Home & Heartland Stories

The Fitzgerald farm in Caherlevoy was divided in 1894, when my second great grandfather died and the land passed to his two eldest sons in portions. The portion that came to my direct line left the family in 1977. The other half remains with Fitzgerald descendants to this day.

I did not see it until 2010, when a cousin drove me out to show me where it had been. We could not go in. We stood at the edge of what had once been ours and looked.

At each side of the entrance stands a stone figure, flanking the gate. This is one of them. I photographed it from where I stood — outside, looking in. All I have is its back.

I made a watercolor rendering of the photograph when I came home. The treatment seemed right for what the visit had been: the land visible, the past just behind it, neither one reachable.

Matthew Timothy Fennell (1893-1960)

On May 2, 1957, a sixty-three-year-old shopkeeper in Kilrush, County Clare, picked up a pencil—his rheumatism-stiffened hand unable to manage a pen—and began to write to his daughter across the ocean. "I suppose you will bless yourself when you receive this scrawl," Matt Fennell wrote to Aine. "I am very badly able to write and had to write with pencil. My arm is stiff with rheumatism but I am ashamed I did not write sooner."

The letter is remarkable not for what it accomplishes—the handwriting is difficult, the thoughts tumble out in the oral cadence of spoken Clare English—but for what it reveals: a man in his declining years, struggling against physical limitations to maintain the bonds of affection across distance. Matt wrote of family members, of grandchildren, of his daughter Catherine in London who "never forgets me." He signed off with hope—"My arm may be better the next letter. Please God"—and blessing: "good bye and God bless you."

Three years later he was dead, and the question becomes: How did a farmer's son from a crowded household in rural Clare become the proprietor of a boot warehouse and grocery on Henry Street, a member of the town council, and the patriarch of a family scattered between Ireland and England? To his grandchildren, he would be known simply as Granda—but the path to that role began decades earlier, in a very different world.

The Beginning: Brisla, 1893

The story begins in Brisla, a townland near Cooraclare, where Matthew Fennell was born on June 1, 1893. His parents, Michael and Margaret, farmers working land that had sustained their families for generations. baptized their newborn son the same day he was born—a common practice when infant mortality was an ever-present threat. Matt entered a household already crowded with children, andmore would follow. By the time of the 1901 census, when Matt was seven, he was the eighth of what would eventually be fifteen children.

The Fennell farmhouse at Brisla East held thirteen people that census night. Michael, at fifty-two, headed a household where all the older children could read and write—a mark of rising educational standards in rural Ireland. The family was bilingual, with Michael and Margaret fluent in both Irish andEnglish, though the children primarily spoke English, the language of commerce and advancement in the new century.

For a boy with Matt's place in the birth order—neither the eldest son who might inherit the farm nor young enough to remain at home indefinitely—the path forward required leaving. By 1911, at eighteen, Matt had made his way to Galway city, where he lodged in a house on Dominick Street Lower. The census recorded him as "Matt Farnell" (a transcription error) and listed his occupation as Commercial Clerk. He was one of several young men boarding in the household—clerks and shop assistants seeking their fortunes in the city's commercial life rather than on the land.

Two Brothers on the Threshold

Sometime around 1922, in the years between Matt's return from Galway and his establishment in Kilrush, a camera lens captured a moment of stillness between two young men. In a formal studio portrait taken against a painted backdrop of drapery and architectural illusion, Matt Fennell sat in an ornate chair with barley-twist legs, dressed in a three-piece suit with a watch chain visible on his vest. His expression was earnest and composed—less stylized than his brother's, suggesting a more seriousor reflective temperament. His hair was still full, not yet showing the receding hairline that would mark him by the time of his marriage.

Standing beside him, one hand resting on the back of Matt's chair, was his brother Joe Fennell. Joe's arms were crossed with a hint of theatrical flair, his neatly styled moustache and confident bearing suggesting perhaps a touch more extroversion than his seated brother. His suit was smartly tailored, with a crisp pocket square visible—subtle details that spoke of personal pride.

The photograph captured the brothers side by side, not formally posed like strangers but with an ease between them that spoke of genuine connection. This was Matt before the shop, before marriage—a formative moment frozen in time. Both were dressed in their best suits, perhaps borrowed or newly tailored for the occasion, and neither could yet have known the roads that lay ahead. The partnership they would forge on Henry Street still lay in the future, as did its eventual dissolution.

Between 1911 and 1928, Matt acquired the skills and capital to establish himself as a merchant. He also survived the tumultuous decade of revolution and civil war that convulsed Ireland. West Clare saw incidents during the War of Independence and raids during the Civil War, with Kilrush experiencing its share of upheaval. The violence and instability tested the resilience of anyone trying to build a business.

A Union Rooted in Clare: June 26, 1928

By June 26, 1928, when Matt married Mary Catherine Comyns in the Cathedral at Ennis, he was thirty-five years old and established enough to list his occupation as "merchant." Catherine, known to the family as Cissy, was thirty-one, also from Kilrush, the daughter of a farmer. The marriage united twofamilies with roots in the rural economy of West Clare, but Matt and Cissy's future would be built in town, not on the land.

The wedding portrait captured them in the visual language of dignity and restraint typical of the interwar period in Ireland. Everything from posture to dress to background was deliberate, lending the image an air of permanence—a visual declaration of union. Cissy stood to the left, wearing a dark ensemble, likely a modest wedding dress or tailored suit. Decorative detailing on the collar and cuffs added quiet sophistication—understated, perfectly in line with the aesthetic values of post-independence Ireland. Her hairstyle was a fashionable bob, sleek and tucked neatly, and her expression was composed, slightly soft, with a steadiness in her eyes—a woman meeting life ahead with calm assurance.

Matt sat to the right in a three-piece dark suit, his pocket watch and chain just visible. A light-colored tie with a subtle pattern gave a gentle lift to the dark tones, and a small floral boutonnière—likely a white carnation or rosebud—was pinned to his lapel. His expression was open, proud, and warm. Helooked directly into the lens with the quiet confidence of a man who had found his partner and was beginning a new chapter.

