O’KEEFFE’S COMING FROM AMERICA, ENGLAND, SCOTLAND AND FRANCE TO DROMTARIFFE
THERE is a huge O’Keeffe clan gathering planned for Duhallow this month with a host of events in the pipeline from music to folklore to expert genealogists at hand to offer advice on family roots.
There are O’Keeffe’s from not just Duhallow but the entire country who will descend on the region for the event and in addition, O’Keeffe’s from America, Australia, Scotland, France and Britain have also given the organisers of the event the nod that they too will be in attendance.
The gathering is planned for September 9-11 – which is the weekend of the All Ireland finals.
Patricia O’Keeffe of Newmarket is PRO of the gathering and she told The Corkman that the huge get-together will kick off on Friday, September 9 at Dromtariffe Hall at 4pm. It will be formally launched by the Clan Chieftain Dan Joe O’Keeffe who will perform the cake cutting ceremony.
The talented ‘Buttons and Strings’ who won silver All Ireland medals in the Ennis Fleadh will showcase their talent and keep all the O’Keeffe’s in chirpy format.
On Saturday, the work of several local schools will have their History exhibitions on show as well as the 1937, ‘Schools manuscripts collection from Dromagh and Dromtariffe. School children collected stories, songs, sayings, proverbs, customs and beliefs from their grandparents and parents and these were all recorded by the Irish Folklore Commission.
On the day, historian Maurice O’Keeffe who has extensive collections of audio recordings and books with first hand accounts of past Irish life and he is most eager to collect and new information and record the diasporas experience.
Newmarket native, Catherine Culloty who is a genealogist along with Lorna Moloney, who is the resident genealogist for Dromoland Castle in Clare. Catherine will give free advice on how to minimise the time and expense involved in finding information while carrying out family research.
Lorna will give a talk at 2pm on Albert E Casey’s great collection of ‘O’Kief, Coshe Mang, Slieve Lougher and the Upper Blackwater in Ireland series.’
There will be two bus tours which will be an adventure in themselves and will be headed by the noted Newmarket historian Raymond O’Sullivan and David O’Keeffe.
Millstreet native, Sean Radley will be in the hall also over the weekend, the talented ‘silver surfer’ and man behind LTV2 will make sure the piece of O’Keeffe history will be recorded.
On Saturday night, there will be a banquet, variety show and concert as well as Cullen Pipe Band to welcome all O’Keeffe’s to Millstreet at 7pm in the Square. The banquet will be held at the Wallis Arms hotel. Music will be provided by the talented Ceoltoiri Sliabh Luachra.
Finally, on Sunday mass will be celebrated at Dromtariffe church at 12pm and lunch will be held at the hall from 1-2pm. Then Lorna Moloney will give a lecture on ‘O’Kief Coshe Mang.’
To reserve your place please call 087-2547498 OR 086-8248537. A host of information can also be found on the okeeffeclans.com webpage.