Child of the Great Famine had many local connections

THE ancient and faded photo (right) is of a Valentia woman named Kate O’Neill who died in 1929 at the age of 92. The intriguing thing about this lady is that she was a child of the Great Famine, who would have been about the age of nine or ten then.

Many of the O’Neill clan in the Valentia and outlying areas were referred to as the ‘Hurraigs’. This lady was locally referred to as Caut Ni ‘Hurraigh’.

She was the great, great grandmother of this writer, being the grandmother of my grandmother Julia Cooper (nee O’Connell and formerly of Corobeag), who was married to William Cooper of Tennis.

Caut’s husband was Tom O’Shea. Their daughter Mary O’Shea was married to Patrick O’Connell of Corobeag. Mary O’Shea and Patrick O’Connell were Julia Cooper’s parents, who were this writer’s great grandparents. They were also the grandparents of my mother Molly Cooper (Julia’s daughter).

Caut and her husband Tom O’Shea were the grandparents of the late brothers Christy, Tom and Jack O’Shea, orginally of Cooil Road. Caut and Tom’s son Denis was Mary O’Shea’s brother and father of the three O’Sheas, which means that the O’Shea brothers were first cousins of Julia Cooper of Tennis. It also means that Tom O’Shea’s (his late wife Bridie was from Cromane), son Tom and daughters Mary and Teresa are the great grandchildren of Caut and Tom O’Shea.

Caut Ni ‘Hurraigh’