The chair and table, likely studio props, added a slight domestic frame to the image—symbolic, perhaps, of the home they were about to build. There were no smiles in the photograph, only seriousness—but not coldness. They brought more than rings and flowers to the studio that day. They brought the quiet determination of Clare's working class—he, a shopkeeper in the making; she, apartner whose strength would show more in action than adornment. A lifetime lay ahead, and they met it together, already side by side.

Building a Life: Fennell Bros on Henry Street

The Fennell Bros businesses on Henry Street became the center of their lives. By the mid-1930s, Thom's Directory listed the enterprise—Joe and Matt ran the grocery while Cissy managed the boot shop across the street. This family operation made practical sense in a small market town. Boot repair served farmers and labourers who needed sturdy footwear for hard work, while the grocery provided daily necessities. Running such shops required long hours, especially on market days when the town filled with farmers and their families. It also required the delicate business of extending credit to reliable customers while avoiding the accumulation of too many unpaid accounts.

The 1930s were difficult years for Kilrush. The Economic War with Britain depressed farm prices, hitting the rural economy that sustained the town's trade. Labour riots erupted in 1931, and street clashes between republicans and Blueshirts in 1933 brought military intervention. Through all this instability,the Fennell family maintained their shops, building a reputation for fair dealing and establishing themselves as respected members of the business community.

During the Second World War—the Emergency, as it was known in neutral Ireland—shortages and rationing tested shopkeepers' ingenuity. Matt would have managed ration books, found substitute goods, and navigated the constraints on transport and distribution. Yet for those who adapted, there were also opportunities, and the Fennell Bros shops survived and continued.

Between 1936 and 1949, directory entries recorded the Fennell Bros presence on Henry Street—each year another testament to the family's stability and service to the community. Matt and Cissy raised at least seven children who grew up in the rhythms of small-town commerce, in the rooms above or behind the shops.

But partnerships, even among brothers, don't always last forever. Sometime after 1949, the arrangement dissolved. The boot shop closed, and Matt opened his own competing grocery on Henry Street. Joe continued operating the original Fennell Bros grocery—an establishment that would remain in business long after both brothers were gone, eventually managed by Joe's children following his death in 1969. Regardless of the separation, the brothers maintained family ties—Joe stood among the chief mourners at Matt's funeral in 1960.

Matt's involvement extended beyond his shop. He served on the Kilrush Urban Council for many years, participating in local governance during a period when councils managed housing, sanitation, and the gradual modernization of Irish towns. His political affiliation was with Fianna Fáil, the party that haddominated Irish politics since the 1930s under Éamon de Valera. Being a councillor meant navigating the practical politics of a small town—balancing interests, allocating limited resources, maintaining relationships.

A Life's Work: Mid-1950s

By the mid-1950s, a photograph captured Matt Fennell behind the counter of his own shop on Henry Street—the independent grocery he now operated apart from his brother. He stood in his white shopkeeper's coat, the uniform that signaled both tidiness and tradition, wearing a dark tie and glasses, his composed bearing speaking to a generation that valued professionalism and respectability even in the smallest of business settings.

His expression was measured but warm—this was a man who had greeted generations of customers, watched children grow up, and listened to the daily comings and goings of the town. There was pride here—not showy, but steady. Behind him, the shelves burst with goods: Bird's Custard, Tate & Lyle, OXO cubes—familiar comforts. Large glass jars of sweets, likely cherished treats for local children, perhaps even his own grandchildren. Canned and dry goods—the basics of a household pantry, all overseen by a man who likely knew every regular's preferences, every family's circumstances, every child's favorite sweet.

The shop was more than a business. In post-war Ireland, such establishments were hubs of local news, centers of a credit-based economy, even venues for matchmaking and community connection. Granda wasn't just selling groceries—he was holding a thread in the fabric of Kilrush life, a thread that connected families, seasons, celebrations, and sorrows.

But time was catching up with him. The photograph shows a man in his sixties, successful and respected, but the years of long hours and physical labor were taking their toll.

The Letter and the End

When Matt wrote that letter to Aine in May 1957, his body was failing him. The rheumatism that made writing difficult was likely part of a broader decline. He apologized for not writing sooner, for the poor quality of his penmanship, for his limitations. But through the difficulty, his affection flowed—concern for his children, delight in his grandson "called after me sure why not may God bless him," gratitude for Catherine in London who "never forgets me." The letter closed with hope: "My arm may be better the next letter. Please God."

It was not to be. Within three years, acute pulmonary edema would claim his life. He died at home on Henry Street on August 21, 1960, with his son John present. He was sixty-seven years old.

The funeral on August 26 drew a large crowd to Breaffa Cemetery. The Clare Champion obituary noted that Matt had been "a prominent member of the local business community for many years" and that "his passing was regretted over a wide area." The chief mourners included his widow Cissy, his sons and daughters, his surviving siblings including his brother Joe, and his son-in-law Laurence Blake who had come from London with Matt's daughter Catherine. Two of his children—Aine and Patrick, who had made their lives in New York—could not make the journey home. Distance and circumstance meant they mourned their father from across the Atlantic, an ocean away from the man who had struggled to write them letters with his rheumatic hand.

A Life in Three Portraits

Three photographs trace the arc of Matthew Fennell's life. In the first, a young man sits beside his brother, both dressed in their best, poised on the threshold of adulthood with their futures unwritten. In the second, that same man—now thirty-five, more settled, his hairline receding—sits beside his bride in formal studio dignity, beginning the partnership that would sustain them through decades of challenge and achievement. In the third, an aging shopkeeper stands behind his counter in a white coat, surrounded by the goods that fed his community and the shelves that represented a lifetime of work.

From Commercial Clerk in Galway to merchant and councillor in Kilrush, from the eighth child of a farmer to the father of seven, Matthew Fennell's life traced an arc of modest but real achievement. The photographs document the external journey—youth to marriage to establishment. But the letter he struggled to write in 1957, with its affectionate concern for scattered children and grandchildren,captures something more essential: despite physical decline and the dispersion of his family, he maintained the bonds of love and duty that had shaped his life.

