Family history: Fr Frank's American relatives drop by Templemore graveyard

It’s a small world they say.

While doing some clean up work in the Old graveyard in the Park last week two American ladies, Kelly Marchisio and Katie Gleeson-Doten, happened to ramble in.

As we got chatting it quickly transpired that they had Templemore connections.

Their great-grandfather happened to be none other than our very own Fr Francis Gleeson, affectionately known as Fr Frank.

There were 14 in that family, including Ben who emigrated to America, passing through Ellis island in the early 1900s.

Ben was the seventh son and he met and married Mary Skelly in America.

They went on to have seven sons, the seventh being Paul, who is well known to us all in Templemore.

His brother, Jack, is grandfather to Kelly and Katie.

Kelly was in London for four months and decided to come to Ireland to visit Katie, who now lives in Nenagh with her husband Kurt and their daughter Clare, who was born in Limerick in 2021.

As part of their visit they decided to visit their ancestral home of Templemore and the rest, as they say, is history.

Best wishes also to Kelly who is getting married in America on December 3.