More from March 17 and famous ancestors

A few more from March 17th

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Mary Moylan sings Sweet Listowel. I apologise in advance for all the background noise that I have no clue how to filter out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BHMzVqqNRg&feature=youtu.be

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MIchael Collins throws in the sliotar to start the All Ireland Hurling Final in 1921

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Girls remember some famous ancestors 

 ( From Pres. Secondary School yearbook 1992 )

Michael Collins – Eilín Olive Pierse, 1 Bríd

Michael Collins, Commander – in – Chief of the Free State Army during the Civil War, was killed at Beal na mBláth on 22^nd August 1922.

            His brother Johnny had lived at the family home at Woodfield, near Clonakilty with his wife Kate and their eight children. Kate died in February, 1921.  Woodfield was burned by the Black and Tans and the children were forced to live with relations.

            One of the eight was Mary.  She married Richard (Dick) Pierse of Listowel and had seven sons.  The second eldest – Robert- is my father so this makes Michael Collins my great-grand uncle.

Patrick De Woulfe Scanlon (1862 – 1893), Karen Kennelly, 1 Bríd

The anniversary of the death of Patrick de Woulfe Scanlon brings to mind the taking off in the springtime of his life of a talented young North Kerry man whom the Pittsburgh, Pa. press described, at his demise, “as one of the brightest and most talented young men that city had ever known”.

            A journalist, and an artist, whom disease cut down more than a quarter of a century ago, just as fame had dawned on the marvels of his brush.  De Woulfe Scanlon was born close to the village of Newtownsandes in North Kerry and, when quite a young lad, emigrated to America and, for a while, settled in Philadelphia, Pa. where he accepted a position on the clerical staff of the Pennsylvania railroad.  He was shortly afterwards promoted to Pittsburgh, Pa.  Having always a taste for literature and art, his spare time was devoted to the cultivation of both, and shortly after his arrival in the great iron smelting city of the west, he was looked on as a brilliant and effective writer.

            The brush, however, dominated the pen in his ambition, and after four years he had spared sufficient money to enable him to set out for Europe to pursue his artistic studies.  In Paris he studied painting under the leading masters of the period and there became associated with Mr. J. Elmar Salsibury, the well known Pittsburgh artist, who took a keen interest in the work of young Scanlon.

            Outside the studio he still continued to write for the American press and supplied art critiques and articles under the pen name of “Vandyke”.  After the Paris Exhibition he studied in Florence and Rome and, having toured France, Germany and Africa, he returned to Ireland on way back to America, having taken in the principal cities of England in his route.

            During this itinerary many interesting sketches and articles found their way into the leading journals of the States, while yet he was laying the foundation of the more solid and enduring forms of art.  Returning to Pittsburgh he opened a studio in 4^th Avenue and soon his paintings attracted a number of patrons through whom his work was gradually attracting lucrative attention.  Death claimed him at the age of 31.

            For many years afterwards in his old home – a pretty homestead on the roadside between Newtownsandes and Tarbert – numbers of his earlier school day sketches were to be seen up to a few years ago, but they have gradually found their way into the hands of his many friends and admirers.