The shop on Henry Street is long gone, as is the generation that knew him as neighbor, councillor, and friend. But his grandchildren remember him still, and the photographs remain—three windows into the life of a man who built something lasting not through grand gestures but through steady presence, fair dealing, and enduring love. To those who never met him, he is history. To his descendants, he will always be Granda.

About the Author

Terry grew up in the United States knowing her maternal grandfather, Matt, only through fragments—his name, his place in the family, and the quiet absence he left behind. Born and raised in County Clare, Ireland, Matt died two years before Terry was born, and as a result, he has always remained something of a mystery. Family stories have long centered on his wife, whose life was extraordinary, while Matt's story lingered at the edges. This work brings her grandfather to life in his own right, offering her family a deeper understanding of the man they never had the chance to meet.

Sources

Vital Records

Irish Genealogy birth or baptism records. Birth record for Matthew Fennell:https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/files/civil/birth_returns/births_1893/02289/1859156.pdf

Marriage registration of Matthew Fennell and Mary Catherine Comyns, 26 June 1928, Roman Catholic Cathedral, Ennis, County Clare.

Death record for Matthew Fennell, 21 August 1960, Henry Street, Kilrush, County Clare. Cause of death: acute pulmonary edema.

Census Records

Ireland Census 1901. Residents of a house 10 in Brisla East (Cooraclare, Clare):http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Clare/Cooraclare/Brisla_East/1080576/

Ireland Census 1911. Residents of a house 12 in Dominick Street Lower (Galway West Urban, Galway).

Business Directories

Thom's Directory, various years 1936–1949. Entries for Fennell Bros, bootmaker, boot warehouse, and grocer, Henry Street, Kilrush, County Clare.

Private Documents

Matt Fennell to Auna Fennell, letter dated 2 May 1957, Henry Street, Kilrush, County Clare; private family collection, transcription by Terry Fitzgerald.

Photographs

Studio portrait of Matt Fennell and Joe Fennell, circa 1920-1922; private family collection.

Wedding portrait of Matt Fennell and Mary Catherine (Cissy) Comyns, 26 June 1928, Ennis, County Clare; private family collection.

Portrait of Matt Fennell in his shop, Henry Street, Kilrush, mid-1950s; private family collection.

Newspapers

Obituary for Matthew Fennell, Clare Champion, 26 August 1960.

Burial record, Breaffa Cemetery, Ballykett, County Clare, after 21 August 1960.

In 1968, thirty-one years after my mother first came home to Henry Street, I walked through its door for the first time. I was 6 and on our first trip home to Ireland. We stayed at the Fennell home for our whole trip — the house where our mother and her twin Mags were raised as the youngest of the family, though a little baby boy came after them, unnamed, as he died at birth. On the trip was my mother and my siblings Geraldine and Deborah. I am the eldest, named Terry after my mother's best friend Terry Rush. It was my mother's first trip home with her young family. Dad had to stay in New York for work. He bundled us off to JFK airport and off we went.

My whole six week experience was wonderous, scary and magical all at the same time. Scary because we were meeting family for the first time and they all had strong Irish brogues. While our own mother spoke with a soft Irish brogue, her siblings and mother were very different. And the food was so odd! Definitely not what we were used to. My aunts were quite disgusted with the jar of peanut butter that my mother carted across the ocean so that we had one familiar thing! Uncle Jack developed a game he called Mouses In The Houses to trick us into eating. That’s such a special memory, it deserves its own chronicle later!

As we entered through the main door, it was unlike any of our houses in New York. It was a long hallway, with a long closed shop on the left. As a child, the hallway seemed so long, it was like a city block! In reality, it was probably 50 feet or so? Half way down the long walk towards the kitchen, the heart of the home, was the staircase to the upper levels. The whole journey down it seemed dark with the only light coming from the front door, now closed, and the light in the kitchen.

Entering the kitchen, the first thing I remember is where Granny sat. Her chair was on the far left, close to the old-fashioned stove, as if that spot had been chosen long ago and never reconsidered. Sitting there, in her corner, was Granny—my mother’s mother. She would have been in her early seventies, though to my young mind she seemed very old. Her long, thin hair was pulled back into a bun, always neat, always the same.

I remember that we couldn’t really understand her. The brogue was very strong. My own mother spoke with a brogue softened by years of living in New York, so Granny’s voice felt familiar but not quite clear. My cousin used to laugh and say it was because she didn’t have her teeth in, but I don’t think that was it. I think it was simply the strength of the brogue, thick and steady, like something that had never needed to change.

That kitchen was also the first place I smelled a peat fire, slowly burning in the stove. Just like music that grounds you to a space and time, that peat smell grounds me to Henry Street.

Along the wall beside her ran the sink and the old washing machine, both worn but still in use. Above, stretching across the ceiling, was a series of hangers for drying clothes. As a child, I noticed them often, the way they cut across the space overhead. They made the room feel full, even when it was quiet.

I loved that kitchen. It was small, but it held everything. A large table sat in the center, taking up most of the space, making it feel like a place meant for gathering. Around the walls were cupboards filled with teacups and saucers, more than seemed necessary, set close together as if there was no room left but still no reason to take any away. Near the window was a more modern stovetop and a small desk or work area, added later, as needs changed.

At the far end of the room stood the large press, solid and heavy, opposite the stove. It held clothes, and like everything else in the room, it felt permanent. The whole kitchen was a mixture of things—a bit of everything gathered over time. It wasn’t arranged so much as it had grown that way, piece by piece.

At the time, I didn’t think of it as unusual. It was simply how Granny’s kitchen was.

Off the back door of the kitchen was the outhouse, yet another adventure we were not prepared for! We had only one toilet and bathroom in our New York house, but it was inside.

Going back out into the long hallway, we made our way upstairs to the rest of the house. The second floor was mostly taken up by the sitting room. I can still picture it clearly, with Granny’s things set out where they could be seen. There were photographs on nearly every surface, along with a piano and the fireplace that seemed to anchor the room.

