Newtown CT school shooting may involve Clare descendants

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smcarberry
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Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2007 4:31 pm
Location: USA

Newtown CT school shooting may involve Clare descendants

Post by smcarberry » Fri Dec 14, 2012 9:36 pm

With regret, I feel it is necessary and appropriate to observe that, even in 2012, the casualties today may well include someone in the group of remaining Clare descendants who relocated in Newton. As of 1900 many dozens of Clare immigrants were there, although then (as now) this is a rural and quiet area. The appalling nature of this violence is forever impressed on those who survived. Having grown up in a similar place within about 50 miles from Newtown, I know the mindset and outlooks of these young children and their older siblings.

The involved school is an elementary one, meaning the children in the building were age 12 and younger. Very typically, each class has been together since kindergarten, with only a few children moving away and only a few joining each class as the years go by. My senior class at the time of high school graduation had only 35 in it. None of us experienced any life-threatening event nor did there appear to be any reason to anticipate a bad event. Life seems especially secure in a rural place. I cannot imagine the effort it will be take to pick up the pieces and go forward, for anyone there. They deserve your sympathy and prayers.

When the casualty list is made public, if there is a surname that seems like a Clare one, you can assume it is. That is particularly true for Keane/Kane, which I know from having researched those families there. I realized at that time that the twins Jim and John Kane in the class preceding mine in my school were very likely from a Clare family, resettled first in Newton and then in Poughkeepsie, just 20 miles from my home town.

It's a very sad, sorry day.

Sharon Carberry

This is a postscript: These children were in a building that housed grades one through four (so that the oldest student would be about age 10). Of the 20 children who were killed, all ages 6 and 7, the surnames of McDonnell and Murphy were included. I will not comment further, as I have only trenchant thoughts on my mind.
Last edited by smcarberry on Sun Dec 16, 2012 1:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

moc66
Posts: 40
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2007 4:53 pm

Re: Newton CT school shooting may involve Clare descendants

Post by moc66 » Fri Dec 14, 2012 11:04 pm

Hi Sharon
You are right Kane would be Keane... We are getting very sad news here of an unfolding tragedy of a mass shooting at an elementary school in Sandy Hook Newtown CT our sympathies to the bereaved families and friends. This has an added poignancy for me personally as I have been to Sandy Hook Newtown researching a connection between the parishes of Carrigaholt and Cross a good few times. In the 19th century after the famine a large number of people from the Loop Head Peninsula settled in this area after getting employment in a number of factories. It is a long story.... how I came across this enclave of West Clare people was through Paul Murphy who lived in this area( Paul was one of the first to resettle from Dublin through Rural Resettlement scheme) and wrote a local history Called Cuchullain's Leap and through that book met an American Jim Bradley looking for his roots on the Loop in Kilbaha Paul ended up in St Rose's Cemetery Sandy Hook with Jim and wrote about it in the Clare Champion. I followed up on the research over the years because I was in a position to do so as Paul at the time ran a franchise in Galway for Jim. Met a lot of people and I had hope to do documentary for local radio on all the research it is a great story. Met a lot of great people so sad that this has happened.....
Regards Michael

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