The Pettitt Page: August 29

Monday, August 29, 2011

Another late night meant another late morning! We met up with Mary (Keating) Mannion, who is grandma’s sister, so that we could see the Annacallagh home (where the Keating family lived). We ended up visiting for quite a while at Mary’s home with her, her daughter Carmel and granddaughter Evette. Then we headed out toward Annacallagh. First we stopped by where the original Keating home Craughwell home (I’m thinking that this is like the neighborhood, and not the town because it was out in the middle of nowhere!). The land is owned by somebody else at this point and the house cannot be seen. We are guessing that the foundation could be found if you stomp around in the field some. It sounds like that home would actually be the one that Great grandma spent most of her time in here in Ireland. At Annacallagh we met up with Mary’s brother Johnny (John) and his wife Kay. They still farm and have all sorts of animals. Shane (who is Mary’s grandson from her son Ciaran and going into 5^th grade) gave us a tour of the place. We say a turkey, donkeys, horses, a bull, cows, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, lots of cats, and dogs. I loved it. Shane showed us his horse Amigo and his brothers, Betty. There are 29 horses total, but these are the only two that are broken and can be ridden. The land is beautiful and green. The old Annacallagh home was pretty big for its time. After visiting with Johnny and Kay, we headed down the driveway to Ciaran (Mary’s son) and Nicola’s home. The have 3 kids, Ciara, Shane, and (another boy). They also have 2 foster children. The one foster child we met was about 17 months old…it was nice to see a baby! It was getting late at this point, but Mary still wanted us to go and see her daughter Collette who lived a little ways away. She has 4 little kids (the youngest being just a few months old) and they live in a beautiful and big home. We were all super tired at this point and ready for our drive back to Banagher! Mom is certainly becoming the professional driver!