The sitting room didn’t change much, at least not in any way I noticed then. The furniture stayed where it was, as if it had been decided long before I ever came along. There was a large wooden cabinet against the wall, dark and polished, with a mirror that reflected the window across the room. I remember the way the light came through the curtains and landed there, making the glass dishes on the cabinet shine more than anything else in the room.

Some of them were pink, a color I didn’t see often anywhere else in the house. They were set out carefully, close together, as if they belonged in those exact spots. There were also a few photographs, though I didn’t always know who the people were. I understood they were important because they were kept there.

The fireplace was across from it, and that’s where my attention usually went. The mantel held a row of small things, but I always looked at the two matching vases first as my anchor into that space. Because this was the fanciest of rooms, we never spent much time there, but I loved everything about it. Most of our time was anchored in the kitchen space.

There were bedrooms on that second floor, one or two. The third floor was where the children slept including us. One distinct memory is the chamber pots under the beds, to avoid late night toilet situations and having to go all the way downstairs to the outhouse!

Back downstairs was the wonderfully mysterious and now closed shop. I can remember peeking through the curtained windows, longing to go inside. I now know that that shop functioned as both a boot shop and a family grocer in its existence from about 1928 after my grandparents married until my granda’s death in 1960.

When the end of our six week adventure came to a close, we gathered in the kitchen to say our goodbyes. Much of my Irish family was there; granny, Jack, Mags, some of my cousins. It was terribly hard and I did not want to go back to New York. I had fallen in love with my second home. I remember starting to cry and dashing back down that long hallway to the stairs at about mid point and hiding to cry my eyes out. Mom followed me quickly, trying to give me comfort about the need to leave. I was so focused on my own distress, it’s only with this writing that I realize how hard it would have been on her to leave her mother one more time. Everything else is really a blur about that day. What stands clearly is the emotion of my pain on having to fly home and leave this new place that I loved so well.

We did not return to Ireland for another 6 years, this time bringing my youngest sister Laura and our father with us for their first visit to Ireland. But that first memory is always with me. In 2013, on a later trip home, Laura snuck up the stairs to grab some photos while I kept Uncle Jack busy in the kitchen. The stairs were quite unsafe at this point in the life of the house, and no one really went upstairs. But I wanted something tangible in photo form to remember the sitting room. Those photos are now a treasured item in my collection. With Jack’s passing in 2015, the house was sold.

It’s been more than 58 years since that first visit and the memories still bring me to tears. Happy memory tears. That six week visit was foundational for me. I can still picture everything in my mind. And that’s a good thing…

About the Author

I'm Terry Fitzgerald, raised in New York with deep family roots in County Clare, Ireland. I was six years old when I first walked through the door of the house on Henry Street in Kilrush — my mother's birthplace — and fell in love with a country I immediately knew was also home. That first trip in 1968 shaped everything that followed. I wrote this to preserve what memory holds of that house, that kitchen, and the grandmother my own children's generation never knew. The smell of a peat fire still brings me straight back.

On a Thursday afternoon in July 1936, Bishop Thomas E. Molloy of Brooklyn stood before more than 1,200 people on the grounds of the Cenacle retreat house in Lake Ronkonkoma, New York, and dedicated a new grotto — a stone structure fashioned after the famous shrine at Lourdes, France, where, in 1858, a young shepherdess named Bernadette Soubirous had reported visions of the Virgin Mary. (*16) Several monsignori were present. The Patchogue Advance covered the event the following day, noting the gift of the late George Duval of Brooklyn, the contract firms responsible for the cement and the excavating, the readiness of the Sisters of the Cenacle to welcome all who came. What the newspaper did not note — what no document would record — was the presence, somewhere among those twelve hundred, of one of the men who had built the thing.

His name was Maurice Joseph Fitzgerald. He had crossed the Atlantic a dozen years earlier with forty dollars in his pocket. He had spent the intervening years on these same grounds, shaping them — first as gardener, then as one of the men who helped raise this shrine from hollow earth to consecrated stone.

Maurice had been born on 11 July 1901 in Caherlevoy, Mountcollins, County Limerick, Ireland, the eldest son of Timothy Fitzgerald, a farmer, and Elizabeth Sheehy. (*1) The 1911 census recorded him there as a nine-year-old scholar — known to family and neighbors as Mossie — one of seven children in a household that also employed a sixteen-year-old domestic servant: a working farmhouse, full and close, at the edge of rural Limerick. (*2) Timothy Fitzgerald died in 1915, when Maurice was thirteen. In 1922, in the aftermath of Irish independence, Maurice served in the military. (*3) He was the first of his immediate family to leave for America.

The night before he departed, his neighbors and family gathered to see him off. Among them was his second cousin Jackie Lenihan — Jack Tom — then a boy of about thirteen. Before Maurice left Caherlevoy for the last time, he gave Jackie a bird in a cage. Jackie Lenihan was still carrying that memory in 2010, at the age of ninety-nine, when he recounted it to Terry Fitzgerald on a visit to Ireland. He called him Mossie. (*OA1)

In 1924, Maurice joined the wave of young Irish men and women crossing the Atlantic in those years, and boarded the SS Cedric at Cobh for the crossing to America.

He arrived in Boston on 31 August 1924. The passenger manifest recorded him: single, fair complexion, blue eyes, dark hair, five feet nine, carrying forty dollars. His destination was Lowell, Massachusetts, where his first cousin once-removed Thomas Lenihan had settled. His stated intention was to remain permanently. (*4)

The documentary record falls quiet for the years between Boston and Long Island, but by 1928 Maurice had found his way to Lake Ronkonkoma and to the Cenacle — a large retreat house and convent on forty-two acres of wooded ground overlooking a pond, run by the Sisters of the Cenacle. The property had originally been donated by the retired actress Maude Adams, and the sisters had maintained it for retreatants since the 1920s. (*H2) Brief notices in the Suffolk County News in 1928 place Maurice at the Cenacle, spending weekends with friends in Brooklyn and New York: "Morris Fitzgerald, of the Cenacle," the column called him — attending a friend's wedding in October, visiting friends in February, a man quietly building a life in his adopted county. (*6) (*7)

