Phoenix Park & Family Lore

Reminiscing...

I remember as a toddler being brought up to the Phoenix Park in Dublin by my Uncle Tom along with my cousin Kim and being let wander around one of Europe’s biggest metropolitan parks, over 1700 acres of it! The park was not far from either of my grannies doorsteps which were in Cabra.

Phoenix is actually a corruption of the Gaelic “Fionn-Uisce” pron Pheeyun-iska so that is the origin of the name. Fionn Uisce meaning clear water.

I always remember being fascinated with the deer that hid off in the forested parts but could easily be viewed from the road. I believe our purpose was Dublin zoo that day and I do remember having the time of my young life. The miniature train had a huge fascination for me that day and if I recall the Lions & the Chimps were the highlights of the animals on display.

On our way back to Granny K’s house in Cabra, Tom bought us each an ice cream at this little shop just above what is popularly known to generations of Dubs as the "Fairy Glen".

This “dale” if I recall had a mushroom roofed little house at the bottom of it where the fairies apparently lived. This was my first experience with the Other Crowd and I remember looking really hard for any sprites, pixies or leprechauns especially with Tom, who unbeknownst to the younger hordes of cousins that I have, was a practical joker.

Tom would be pointing to a bush and telling Kim & I, "Look there’s a leprechaun there!…he’s looking at you and having a right old laugh”. Of course to a tot, it was immensely frustrating not to see this little fella and if a grown up says “it’s true” - it must be…my infant imagination had a great time that day as suddenly, a little fellah with a red cap with a feather in it materialized before my eyes...at least I think it was my imagination playing tricks with me then…or was it? I told my gran later and she smiled, telling me it was a fear-dearg (far darrig), a red leprechaun, very mischievous and always playing jokes on us mere mortals.

That was the joy of having a huge extended family; I had great Uncles & Aunts on both sides including those who were married into the families of My father & mother. I was blessed in particular to have two wonderful godparents, my aunt Mai & my uncle Kieron.

My Aunt Mai never forgot a birthday, she is my mother’s older sister and from what I can observe looking back with mature reflection, she was a rock for my mother. One of my favourite memories is going to Switzer’s in Grafton Street to see Santa, getting this lovely parcel, green paper, red bow and then heading to Bewleys where the smell of the coffee, the cakes & eating my first ice cream soda will stay with me forever.

Kieron in particular has had a huge influence on my life. My Father's youngest brother, Kieron has always been there for me in thick and in thin and he’ll never know how grateful I am for having him in my life. We are supposedly guarded by guardian angels but how many children can honestly say they had a real, live one involved in their lives. Kieron took his duties as a Godparent very seriously and then some.

He brought me to my first International football match, bought me my first watch (a digital Trafalgar) – “just like Kojak’s”, I remember him telling me…he was & is, a big part of my psyche as I strove to be just like him. He is today a big success story in the food business back home. I think it is because he did everything to the best of his ability and life has a way of rewarding those people that do likewise. His maxims of philosophy were neither simplistic nor sublime just straight forward and that ethos lives on here in Ohio. I guess he was symptomatic of a gene that was evident in all his family, who achieved considerably in their chosen fields.

My paternal Grandparents, Paddy & Greta Kiernan outside their house in Cabra, Dublin

parents of ten great children

My Grandmother K was a daughter of Wexford. My Grandfather K, a son of Cavan. I never knew Grandfather, he died two years before I was born but I do have the privilege of being his namesake. He was a Policeman, a detective resident in Dublin Castle's "G" division(pictured) . It was he who set up many initiatives & directives that many western Police forces in particular use to this day. I understand from my cousin, Monsignor John Sheridan of Malibu, CA that he was one of the first to become involved in the science of examining the psychology of the felon, using forensics in detection and as such was one of the first if the first representative from Ireland to the newly founded Interpol in the 50’s. He was a meticulous record keeper, keeping clippings of every crime that happened in Dublin’s metro area for decades so now my co-workers if you’re reading this, you know where that trait in me, developed.

Granny K was a Wexford woman so on the occasions I came to stay with her in Dublin, we would talk for hours about the comings & goings of all her neighbours and how the town was doing. My Gran or Greta as was her name, was a Morris of Carrigeen, a name of some import if not renown in the town especially associated with seafaring. Her Father was a printer with the people newspaper and if I recall her mother was a Butler. Other names in her family were MacDonald, Hore & Scallan. Canon Butler being a favourite cousin of hers who we visited on occasion in Grantstown whenever she was down for the holidays.

Living in splendid isolation as I do now in Ohio, I appreciate how she missed her hometown though she had much more frequent visits from her cousins in Forth & Bargy than I do (or will ever have) and was immensely proud of her roots going back generations to the Flemish foot-soldiers that accompanied the Normans in the 12th century.

She had 15 siblings; her brothers in particular were very much involved in the Independence movement. Carrageen this little street in the middle of Wexford town was this hotbed of republicanism, surrounded either by trade unionists or home rulers, she was very proud of the fact that her own Morris’s, & her friends, the Cullimores & the Crowleys were the families in the town to form the first Sinn Fein cumainn (club). The struggle in the following years had a huge affect on her family, losing brothers to the struggle either through death or forced emigration. As I write, I am trying to locate her Brother Tom’s grave in Chicago – that is another story and a very poignant one too.

Granny told me all about the Wexford she grew up in. She recalled to me, of the lockout that Wexford endured two years before Dublin. The privations they all faced, the riots & the subsequent the clamp-down. She told me all about it because she lived through it. Looking back on it I am amazed at her recollections and the objective way, in which she described it, she was a wonderful observer.

It’s no wonder, we grew up very proud of our heritage…the streets of Wexford have bled a lot more in the struggle for freedom than any other Irish town I would wager.

I’ll write more of my roots soon. My mother’s family – The Dubs of whom I am inestimably proud of, have a tale to tell but that is another day in the telling.