The Graveyard Search

ur first adventure in Co. Leitrim was the graveyard search. We were still trying to find the burial sites of Terry's grandparents, Bernard and Winifred Reynolds. We had information from the Co. Leitrim 1901 Census that they lived in the Parish of Cloone at that time. We had already been to the cemeteries in Mohill, Cloone and Gortletteragh but were told there was another cemetery near Gortletteragh called Farnaught. We knew basically where Farnaught was because that is where John Reynolds lived, near the farm we rented in Drumgrania in 1998.

We were given directions to the Farnaught cemetery and we found it without any problems. We would have never noticed it because it was down a narrow road and not marked. There were two graveyards there, one old and one more recent. There were so many Reynolds graves that we had to look at every one of them. Unfortunately, some of the old ones had so much moss on them that we couldn't read them. It was a very windy, rainy day. The grass was saturated with water and very spongy so it was difficult walking on it. My umbrella kept getting blown inside out so I finally gave up on it and got very wet.

While we were in the graveyard we noticed a lot of names that we were familiar with such as Bohan and Casey. I noticed another name that was familiar to me. It was Colreavy. I had received an inquiry, through LittleShamrocks.com, from a man looking for his ancestors named Colreavy. I took photos and emailed them to him on our return, of which he was very pleased.

On the same day, the next graveyard we looked at was in Drumlish, not far from Cloone. There were no Reynolds graves there, at least from the gravestones we could read. We had a nice drive out to Drumlish where we had never been before.

On another day, when we had gone to Ballinamore, we were given directions to a cemetery in the Parish of Aughavas which, at one time, was part of the Parish of Cloone. We drove and drove but couldn't find it. When we got back to O'Brien's, they gave us better directions and we found it easily the next day. This was another Parish with a beautiful church on a hill and an old and new graveyard. The old cemetery was on a very steep embankment and we couldn't walk on it. We did look in the lower part which wasn't quite as steep. There were lots of Reynolds sites but none were Terry's ancestors. One thing that was very sad was the fact that there were so many unmarked graves, only a large rock, but with no identification whatsoever.

We then drove down the road to the new cemetery and started searching, we noticed that the dates of deaths were too recent to be Terry's grandparents but there were many Reynolds graves. We started looking for their children's graves, Bridget, Maggie and Mary Kate, but to no avail. They would have been buried under their spouse's names.

On our last night in Co. Leitrim, we had a late visit with John Reynolds. He told us of another small graveyard in Cloone about which we had never been told. We just didn't have the time to go search so he said that he would do it for us. We haven't heard anything yet.

When we returned home, I did a U.S. Immigration search and I did find Terry's grandfather, Terence. the other information that I had about his date of immigration was wrong. He had arrived in Boston in 1908, not 1902. He had sailed on the S.S. Cymric and it stated that his parents lived in Carrigallen, not Cloone. We have just sent the information to John Reynolds and we're hoping he can find them. For the second time, we found new information about their whereabouts after we came home.

Click here for the next story - The Thomas Casey Family