The Depression that arrived in 1929 tightened circumstances across Long Island, but the Cenacle's grounds provided the measure of stability that steady institutional work could offer. The 1930 census recorded Maurice as a twenty-eight-year-old laborer at the Cenacle, still single at the time the enumerator called. (*5)

The woman he would marry was already in New York. Mary Bridget Geary had been born in 1908 in Carna, County Galway, to John Geary and Bridget Lyden, known as Delia. In October 1923, when Mary was fifteen, her father brought her to New York — to his sisters, her aunts, who were already established there. She left behind, among other things, her baby sister Sarah, born that January. Sarah was nine months old when Mary sailed. It would be many years before the two sisters stood in the same room again. (*OA2)

Two months after the 1930 census, on 26 November 1930, Maurice and Mary married at the Church of St. Albert — a Belgian national parish established in 1916, at 433 West 47th Street in Manhattan — with his sister Mary and Mary's brother James Geary as witnesses. (*12) (*13) The bouquet Mary carried was borrowed from the photographer; there was no money for flowers in 1930.

Maurice had declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States on 11 January 1929. By the time he filed his formal petition on 12 January 1934, he and Mary had three sons: John, Timothy, and Maurice Jr. The petition listed his continuous residence at the Cenacle since his arrival in 1924 and named two witnesses — Henry F. Verwilghen, a priest, and Patrick Rafferty, a laborer, both of the Cenacle — who could attest to his character and his presence. (*8) Rafferty had arrived from Maphoner, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, around 1922, two years ahead of Maurice. By 1930 the two men were living and working on the same grounds, sharing the same census page. Rafferty had married Frances Madeline Fish in Lake Ronkonkoma in April 1933. In their early family lives, the two households shared the same grounds. On 7 July 1934, the Supreme Court of Suffolk County made Maurice's citizenship official: Petition No. 2811. (*15)

Around 1935, the grotto project began.

The shrine was designed by architect Lucien Gaudreau of Baltimore and featured sculpture by John Early; the cement contract went to John Wild of Holbrook, and the excavating and landscape work to Charles Beck of Ronkonkoma. (*16) (*H1) But family oral tradition, preserved by Mary Bridget Geary Fitzgerald, places Maurice and Pat Rafferty among the men who performed the hands-on construction at the site: clearing brush, hauling stone, sand, and cement from road to worksite, and shaping the masonry core into cave-like forms — the arch, the niche for the statue of Our Lady, the steps and low walls where retreatants would one day kneel. (*16) The man who had sworn for Maurice's citizenship now worked alongside him in the mud and cement. For months, the future grotto was a worksite: digging, mixing, hauling, setting. Then the scaffolding came down.

On 23 July 1936, it was dedicated. The bishop blessed the stone. Twelve hundred people gathered. And Maurice Fitzgerald — who had mixed the concrete and set the approach paths and helped fashion the cave that faces heaven — was there, not as a named contributor, not as anyone whose presence the newspaper would mark, but as a man who had made what the bishop was blessing. (*16)

He had less than two years left.

By January 1938, a newspaper notice reported him confined to a hospital in New York, "formerly employed at the Cenacle" — the past tense marking the close of his working years on those grounds. (*17) The illness was actinomycosis of the sigmoid, a slow bacterial infection, compounded by cachexia. Family understanding held that it was connected to his work on the grounds — possibly to managing cattle, an exposure consistent with the disease: actinomycosis is well documented in cattle, and abdominal infection in humans from such contact or from contaminated soil was a recognized route. He lay at Misericordia Hospital at 531 East 86th Street in Manhattan. Mary and the three boys — John, six; Timothy, four; Maurice Jr., two — remained at the Cenacle property in Brookhaven, sixty-five miles from the man in the hospital bed.

While he was still hospitalized, on 21 September 1938, the Long Island Express came ashore at Bellport, approximately two miles from the Fitzgerald home — one of the most powerful hurricanes to strike the northeastern United States in the twentieth century. Maurice Sr. was in Manhattan, beyond reach of the storm and beyond reach of his family. Family memory holds that Mary searched for her eldest son John in the wind and rain; that Maurice Jr., barely two years old, would carry the terror of that day for the rest of his life — even in his early eighties, he could still recall it clearly. (*34)

Eight days later, on 29 September 1938, Maurice Joseph Fitzgerald died at Misericordia Hospital. He was thirty-seven years old, fourteen months into his illness. (*18) The requiem mass was said at St. Jerome's R.C. church in New York. The Mid-Island Mail's obituary on 5 October described him as a native of County Limerick who had come to America thirteen years before and spent the last eleven years on the Cenacle grounds — a member of St. Joseph's Holy Name Society at the Lake, survived by his wife, his three sons, his brother Timothy of Lake Ronkonkoma, his sister Mrs. Mary Gilligan of the Bronx, and his mother, Elizabeth Fitzgerald, still living in County Limerick. (*23) He was buried at St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx on 1 October 1938, section 15, range 16, grave 65. (*22)

The grotto stood for decades after him. By the 1950s it appeared on postcards: "Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto, Lake Ronkonkoma, L.I., N.Y." — thousands of retreatants kneeling at the stone cave near the water, leaving flowers and candles, unaware of the men who had made it. Of Maurice's siblings, roughly half had made it to America before the Depression tightened the immigration rules and closed the door for any interested in emigrating — his youngest brother Jim among those left on the Irish side of that line. Elizabeth Fitzgerald outlived her son by almost ten years, dying in Limerick in 1947. On a family trip to Ireland in 1977, some of Maurice's siblings were still there to be met.

In 2011, Terry Fitzgerald reached out to Pat Rafferty's granddaughter Kathleen. Her reply was this: "Thank you for sending me a message about our grandfathers, just like you I never got to meet my grandfather — he died when my mother was only five. I would love it if you could send me anything about my grandfather's accomplishments." (*OA3) Two men built the grotto. Neither of their grandchildren knew them.

