The walls shown in the picture are at “the Crevice” in Derryadd. It was from this house that, in 1852, PJ Farrell left as a four year old for the US. In 2016, we all became quite excited when Hillary Clinton picked his great grandson, Tim Kaine, to be her presidential running mate. Tim visited this site in 2007 when he was governor of the state of Virginia.

We presumed only one result and that we were going to be as famous as Moneygall and Ballyporeen. I suspect that the world is less worried that Trump denied us our dream of a “Kaine Plaza” in Killashee than they are about many of his other actions!

From Killashee

Close by is Lynam’s Mill. The interior is fully intact to this day. It is as if the men just walked out in 1962 after the last bag of corn was milled. Frozen in time. Thirty years earlier, in 1932 the world Eucharist Congress was held in Dublin. Money was tight and transport was scarce. Tom Lynam from the mill had a flat-bed Bedford delivery truck and the men from Grillagh and Derryadd loaded up for the epic trip (no health and safety in those times). Joe McDermott, despite being only 16, was the driver.

Incidentally, Joe was one of seven Killashee players to be on the Longford junior team to win the 1937 All-Ireland. It would have been a slow, cold journey, no motorway or service stations, just a pocket full of bread and a bottle of cold tea to sustain our intrepid travellers. They probably had to get off and push going up Skeagh hill!

Picture the scene, one and a quarter million people in the Phoenix Park. A phenomenal gathering in a fledgling 10-year-old state. Of course the inevitable happened and one of the party, Pat Cosgrove, got separated from his company. After a futile search Pat approached a Garda and asked: “Did you see any of the Derad boys?” (true locals drop the middle “r”and “y”).

To Grillagh

Pat’s luck was in, the garda was from Mayo and organised for Pat to be dropped off in Grillagh, one mile from home. There is nothing to support the rumour that Pat contrived the whole thing to get a warmer and safer drive home.

This is Bridgid Reilly (left) at the half-door of the house that she and her husband Bill lived in at Grillagh. The house is now gone, a consequence of road improvement. She was as chatty as Bill was silent. Most sentences from Bridgid ended with the question: “Isn’t that right Bill?” The standard reply from Bill was a grunt.

Bridgid minded Dad as a young lassie. This resulted in a bond between them and frequent visits to her house with us kids in tow. Dad was an awful tease and would wind up Bridgid, she would shriek with laughter and half-heartedly tell him to stop with the threat: “If you don’t stop I’ll tell them you pissed on me as a baby,” as if we couldn’t hear her.

Her claim to fame was: “I danced with Mick (Michael) Collins on this floor,” pointing to her own kitchen floor. History has recorded Collins’ affection for a Longford woman but appears to have missed out on this event. But she repeated it with such conviction we never doubted her.

On a historical point, in June 1922, Michael Collins was best man at the wedding of Gen Sean MacEoin in Longford cathedral. Gen Sean, the blacksmith of Ballinalee, married Alice Cooney from Killashee, so maybe Bridgid was telling the truth. Michael Collins also was in Killashee in April 1920. The “old” brigade had blown up the local RIC barracks and when Collins saw the result a few days later he instructed the lads to further damage the building as it was repairable in his view.

The soldier’s camp was very close to her house. “Many a fine big army man came through that door, I could have had any of them, isn’t that right Bill?” She never saw the irony in asking poor old Bill to verify that he had such fine opposition for her affection. Bill answered this in the usual way… with a grunt.

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