Fresh off a liner in Cobh... my long-lost ‘cousin’ from Texas!
Last week, I was head over heels stuck in a local project which was coming to fruition. On Sunday evening we had hundreds present at a rural roadside near the ‘border’ between the Dioceses of Cloyne and Cork and Ross.
Once upon a time, The Pound was famous for its open-air dancing stage. On that very site we unveiled a fitting monument to remember the athletic prowess of generations in that area, as I mentioned in last week’s article.
So I was ‘up to ninety’ with final preparations - we had a smashing week with summer temperatures and blue, cloudless skies, which made all the hustle and bustle a bit easier. My trusty little black notsosmart mobile phone was on the go morning, noon and night!
It was hectic, nearly manic at times, but pressure is only for tyres and it went well.
In the midst of it all, last Thursday, the phone rang again.
“Is that Mr Arnold?” the female voice enquired politely. Well, not being used to such a salutation, I laughed and said: “That’s right, but people mainly call me John.”
She explained she was a Limerick-born taxi driver, now based in Cork, in East Cork I think, and she’d got my number from a friend of mine that she had just met. She asked did I know such and such a person - I did - well, it was that friend that passed my number onto the driver.
She then went on to tell me that a Super Cruise liner had arrived in Cobh that very day - I think it had about 1,500 passengers. I always thought when the passengers disembarked there, they’d be in Jack Doyle’s home town for a couple of days. No, she explained the boat came in around one o clock and was leaving before midnight the same day - it was about four in the afternoon by now.
She explained that fleets of tour buses met the passengers on the quayside and whisked them off for a few hours to Midleton, Cork city, Blarney, and even Killarney.
Some passengers, however, eschewed such trips, preferring to stay in the town of Cobh or maybe travel to some other local town on their own steam.
The Limerick taxi driver was asked by an American lady to drive her just ‘up the road’ to Carrigtwohill where she wanted to spend some time. So the pair arrived in Carrig’ in quarter of an hour. The visitor engaged the taxi driver to stay with her and drive her back to Cobh after an hour or so.
The taxi was parked and as they walked along Main Street and down by Conroy’s Corner past the churches, the American lady told her driver that back in the 1870s, she thought, her ancestors had travelled to the New World from around this part of East Cork.
The lady stopped to take pictures of different buildings - there’s nothing ‘really old’ in America! Well, as the camera clicked, a friend of mine - a Cloyne native living in Carrig’ - was passing along on her daily brisk walk. Being of a friendly disposition, she bade ‘good day’ to the other two women. She enquired if the lady with the camera was, perhaps, a past pupil of some Carrigtwohill school.
In her Texas drawl, the reply came: “Naw, but my relatives were from here.” My friend asked what were the ancestral names. The first two family names, Flynns and Riordans, whilst not ‘two a penny’ in Carrig’, are certainly fairly plentiful.
Then, in her Texan accent, the American lady said: “And my great, great grandfather was an Arnold from Carrigtwohill!”
The Texan was ecstatic and wanted to reward my friend with a cruise ticket to the Bahamas - no, not really!
So, my walking acquaintance continued on her perambulations as the other pair headed back to the taxi en route to Cobh. Using the Bluetooth yoke in the taxi, the phone call to yours truly was made on that fateful return trip to Queenstown, as the Cove of Cork was once known.
So, the conversation that began with “Is that Mr Arnold” continued. The taxi driver gave me what information she had. I replied that I once had Arnold relations in Longstown townland in Carrig’ parish. The taxi passenger overheard our conversation and excitedly grabbed the phone. “Are you my cousin? Oh my Gawd, did you know my great, grandfather - he was William Henry Arnold?”
She was so excited to be actually speaking to someone bearing the same name as her ancestors. I tried to calm down things a bit - but to no avail!
Eventually, I explained that I did have Arnold relations in Carrig’ and some had indeed gone to America before 1900. She interjected: “Jahn, Jahn, we must be cousins - we have to be!”
Not wishing to deflate her ancestral balloon, I said I couldn’t be sure. You see, the Arnolds I was connected to farmed in Longstown but the head of the family died - maybe in the 1890s, in or around that time. It was his brothers or uncles that had emigrated.
Well, the Widow Arnold was unable to hold onto the farm. She moved up to the Glanmire area - maybe in the early 1900s - it was from relations in America, including a John Arnold, that I got all this information in the 1990s.
At least one of the Widow Arnold’s sons, George, joined the British Army and fought at The Somme. I saw a letter he wrote back home to his mother outlining the awfulness of the conflict.
“Dear mother,” he wrote, “the fighting is awful with bombs and bullets everywhere. The other day only for I putting my head under my arm ’twould have been blown clean off my shoulders!”
George survived the war and died in 1961, aged 81. Those Arnolds seem to have disappeared, leaving neither kith or kin after them.
I said I never came across a William Henry but I’d do some research. Eventually, she put me back onto the taxi driver - they were back in Belvelly by now. I said I’d send my email address by text to the taxi driver and she said she’d write it out and give it to the Texan once they were back in Cobh, and when back in the States the lady could correspond with me.
We left it at that as I had to milk the cows then. When the jobs were done and the sun had set, I rang the Limerick lady back - just to confirm all the details of a day full of coincidences. She laughed as she told me of the return journey from Carrig’ to the quayside in Cobh.
Apparently, the lady from Texas was ‘over the moon’ after talking to me and anxious to tell the ‘folks at home’. She rang relations in Ohio, Philadelphia, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Montana and California and imparted the same joyous message to one and all: “Yipee, yahoo, I found him, I found him - our cousin John Arnold in dear old Ireland!”
So now my task is to find this William Henry Arnold. I’ll have to leave my searching until next week -tomorrow, I’m meeting 14 Rileys from Minnesota and that’ll be enough for this week!
App?