In 2009, Terry Fitzgerald returned to Long Island for the death of Timothy — Maurice's middle son, her father's brother. Timothy was interred at St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx, section 15, range 16, grave 65, beside his father. Somewhere in that same period, going through the house, Terry found a cache of documents in the bottom of the linen closet. Those documents sent her to the Cenacle grounds — to the grotto Maurice and Pat Rafferty had built more than seventy years before. The original retreat house was eventually demolished in the early 2000s; the grotto's memory persisted in local histories and family stories long after. The bishop who dedicated it named the donor. The newspaper named the contractors. No one named Maurice Fitzgerald. But the stone held — and in the hands that shaped it, so did he.

Sources

1. Vital Records — Civil Registration of Births, Abbeyfeale District, Limerick; entry no. 31, Maurice Fitzgerald, born 11 July 1901; IrishGenealogy.ie.

2. Census Records — Ireland Census 1911, house 22, Caherlevoy, Mountcollins, Limerick; census.nationalarchives.ie.

3. Military Records — Irish Military Archives; records referencing Maurice Fitzgerald; militaryarchives.ie.

4. Passenger Records — Massachusetts Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820–1963; NARA RG 85, Series T843, Roll 292; Ancestry.com.

5. Census Records — United States Federal Census 1930; Brookhaven, Suffolk, New York; FHL microfilm 2341384; Ancestry.com.

6. Newspaper Records — Suffolk County News, 24 Feb 1928, Lake Ronkonkoma column.

7. Newspaper Records — Suffolk County News (Sayville), 19 Oct 1928, p. 13.

8. Naturalization Records — New York County Naturalization Records, 1791–1980; FamilySearch ark:/61903/1:1:7D1Z-JHT2. Note: Witness name confirmed as Patrick Rafferty upon review of original document image; earlier transcription in error.

12. Vital Records — New York, New York, Extracted Marriage Index, 1866–1937; Ancestry.com.

13. Vital Records — NYC Municipal Archives Historical Vital Records; entry for Maurice Fitzgerald and Mary Geary marriage 1930.

15. Naturalization Records — Suffolk County, Court Orders Dec 1929–Dec 1949; FamilySearch.

16. Newspaper Records — Patchogue Advance, 24 Jul 1936, p. 7. Note: Family oral tradition, passed down by Mary Bridget Geary Fitzgerald, holds that Maurice Fitzgerald and his colleague Pat Rafferty were among the team of workers who built the grotto. Maurice's specific contribution is attested through family memory rather than documentary record.

17. Newspaper Records — The County Review, 27 Jan 1938, p. 14.

18. Vital Records — New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795–1949; FamilySearch ark:/61903/1:1:2W23-FZC.

22. Vital Records — New York, New York, Index to Death Certificates, 1862–1948; NYC Dept. of Records; Ancestry.com.

23. Newspaper Records — "Maurice Fitzgerald," obituary, Mid-Island Mail, 5 Oct 1938, p. 15; NYS Historic Newspapers.

34. Newspaper Records — Daily News, 23 Sep 1938; Long Island Express Hurricane; newspapers.com.

H1. Historical Research — "The Grotto at the Ronkonkoma Cenacle," Lake Ronkonkoma History, Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/LakeRonkonkomaHistory/posts/the-grotto-at-the-ronkonkoma-cenaclethe-grotto-at-the-cenacle-was-modeled-after-/2345508715492228/; cited in research documents compiled by Terry Fitzgerald, April 2026.

H2. Historical Research — "Sisters of the Cenacle," Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisters_of_the_Cenacle; and New York Times, 27 March 2011; cited in research documents compiled by Terry Fitzgerald, April 2026.

OA1. Oral Account — Jack (Jackie) Lenihan, age 99, to Terry Fitzgerald, Ireland, 2010. Lenihan was Maurice Fitzgerald's second cousin and was present at his going-away party the night before his departure for America in 1924.

OA2. Family Knowledge — Background on Mary Bridget Geary Fitzgerald, as known to Terry Fitzgerald.

OA3. Personal Correspondence — Kathleen [Rafferty], to Terry Fitzgerald, 2011, regarding their grandfathers' shared history at the Cenacle.

About the Author

I'm Terry Fitzgerald, raised in the United States with deep family roots in Ireland and a lifelong pull toward understanding where I come from. My paternal grandfather, Maurice Fitzgerald, died when my father was only two, leaving his story largely untold. I wrote this to preserve his memory and to give voice to a man known mostly through absence. The grotto he built nearly a century ago still stands today, a quiet but enduring reminder of the legacy he left behind.

For Those Who Come After: Remembering Maurice (1936-2022)

Our father (Maurice Francis Fitzgerald) was a man of few words, but when he spoke—or when he acted—the message was always clear. His life was a steady current beneath our feet, guiding, steadying, and sometimes even carrying us when we didn’t realize it. Though he rarely needed many words, his actions spoke volumes, leaving lasting impressions on each of his four daughters. We remember him not for grand speeches, but for the simple, steady ways he showed us what love, family, strength, and loyalty look like.

He left us in 2022, but a recent Facebook reel triggered us to write down 4 very different, but clearly similar, expressions of his actions.  We have talked about these stories before, but now we want to be sure his descendants know him as WE knew him.

The eldest, Terry, shared: “My dad met me, unplanned, late at the Waterloo station in the mid 1980s when I returned from a long weekend in Paris.  I was more than an adult and able to get a taxi to my uncle’s house. But daddy wanted to be very sure since it was a late arrival.  About 10pm.  I was never more shocked and so grateful. Dad was not an expressive man by any means. He was more actions than words.  That action has stood with me for more than 40 years now.  I can still see my arrival into the station and him standing there to make sure I got home safely.  And how grateful I was for his kindness.  Lawd I miss him!”

Next in line, Geraldine, shared: “Mine was when Mt. St. Helens blew in 1980. I was at work late in the evening at Kmart. I usually took the bus home, but the traffic was horrible. He parked where Sears used to be and walked over to Kmart. He arrived almost an hour before I was to get off work because he didn’t want me to take the bus.”

