Mick’s trip back in time... and a family ravaged by curse of TB

FOR as long as he could remember, Mick McCarthy had been transfixed by the story of two people he had never met - his paternal grandparents.

The lives of Michael and Margaret McCarthy had embraced emigration and opportunity, love and family, but also tragedy and loss.

Only in recent years, thanks to modern technology, had Mick been able to track down the final resting place of the couple who had died so young. In September, 2021, at the age of 84, he made his first trip to the U.S, and was able to put flowers on their grave in Boston.

For Mick, it felt like a 120-year circle of life had been completed.

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This story begins around 1890, when Mick’s grandfather, Michael, emigrated from Cork to Boston.

Born in 1866, he had grown up in the Whitechurch/Carrignavar area, the son of Denis McCarthy and Mary, nee Clifford.

When Michael took the boat, he had already fallen in love with a local girl three years his junior, Margaret Murphy.

They agreed he would leave for America first and find work, and she would follow a year later. The couple were later joined by Michael’s sisters, Mary and Julia, and Margaret’s sister, Mary.

Michael and Margaret wed on February 28, 1892, with him listed as a labourer and Margaret as a ‘domestic’. Michael would later go on to be a car repairer.

The couple settled on 3rd Street in south Boston and raised their family. Mick’s father Dennis Christopher - known as Christy - was the eldest, older brother to William and Mary Josephine.

Sadly, two children died in their infancy, a boy at eight months and a girl at just over a year old.

South Boston was home to a large Irish community at that time, but life was not easy for newly-arrived immigrants. Many ended up living in cramped spaces, where lack of sanitation and running water made living conditions hazardous, and the spread of diseases like cholera and typhoid was commonplace.

Tuberculosis, known as consumption, killed more people in Boston than any other disease, affecting the poor most. It was TB that would ravage the McCarthy family in a devastatingly short time.

Michael died of it in February, 1902 aged 36, while Margaret succumbed in March, 1903, aged 33. Records show she suffered from the disease for six months.

Their three children were now orphans, and their outlook was made even bleaker by the fact TB had already claimed the life of one of Michael’s sisters while the other had died of typhoid fever.

When Margaret’s sister in Boston, Mary, also died of TB in early 1904, it may have been the final straw for the three children, as a decision was made around then to send Christy, William and Mary Josephine back to Ireland.

Aged about 10, 8 and 5, they boarded a ship in Boston and arrived in Queenstown (Cobh), to live with their maternal grandmother, Ellen Murphy, in Whitechurch.

They were probably collected in Queenstown by the local postman on horse and trap and brought to their grandmother’s home. How lonely and afraid they must have felt on that long journey.

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There was to be a further tragedy when one of the three children, Mary Josephine, died in 1910. William never married and died in 1970.

Meanwhile, Christy McCarthy wed Molly Leahy in 1931, and they had three children, including Mick.

Christy died in 1965, and he and his two siblings who made that journey to Cork together are buried in Rathcooney cemetery.

As he grew up, Mick heard many times the story of his paternal grandparents, who had died so young. A longing in him grew to try and at least mark their short time on earth with a tangible record of their brief lives.

In recent years, Mick, helped by his son-in-law Bill Daly, slowly began to piece together their story, using marriage and death certificates and any other evidence they could gather.

Helped by the Massachusetts Catholic Cemetery Association and support websites such as ‘Find a Grave’, they finally found the plot that contained his grandparents. Poignantly, Michael and Margaret had been buried in an unmarked grave in Mount Benedict cemetery in Boston, a spot that had remained unvisited and unmourned for well over a century.

Mick sought permission to erect headstones over their grave and over another family plot, and they were put in place in December, 2020.

Nine months later, Mick boarded an Aer Lingus flight to Boston, no doubt pondering how his life may have been very different if his grandparents had not perished in the early years of the 20th century.

Accompanied by his daughters Cora and Suzanne, son Christopher, son-in-law Bill and grandson Darragh, Mick took in the sights and sounds of Boston, visiting places where his grandparents would have lived and toiled, such as The Gate of Heaven Church, where his father Christy had been baptised, and 3rd Street, where his grandparents and father lived.

Then, Mick headed to Mount Benedict cemetery to conclude his pilgrimage.

Laying flowers at the grave and saying a silent prayer, it was as if the story had been granted a sense of closure.

His grandparents had left Cork, his father had returned here, and now Mick had returned to Boston to remember the forgotten generation.

It is a sad story in many ways, one that was replicated in many other Irish families, whose dreams of a better life were dashed by crushing poverty and disease on arrival in the new world.

But it is a story that also shows that a sense of family, of belonging, can be strong enough to encourage an octogenarian to search for the graves of his grandparents thousands of miles away, and to then erect headstones as a reminder that, while these people had lived, loved and died, their bloodline was intact and stronger than ever.

A large family of descendants today in Cork carry that bloodline, not just with the McCarthy name but also names like Cooper, Daly, Lynch, Cahill, Clancy, Hales, Sullivan, and Duggan.

There is truth in the old Irish saying, ‘An té a bhíonn siúlach, bíonn scéalach’. He who travels has stories to tell. And a great story this is.

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A Glen hurling champ, Mick was driven to succeed

A FINE sports talent in his younger days, Mick McCarthy remains one of the few players to have hurled with both the Cork minors and seniors in the same year - 1956. He won a Munster Championship medal that year.

Educated in the North Mon, he won the Harty Cup with them and represented Cork U15s against a Dublin selection in Croke Park in 1953, as a curtain-raiser to the Cork v Tipperary National Hurling League Final.

Mick, a defender, went on to play senior hurling for Cork for many years and captained them in 1963.

While an All-Ireland medal eluded him, he did win five county titles with Glen Rovers.

He stepped back from his sports commitments in 1964 due to the demands of family life and work, but later joined Mayfield, who he captained to their first ever city division junior championship.

Mick tells a funny story about his switch of clubs. Around that time, he had bought a new car and the story went around that Mayfield had enticed him to join by offering it! While it was sheer coincidence (or just bad timing), there were those who could not be convinced otherwise, and to this day, Mick laughs, some still believe he was bribed!

Mick and his wife Mariette lived in Bishopstown, and had four children, Fiona, Cora, Suzanne and Christopher. Sadly, Mariette and Fiona passed away in recent years.

Mick’s grandson, Shane Daly, plays for Munster rugby and was on tour in South Africa with the Emerging Ireland team this year, where he scored a try.