed her husband who was painting outside.  She took some time coming out to serve us and when she did, we heard the genuine Irish expression, "I thought it was just himself."

John Costello's Pub ( click photo to see larger image)

We visited Mary's pub and met Tom Costello. He was Sean's brother. This is the pub or "Shop" as they call it, that John built with the money he earned from the gold he had found in Australia. Mary wasn't sure when it was built but she proudly showed me a bill of sale going back to 1897. She said it was built in the traditional style and had not changed much since then.

Finding the Original Street ( click photo to see larger image)

Tom told us that for their money, the Costellos' of our line came from Skehenna and were related to the Flemmings and the Kenny's who lived next to each other and that this particular street was just down the road.

This was the street with the first house on the left belonging to the Flaherty's - who were once the Flemings, (where we visited Aileen Flaherty) and the last house belongs to the Costellos'.

Costello's- next door to Fleming's-next door to Kenny's

It still has Costello's and Flaherty's (who are related to the Flemmings who once lived there) and the land next door used to belong to the Kenny's so that the street had all three families together. That might be the best explanation of  why the names keep cropping up in the baptismal records that we read at Menlough in 1984.

"New Houses on the Left, Old houses on the Right"

Tom Costello- Mary's brother, explained that the new houses were on the left and the old houses or their locations were on the right. He was eager to put us on the right track. He and Mary both remembered 15 years before when they had received the phone call from an Australian asking about family connections.

They had decided even back then that the Costello connection we were after had to be the Costello's in the house at the end of the street across the fields. He gave us phone numbers and contacts and even called us back in Belfast with phone numbers.

From this land to a land down under ( click photo to see larger image)

This is the land beside Sean's "shop."

We were told it was called "Kenny's field."  This picture is taken looking across to the street with the Kenny-Fleming-Costello farm connections and is taken from the parking lot outside Sean's pub.

Recognizing Skehenagh Church from James Costello's old photo.

On the other side of the "shop" is the  church. When we referred to the notes that Sister Kit had given us back in 1984, we read that "the chapel at Skehanagh was where James Costello had gone to church. There is a picture that James, Sister Kit's father, had of the church. "

( click photo to see larger image)

When we compared the old picture and the present church, it seems pretty clear that this is  the place.

Calling on the Old Costello Homestead

We called on the Costello's, and were greeted by Margaret- a teacher in Dublin- but she didn't recall any Aussies in the family history.  She said another Costello lived in the  street too, but wasn't sure of his connection.  Her parents were Tom and Anne, and Tom's father was John Costello, whose wife was Mary and her family  name was also Costello, from Killascobe. John had brothers with names Matty and Tom and Denis.

 Meet Mr. Tom Costello

We met her father the next day, Tom, (born December 3rd 1928)and he was a friendly  character who was happy enough to have his picture taken.

His brother was the priest at Tuam, Father Patrick Costello, whom I had phoned. He said that Patrick was younger and probably didn't remember much more of the family  history than he did.

Meeting the Neighbours-We had our own Ramsay Street!

We saw a lady in the window of the house next door and made a call. We met Aileen Flaherty, the widow of Michael Flaherty. His mother was Honore Fleming. She recalls the close connection between the Kenny's and Flemings and the Costello's.

The Site of the thatched cottage

Tom recalled that the street  used to have three families. The original Costello house- a thatched roof cottage- was gone now but it used to stand where this barn now stands
.

The Costello House today

The present residence
looks bright and new-
a far cry from what the
original Costello's left in the 1880's.

The Fleming House ( click photo to see larger image)

Tom also pointed out where the Flemmings used to live.
It was now a farm building used for storage.
It was next door to the Costello's old house site.

The View across the fields to the church

As we stood on the original land where the Costello house stood, we could look back across the fields and see the Church. We wondered if young James would have run across these fields to go to church.

Into the Village of Menlough

We drove on to Menlough and tried to get a feel of the small town.
It felt somewhat bigger than our last visit. Either it had grown or my memory had shrunk.

Saint Mary's Menlough ( click photo to see larger image)

We found the church where Thomas and Bridget were married back in 1844- or at least its modern incarnation, Saint Mary's. The parish bulletin calls this church the Menlough Church of the Killascobe parish.

IRA Connections?( click photo to see larger image)

On the way out, we passed a plaque full of names and registering the memory of those local people who had fought for Irish Independence. We noticed  a Thomas Costello from Killascobe.

A Fleming Connection

Back at Mary's place, we phoned an Assumpta Macaewan whose mother- Kitty Finnerty, nee Fleming- her father was Martin Fleming and grandfather was Mark Fleming. She had told her that she was related to the Costellos' and the Kenny's and her mother was a Fleming. The mum was senile and so had no more information. The Fleming that they recall was Honore Fleming.

Conclusions: 1984-1999

15 years ago, we could easily imagine a famine struck family struggling to support a large family off  a scrap of land that looked pretty unforgiving. Today, with the beautiful new houses and cars and farm equipment, it is a far cry from a scene of poverty. Ireland looks in the pink of prosperity and the original Costello land looks like it is making a profit these days.

As for the Costello's that we met, the memories seem to have grown very faint over time. People with the same name in the same street did not seem to know very much about how they might be related. So what chance of tracking down a 100 year old connection to a distant continent?

The brightest spark of recognition came from the Kenny letter. The folks most willing to join us in our search were Mary and her brother Tom, the people who run the John Costello pub in Skehennagh.  I am sorry now that I did not take a picture of them as  a way of saying thanks for their hospitality

Returning to the Land of our Fathers and Mothers.

What we did discover was the landscape. To be able to actually identify the plot of land where the original family had lived- of course we would need title deeds etc to confirm this, but that was certainly a thrill to see and more progress than we had made last time.

And to meet with Costello's who, though we couldn't find the missing link exactly, have to be related to us somewhere down the distant tracks of time. Another visit and a chance to swap yarns in the local pubs might ellicit more of the story, but we shall see.