Daughter number three, Debbie, shared: “Mine was Steven’s birth in 1994. Mom went to Laura for Avery’s birth. I was on bed rest in hospital. Dad was there every morning and stayed All day. and when I said I was craving a Yoo-hoo chocolate milk (wasn’t even sure they made them anymore) dad went to 4 stores to find and bring me the next day. He was the best man of action.”

Daughter number four, Laura, shared: “I was just telling a friend about the time I was in the hospital for four days with pneumonia (late 2000s)… Dad was there every morning when I woke up and was the last person I saw when I went to sleep. And I was a grown woman with a husband and 4 kids…. He was an amazing man!!!”

We share these stories not just to remember, but to pass on what words alone could never fully capture. Our father taught us that love is not always loud—it is steady, faithful, and quietly fierce. For all those who come after us, may you know that you are part of this legacy too: a legacy built by a man who showed his heart best through simple, powerful acts of devotion. May you carry his spirit with you, just as we do.

Mary Catherine Comyns Fennell • 1897–1984 

The local Black and Tans commander, Charlie Maslin, held a revolver. Mary Catherine Comyns sat before him, a young woman in her early twenties, and he spun the chamber—a Russian roulette session designed to break her will and force her to reveal the whereabouts of local IRA officers. She did not flinch, and she did not speak. That moment captures the core of Mary Catherine: courage without fanfare, commitment without bitterness. 

This moment, described decades later in her 1984 obituary, encapsulates the extraordinary courage of a woman whose life spanned nearly nine decades of Irish history. To understand how she came to face Maslin’s gun, we must return to her beginning. 

She was born Mary Catherine Comyns on August 16, 1897, in Tullabrack West, County Clare, into a family that would become, as her obituary noted, "noted for its devotion to things Gaelic." But her early years were marked by tragedy rather than revolution. Her father Patrick, a farmer, had emigrated to Galveston, Texas, hoping to make a better life for his family and send for them later. Instead, he died there between May and August 1897—before Mary was born, before he could bring them over, before his dream could be realized. Mary never knew him. Her mother Catherine Cushen Comyns raised Mary and her brother Michael alone, managing the farm at Tullabrack with the help of servants. The 1901 census shows Catherine as a literate, bilingual widow, keeping the household together. 

In 1906, when Mary was eight, her mother died of tuberculosis. Orphaned, Mary and Michael moved to Ballykett to live with their maternal uncle John Cussen and his sister Mary. The 1911 census records the children as literate, bilingual, and working on the farm. It was a modest but stable upbringing in a community still bearing scars from the Famine and land struggles. 

Then came the revolution. Between 1917 and 1921, during Ireland's War of Independence, Mary joined Cumann na mBan—the women's auxiliary of the Irish Republican Army—at an early age. She served with the Kilrush 2nd Battalion of the West Clare 1st Brigade—the same unit where her brother Michael would become O/C (Officer Commanding) after the Crown Forces murdered McNamara and Shanahan in 1920. 

Mary's role in Cumann na mBan was both dangerous and vital. As her son Jack would later recount, his mother worked in a family bar on Vandeleur Street, where she put her bilingual skills to strategic use. RIC soldiers, not realizing she could speak English, often talked freely among themselves about military movements and plans. She gathered this intelligence and then became a runner, crossing the fields from Kilrush town to relay information to local commanders. During the War of Independence, Cumann na mBan women were "indispensable as couriers," praised for their "courage, their capacity, and above all, their discretion." Women like Mary leveraged their ability to appear unremarkable—young women going about daily business—while carrying dispatches through dangerous conditions. They used their local knowledge of fields and back roads, their fluency in both Irish and English, and the fact that British forces often underestimated or ignored them. It was work that required not just bravery, but also quick thinking and absolute discretion. 

Kilrush became a flashpoint. On April 22, 1921, the West Clare Brigade launched coordinated attacks across the town: the workhouse, the Coast Guard station, the RIC Barracks. About 60 armed men, supported by 200 scouts and carriers, struck simultaneously. RIC Sergeant John McFadden was killed. Crown Forces destroyed homes in retaliation, their fury so intense that a British soldier died from flying debris. 

Mary's role went beyond reconnaissance or message-carrying. Her pension application and obituary describe how she helped nurse wounded Brigade members back to health, including Ignatius (Terence) O'Neill, who recuperated from his wounds at her uncle's house in Ballykett. The house became a safe haven, and Mary became a target. 

It was Charlie Maslin, the Black and Tans supremo in Kilrush, who subjected her to that terrorizing Russian roulette session. The psychological warfare failed. Mary kept her silence, protecting the men she served alongside. She received the Service Medal (1917-1921) in 1950, and in 1958, she was granted a Special Allowance under the Army Pensions Act for ill health related to her service. 

After the War of Independence, Mary built a different kind of life. On June 26, 1928, she married Matthew Timothy Fennell, a merchant from Kilrush. They settled on Henry Street and raised seven surviving children: John Joseph, Michael Anthony, Matthew Francis, Patrick Senan, Mary Catherine, Margaret Theresa, and Ann Philomena. In approximately February 1948, another son died, possibly stillborn. The infant may be buried in the Cussen family plot in the Breaffa Cemetery. 

Mary, known locally as Cissie or Cis, became a shopkeeper alongside her husband. Together they ran the boot shop Matt had established on Henry Street. Over the course of their life together, the boot shop morphed into a grocery store, adapting to the changing needs of the Kilrush community. When her uncle John and aunt Mary Ann died, Mary inherited the farms at Ballykett and Tullabrack, becoming both shopkeeper and farmer. 

A 1954 court case over livestock trespass shows her son Michael managing the Ballykett property, dealing with damaged fences and wandering cattle while Mary, identified as "Mrs. Catherine Fennell, Henry Street," pursued the legal claim for damages. 

Matthew died in August 1960 at age 67, his health having deteriorated in his final years and his heart and lungs failing him. Mary was 62, a widow like her mother before her. By then, all her children were grown. She continued working, managing the shop and oversight of the farm, even as her children had already begun to scatter in the mid-1950s—to England and the United States—following the emigration patterns that had reshaped Ireland for generations. 

