Cloonlimny

The hearth in the house
that Katie grew up in
Cloonlimny, Co. Mayo, Ireland

The Swinford Charlestown road runs past Killasser and a couple of miles through farm fields and over the River Moi just before the town of Swinford. Right after the river a small dirt road runs off the main paved road with no sign to mark it's name. My Uncle Marty Joe took me up there one day to see Cloonlimney, the place where Catherine grew up. There's a new house in the front and out back is the walls from the old house, unused since the 1930's. The thatching is long gone, as well as most of the plaster on the inside of the stone walls. The folks who lived there now (the daughter of one of Katie's brothers and her son) seemed amused at my interest in an old shell of a house, and I got the impression that the only reason it still stood in their backyard was that they did not have the time or inclination to tear it down, so there it stood.