People

Delia Green was born Delia Newell at Balrobuck, Corrandulla, in the Parish of Annaghdown, on the 5th of February 1915. She was born at a time of great turmoil both nationally and internationally. The Great War (World War 1) was being fought out in Europe, while at home Ireland was trying to gain freedom from its colonial master Britain.

Delia’s father Tim was a blacksmith and the forge where he worked had been in the family for a number of generations. Her mother Mary was Mary Forde from near the present Corrandulla Barracks on the road into Corrandulla village. Delia was one of seven children. Mark, John, Michael, Delia, Nellie, Sonny and May.

I asked Charlie about his early years and learned that he has no hang-ups about revealing his age.
I was born on the 8th of October 1921 and the name I got in baptism was Charles. I hadn’t a second name, but wasn’t I lucky enough to have one name? The name I took at confirmation was Joseph, because I was confirmed on St. Joseph’s Day. My early life was in Kilgill, that would be about 700/800 yards from where I live now. That is where I was born. I had a brother older than me: John P. He is dead and a brother and sister younger than me.

I came to Gort Roe in 1971, with my wife Margaretta D’Arcy and our four young sons. We had been living on an island in Loch Corrib, but because of the difficulty of getting the boys to school, we decided to move to the mainland during term-time. Margaretta went into Collerans, the estate agent, saying how much she was prepared to pay for a small house outside Galway that would be near a bus stop and near a shop. “Why, we have just the thing!” We could walk right into it that very day. Danny Griffin, shopkeeper in Wood Quay, had bought the house from the Cahills whose farmhouse it had been until they built a new bungalow next door. Mrs Griffin unfortunately had become ill so their dream of retirement into a cottage in the country was dashed.

In Griffith’s Valuation for the townland of Tomnahulla (mid 1850s), Cornelius Lundie is shown as the occupier of 617 acres, 2 roods, and 1 perch. He was born in the Manse, Kelso, Scotland on 29 May 1815, the eldest son of Rev. Robert Lundie (Parish Minister) and Mary Grey. He was educated privately and at the age of 14 years was apprenticed to an engineer. He attended classes in physical and mathematical science at both Glasgow and Edinburgh universities during several winter sessions while working during the summers in the shops of a country millwright at Kelso. In 1832 his father died and he secured employment with Charles Atherton at the works of the Broomielaw Bridge over the river Clyde from the designs of Thomas Telford. In 1836 he took charge of the Clarence Railway, part of the North-Eastern railway system in Durham where he remained for three years. He married Elizabeth Mould from Merrington, Durham on 9 April 1839.

The 2003 edition of ‘Anach Cuain’ described the 24 July centenary celebrations of the Church of St Brendan by the Lake at Annaghdown. The centrepeice was the visit of Most Rev. Michael Courtney, Titular Archbishop of Eanach Dúin and Apostolic Nuncio in Burundi who made the occasion a glittering event in the history of the Christian community of Annaghdown.
A deep bond instantaneously established itself between Archbishop Courtney and the people of his titular see, such was the personality and the manifest goodness of the man. His striking address will never be forgotten by those who were priveleged to be present to hear it. He himself felt so much at home that he expressed a firm intention to return in July 2004 to meet the people again and to accompany some of them on the annual Cruach Phádraig pilgrimage.