O’DONOVAN

PAT and KATHLEEN
"Shinell"
Clonakilty Road
Bandon
Co. Cork

Birth Date : 12th Oct 1909
at Lick, Skibbereen
Pat died on
3rd December 1987
Aged 78 years

Married 20th November 1945

From the Civil Marriage Register we read:
Patrick O'Donovan, a motor driver of Curranure, Innishannon
and
Kathleen O'Donovan of Ballineen
married on 20 November 1945 in the Catholic Church in Enniskeane
The marriage witnesses were James O'Donovan and Rita O'Donovan

Kathleen listed as dressmaker in Guys Cork Almanac 1945



Kathleen attended National School in Ballineen and Enniskeane.
She remembered herself and another girl being taken in their teacher's car on a day trip to his native Trawlebane, Bantry.
Her teacher, Philip O'Neill, was a relative of the renowned Francis O'Neill of Trawlebane, music collector and Chief of Police in Chicago.


Pat in CIE bus driver's uniform

Daffodils Pat & Kathleen planted in early 1980's and flowering in 2023

Road to Eternity

Life is but a stopping place
A pause in what’s to be
A resting place along the road
To sweet eternity.

We all have different journeys
Different paths along the way
We all were meant
To learn some things
But never meant to stay.

Our destination is a place
Far greater than we know
For some the journey’s quicker
For some the journey’s slow

But when the journey finally ends
We’ll claim a great reward
And find an everlasting peace
Together with the Lord.

Pat & Kathleen are buried in St. Patrick's Cemetery, Bandon
GPS co-ords  8° 44' 13.7184" W, 51° 44' 30.195" N

Rest in Peace

Below is the ancestral lineage of Frank

Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: "Tell our story". So, we do.

In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors, "You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us." How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say.

It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who am I and why do I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying I can't let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought, and some died, to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us.

It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are.

So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before."

Author: Unknown