Monday was a double funeral for Paddy and Nicola Kelly, Drum, who died in a road accident at Stradbally. The Funeral Mass took place in Saint Peter’s Church Athlone and afterwards they were laid to rest in Drum cemetery. One of the celebrants was an uncle of Nicola and she also has a brother a priest in Kenya Father Paddy Boran. Over a cup of tea afterwards in the Drum Community Center where Paddy spent many an hour running Bingo and other functions his son Gabriel told us that he had attended the last three years of National School in Shannonbridge and he remembered Michael Green and Olive Donegan. When Gabriel saw the plates of assorted sandwiches he said that his Dad would have a fit if he was there as the caterers had sprinkled the sandwiches with parsley and his Dad just hated parsley.

The weather grabbed the headlines in mid week with a heavy fog on Tuesday and a sand lorry went into the ditch before Clonfad Church. Nobody was hurt but it remained there until yesterday when one of Noel Mc Manus’s machines succeeded in dragging it out.

Thursday night we had some slushy snow but it did not remain. The river level held steady at 3.25 Metres for the past few days. Temperatures have dropped to 40 F and it gets cold after sunset.

On Thursday evening seven Americans arrived in search of their family tree. They were enquiring about the Kelly Family with an Egan connection and lucky enough Father Mike Egan included a lot of the family tree when he wrote an article in The Shannonbridge Star about twenty five years ago. As it happened they had booked into a hotel near Shannon Airport when they arrived and they returned there for the night. Next morning they arrived back and visited Clonmacnois where they saw the Egan headstone which has a Helen Egan nee Kelly on the list of deceased. Gus Claffey told us that in the old cemetery people of the same name were buried in the same location even if not related. In the New Cemetery there are 40 Egan plots. They visited P. Kelly who directed them to the old Kelly home in Clonfinlough and Mrs Dennis Loonham rattled off three generations of Kellys that had lived in the old house including two Peters and a Paddy. The two Kelly girls in the party seem to have married two Futcher husbands. Mary Futcher lives in Haddonfield New Jersey and is in the next parish to Saint Mary’s. So the brother will have Futcher visitors next week. The other girl Patricia Futcher and her family live in London and they are planning to come back in the spring. Last night they booked into Bunratty Castle and we thought that was the last we would see of them for 2006 but today after driving around for the day they stopped in briefly to buy a souvenir cap.

Good to see Michael Green over for a weeks break from Hartford and to visit his family. The Irish Lad is in the lawn cutting and tree maintenance and at this time of year he is occupied with clearing snow in a school which is one of his main customers.

This evening Kieran Pat Devery called in for a couple of hours. Kieran was from Lecarrow but he and his wife Anne now live in Creglahan., Castlerea, Roscommon..

Good news today was the start of preparations for the building of a new home for Vinnie Darcy in The Old Street which is on the road to the right past Ard Chiarain.