'I will be back again' - US man visits Mayo town to find family

COMMUNITY NOTES: BALLYHAUNIS - WESTERN PEOPLE (JUNE 3 EDITION)

A recent visitor to Ballyhaunis from the US, Edward Bachmann, is already planning a return trip.

“I will be back again. I would like to find some of the Garvey family,” he said.

From New York but California based, Edward spent a week in Ireland recently looking for family.

“My grandparents, Bernie Healy and Annie Garvey, left Ballyhaunis in 1915. I met several second cousins, and I saw the houses, now empty, in which both of my grandparents were born in the 1880s. My cousins are all lovely people.

“I found Ireland in general to be a very friendly place. I was also able to meet, for the first time in 20 years, my Canadian nephew, James. It was sunny almost every day, something that everyone told me was very unusual.

“My mother’s first cousin, Frank Healy, a great guy, who helped James and I find my grandmother’s birthplace. This was down many narrow country lanes, and he hadn’t been there for 30 years, but he found it. I found my grandfather’s sister’s gravesite at the 14th century Abbey [the Friary] in the middle of town.”