Her revolutionary past would follow her family for decades to come. In the mid-1980s, when her daughter-in-law applied for a position as secretary with the FBI in New York, the background investigation reached back across the Atlantic. A staff member from the U.S. Embassy in Dublin traveled to Kilrush and called to Henry Street to interview her, by then in her eighties, about her service with Cumann na mBan—answering questions about events from more than sixty years earlier. It was a reminder that her choices during the War of Independence still mattered to governments even an ocean away, her revolutionary service still considered relevant in assessing potential security risks. 

When she died on June 6, 1984, at age 86, the Kilrush Urban Council adjourned its meeting in her honor. Vice-Chairman William O'Looney called her "a joyful, cheerful and pleasant person" with "a heart of gold." But her obituary emphasized something else: "She remained staunch to the Republican ideal to the end." That young woman who had faced Charlie Maslin’s revolver never wavered in her convictions. 

She was buried at Breaffa Cemetery, her gravestone identifying her as "Mary Catherine (Cissie) nee Comyn." The nickname "Cissie" suggests the warmth her neighbors remembered. But history records something more: a woman who chose courage when it mattered most. 

About the Author

Terry Fitzgerald is a family historian and genealogical researcher with deep roots in Irish and Irish-American history. Raised in the United States on the edge of two worlds — the country she grew up in and the Ireland her family carried with them — she has spent years tracing the lives of the people whose choices and sacrifices made her own possible. Her research spans church records and census entries, DNA matches and ship manifests, but her truest interest has always been the stories that don't fit neatly into any archive: the adventures, the losses, the moments that get passed down at kitchen tables and then, too often, quietly disappear. These chronicles are her attempt to make sure they don't.

Sources 

● Mary Catherine Comyns, Birth Registration, Irish Genealogy birth or baptism records, #162. 

● Irish census records for 1901 and 1911: Ireland Census 1901. Residents of a house 9 in Tullabrack West (Clooncoorha, Clare) and Ireland Census 1911. Residents of a house 1 in Ballykett (Clooncoorha, Clare). 

● Pension application for Mary Comyns Fennell, 1949; privately held by Terry Fitzgerald, personal collection. 

● Catherine Fennell, Clare Champion 1950-current, Saturday, July 24, 1954 - Page 1. 

● Obituary for Catherine Fennell, Clare Champion 1950-current, Friday, June 22, 1984 - Page 15. 

A Story About Two Boys, a Pair of Nuns, and Sixteen Miles of New York City — circa 1948

The school year was nearly over. It was spring 1948, and at St. Thomas Aquinas in the West Farms section of the Bronx, seventh grade was winding down toward graduation. The boys had their assignments, their prayers, their routines — and, apparently, their errands.

A sister — the exact nun lost to memory now, though the authority she carried certainly is not — singled out two boys from the class. They were to go to Brooklyn. To a destination ten blocks south of Prospect Park. Something to do with graduation: picking up gowns, perhaps, or settling a payment for them. The details have blurred across the decades, the way details do when a story is told often enough that it becomes less a report and more a feeling.

The boys went. Of course they went. You did not argue with a nun in 1948.

In 1948, New York City ran on nickels. The subway fare had held steady at five cents since the system opened in 1904 — forty-four years of reliable, democratic transportation. For a nickel you could go anywhere: from Pelham Bay to Coney Island, from the Grand Concourse to the Battery. The city's promise was encoded in that little coin. (That summer, the city would raise the fare to a dime, and something quietly would change. But in the spring of 1948, a nickel still got you through the turnstile.)

The two boys boarded the IRT and headed south, the elevated train rattling and swaying, the Bronx giving way to Manhattan through the scratched car windows. They would have transferred somewhere in the city — downtown, likely — picking up a Brooklyn-bound line to carry them over the bridge and into the borough, all the way down to the neighborhood below Prospect Park, and then walking the last ten blocks to wherever it was they were supposed to go.

What they saw along the way is not recorded. The candy stores and clotheslines strung between fire escapes. The newsstands thick with afternoon papers. Brooklyn's particular light in spring. Two boys from the Bronx, out in the world, with a mission.

Somewhere, the money ran short.

Maybe it was on the way back. Maybe a transfer cost more than they'd accounted for. Maybe one of them had miscounted. Whatever the cause, they found themselves without enough fare for some leg of the journey — and so they walked. At least two miles, through the streets of Brooklyn and whatever lay between.

They made it home. They always make it home in stories like this — or rather, the ones who make it home are the ones whose stories we get to tell. And whatever the errand was, it was presumably completed, because nuns in 1948 expected results.

He tells it with a shrug, this father of mine. A shrug and a small smile — the bemusement of a man remembering a thing that happened to a boy he used to be, in a city that no longer quite exists. It was an adventure. A good one, maybe. A story worth keeping.

It wasn't until I pulled up the map that I understood what a shrug was covering.

From St. Thomas Aquinas on Daly Avenue in the West Farms section of the Bronx to ten blocks south of Prospect Park in Brooklyn: sixteen miles. Across two rivers. Through three boroughs' worth of neighborhoods that neither boy would have known well. On a transit system they apparently did not have quite enough money to complete.

Sixteen miles. Two twelve-year-old boys. No cell phones. No safety net. On the authority of a nun who had other things to attend to.

We could not do this today. Or rather — we would not. The city exists, more or less. The subway still runs. Twelve-year-old boys still exist and are still, occasionally, capable of navigating the world. But we have decided, as a culture, that this particular kind of trust is not ours to extend. We track. We text. We wait at pickup lines. We would not send two children alone across sixteen miles of New York City and expect them home in time for supper.

My father did not find this remarkable. That is perhaps the most remarkable thing about it.

He was a Bronx kid in 1948, twelve years old, a Catholic school boy in the late American moment when children were trusted to be small, competent people who could get somewhere and come back. The city was their neighborhood, in a way we have trouble imagining now. The subway was just how you got places. The nuns dispatched you and you went.

What he remembers, seventy-odd years later, is not hardship. He remembers an adventure. Two boys, a city, a mission, not quite enough money — and home before dark.

About the Author