The two English couples who have used Ely House as their basecamp for over a week while discovering the sights in the area and making friends set off home today with a definite promise of returning. If you would like to see Ely House, formerly Glenderham see them under Guesthouses on this site where they have placed information in the past few days. Do mention that you found them here as it is good to know if anybody is using the facility.
Met a sister of the late John Dowling of GAA fame in the Tullamore Hospital. Ester Wallace told me that her Grandmother was Annie Cummins and was married to the Lockkeeper in Shannonharbour about 1890. One night her Grandfather went to the pub for a billycan of porter
which cost 6d and on his way home he slipped off the the boardway on the lock and fell into the Grand Canal and was drowned leaving Annie a widow with seven young children. Sometime after the funeral the Canal Company loaded Annie and the seven kids along with their furniture and cow and calf and sow and bonhams and hens chickens ducks and turf onto a Canal Boat and transferred Annie to Ballycowan Lock near Tullamore. The morning after they arrived Annie went out to milk the cow and found it had been stabbed to death. It was assumed that it was done by a person that had applied for the Lockkeeper's psition and had failed to get it.
The Canal Boatmen at the time took up a collection and bought a new cow for Annie.
Ester tells us that Cummins at the time was called Kemmy and that they were cousins of Nevins who lived on an island. A sister of Annie Cummins married a Jimmy New who was a great concertina player. She also told us that her niece Yolanda Dowling aged 49 was one of the first victims of the 9 / 11 disaster at the Twin Towers as the first plane hit the building right where she was working.