Rooney Family Update

Lane to the homestead(1 and 1/4 width of one car)

Homestead(pretty sure)

St. Joseph Church

Inside church

One Rooney stone. I will use some material I have from different sources to locate the original one tomorrow.

We arrived in Downpatrick today. Just to clarify what this meant to me, this is why I wanted to come to Ireland. I wanted to walk and be in the same places that my ancestors lived. I have been interested in our family history for a long time and I wanted to see things for myself. Ardith, of course, had to come to drive and vacation, but now she's interested too.

Downpatrick is about 30 miles from the family homestead. We drove to Ballymartin early this evening to see the church that all the Rooney family attended and still do. It was closed so we went to the adjoining cemetary. We discovered alot of new and old Rooney headstones. A lady came into the cemetary while we were looking and I verified with her that we were at St. Joseph church. When I told her why we were there she got very animated. This is a good thing with most people. When Irish people get excited they talk like they are singing a song really fast. I know she said quite a few things but the best I could understand was Rooneys still went to church there and they lived up the lane a bit. We have figured out that you really have to clarify the phrase "a bit." This could be 3 feet or 30 miles. She also had a key to the church so we got see inside the church where some of our ancesters were married. I was really excited about that.

Sooo we went up the lane "a bit" to look at the family homestead. I combined three sets of directions with the GPS settings and off we went. We arrived "at last" at the homestead. The whole point of this trip. It was a dump. Possibly one of the worst houses we had seen in Ireland. We sat in the car for awhile contemplating whether to take a picture of it or find another better house and pretend like it was the homestead.

A guy came up the lane to feed his cattle so I rolled down the window and asked him if that was the Rooney homestead. Again lots of words and gestures and again I got about 1/4 of the conversation. I think what he said was no that is a cow house. The place you're looking for is in the hollow down the lane across from the other Rooneys.

First of all....extreme relief. To give an example of what he really said it would go like this. Tha thah yu loo at is cow 'ouse, luv. out yu blah blah blah is in te hallow don te lean a bit(a bit remember that one?) an te lean yon oter Rooney's.

We found it(we tink). The picture is above. We will go back tomorrow and see who we can meet and also go to Kilkeel to see Arthur at the Kilgory Arms so he can call Gareth Rooney and arrange a lunch date. That's my first idea. If that doesn't work I'm knocking on the door. I didn't come this far to take a picture of the wrong homestead or a cowshed. That's the plan, if it doesn't work Ardith will be at the wheel to drive the getaway car.

Stay Tuned as the Rooney sisters find their homestead!!