Tracing Rose's Family Ancestry

---

Today was to be another long and emotionally fulfilling day where we would traceback Rose's family heritage and locations of her Grandparents and Great Grandparents.

To start with, we went to Blarney Castle, and no we didn't kiss the stone. More importantly for our journey was Emerald House, which sits at the gates to the Blarney Castle estate and was once owned by Thomas and Margaret Nesdale who purchased the house for their retirement which included a large garden now mostly a carpark for Blarney Castle. After a lovely walk around the Blarney Castle gardens, a quick cup of tea and an interesting conversation with the Blarney Cafe owner who has lived in Blarney her whole life. She informed us that Michael Murphy who is the current owner of Emerald house, inherited the property from his mother who used to run it as a B&B, he has been working to restore the property to reopen it as a B&B, but what we saw from the outside was a building becoming a ruin.

Rose's Great Grandparents were known as Beara people from the Beara peninsula, this was the next stop we would go to and firstly we found the Trafrask National School where Thomas and Margaret taught at the school. We believe that there was a house behind the school where they lived, but there is a new building on this site.

Our next stop would be the Parish of Adrigole and the chance meeting with the outgoing Priest, Father Martin Sheehan, a thoroughly lovely and helpful man. In the grounds of the church was Roses Paternal Grandmother's Parents grave and the church where Paternal Grandparents we married the same year that they emigrated to New Zealand. After searching the grounds for an hour we finally found the sole O'Reilly plot with Roses Paternal Grandmother's Parents lay. In the meantime, the most helpful Father had contacted his congregation network to find local relatives, and we were put in touch with Joseph Blake, a second cousin of Roses. Joey's Grandfather and Rose's Grandmother were brother and sister. We agreed to meet in a pub at Bantry, on the way back to Cork.

Meeting Joey in the Maritime Hotel in Bantry was a wonderful bonus for the days trip. We shared some great stories and learnt some new connection in Butte Montana where Rose's Paternal Grandmother came from. We look forward to catching up with Joey again.

---