Gurteen man says he’s first cousin of Irish man dying ‘alone’ in UK hospital

A social media campaign to find the Irish family of a man said to be dying “virtually alone” in a UK hospital has led to the door of a man living in Gurteen.

Patrick Mulligan (88), a bachelor who spent most of his life in America, was contacted last week by Finders International. They were searching for any relatives of Patrick ‘John’ Mulligan, a man seriously ill in hospital in the UK.

The man’s neighbour, Dave, put up an appeal on Facebook trying to trace his family. After the call went out, his post was shared almost 30,000 times.

It was picked up by the Finders International Ireland branch which traces heirs and works on adoption cases.

They used a genealogist who traced John Mulligan’s parents marriage certificate and checked for children of that marriage.

They discovered his father died not long before he was born and his mother re-married and had three children from her second marriage.

They also traced John Mulligan’s father’s family to Gurteen in South Sligo, where they found a first cousin, named Patrick Mulligan and contacted him.

Speaking to The Sligo Champion about his long lost relative from his home in the village, Patrick confirmed John’s father was his uncle from Gurteen.

“I saw that lad when he was small, when his father died in 1944. He was from Blarney in Cork, that’s where his father was working when he died. He was a Garda,” said Patrick.

“His father would be an uncle to me. He had lived in Limerick and then in Cork. He died answering the phone in the barracks,” he said.

None of his family (from Monasteraden area also) could attend his funeral in Cork because it was during the Emergency ( World War 2) and they had no petrol to drive down from Sligo.

Patrick said after John’s mother re-married, he only came up to Sligo once when he was brought up by cousins and after he left for England he never returned.

“I wondered how come that lad didn’t make an appearance and find out his relatives,” said Patrick, who is the eldest of five children but two of his brothers are deceased and his two sisters live in America.

John’s father had other siblings in Gurteen and Patrick says he would have other first cousins still alive in south Sligo.

Pauric Grennan of Finders International told this newspaper that John also had half-siblings from his mother’s second marriage still alive in Munster.

“We normally trace heirs but when we heard about John Mulligan we decided to get in touch to help him out,” Pauric said.