Sunday, March 28, 2010

Rest in Peace - Cousin Peter O'Donnell



I met my Cousin Peter O'Donnell @ my family's reunion in Foxford Ireland on St. Patrick's Day 2008. It was his first visit to Ireland and also my first visit. We spent so time together and he told me he wished he had visited ireland before then and that echoed my sentiments. i liked Peter and was blessed to have met him. I just wished him a happy birthday a week ago on FB. So today when i discovered his tragic and untimely death I felt shocked. Peter will be missed dearly by his family and friends.

Rest in Peace Cousin Peter. I am blessed to have met and spent time with you.


Monday, March 22, 2010

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

St. Patrick's Day Music

Happy St Patrick's Day








Happy Saint Patrick's Day 2010



I have very fond memories of going to the St Patrick's Parade in New York every year with my mother Ann when I was a kid living in the Bronx. Two years ago I spent St Patrick's Day in Foxford Ireland at a very special reunion of my family. It was my first time in Ireland and very magical. A few months before, my cousin Sharon in the UK found us through the Internet and reunited us with our family that we never thought we would ever find. A St Patrick Day miracle. So here's to my newly discovered and large family.
I now have family in Ireland, England, Germany, Australia, Canada, and here in the USA.
So on this St Patrick's Day....Up the "O'Donnell's, Duffy's, Gavin's, Burton's, Cassini's, Quinn's, Prescott's, Foran's and Up the Irish
and Slainte........

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

A Saint Patrick's Day Message From Ireland: Thank You America

A story from Irish Central.....

Then, I saw a mirage. There, in the middle of downtown Manhattan, was a springtime Irish hillside, complete with a tumbledown stone cottage, bracken and grasses. The purple foxgloves were even in flower, just as at our own Irish farmhouse, which we had left only the day before. Glass skyscrapers towered incongruously on either side. I approached cautiously. Was this surreal hallucination the effect of jet lag, or maybe an after-effect of last night's beers?

My tentative hand met cold stone, confirming that it was real: In the middle of Manhattan, there is a tiny park, the Irish Hunger Memorial. A ruined emigrant's cottage transported from County Mayo stands amid wildflowers and stones from each county of Ireland. Carved in black marble are texts that vividly describe the Great Famine of 1847 and the exodus that followed. As many as one and a half million died, and two million more fled the worst apocalypse of 19th century Europe. Here, on these very quaysides in New York City, many found shelter......


http://www.irishcentral.com/saint_patricks_day/A-Saint-Patricks-Day-message-from-Ireland-Thank-you-America-87722357.html