My mom and I have this photo labeled “Old Foley,” but that was just a guess. I think it is time to revisit this lady in her pretty cloak.
If she is an “Old Foley” could she be related to this guy?
Patrick Foley, circa 1865 (Private Family Collection)
Or maybe she’s an “Old Crowley” and related to Patrick’s wife, Mary Crowley. I made a case for this some years ago…
Mary Crowley Foley, circa 1865 (Private Family Collection)
The photo appears to have been taken at a studio in San Francisco. I don’t know of any Foley or Crowley connections to California. My family’s westward journey ended in Tara Township, Minnesota (at least for a couple of generations). But then there is so much we don’t know…
Several of my great-great-grandparents were born in Kilmichael Parish, County Cork. I first visited the area in 2009, and I fell in love with the rugged landscape. The photo above is one of my favorites. It is taken from the Kilmichael Ambush Memorial. The memorial is on the site of the 1920 confrontation during the War of Independence where seventeen RIC soldiers were killed by IRA forces led by Tom Barry. Read more about it here.
Ambush Memorial
Father Jerry Cremin, then Kilmichael parish priest, guided us around the parish on a drizzly October day. We walked through the thick, wet grass in the cemetery full of ancient gravestones. Fr. Cremin pointed out the grave markers without inscriptions. He said some had eroded, but others were never marked. What good was an inscription when the deceased’s loved ones could not read? They identified the graves by the stones themselves and their placement.
Kilmichael photos by Regan McCormack
t
My ancestors left Kilmichael a long, long time ago. I am attracted to the place for its stunning landscape, but also because it is the birthplace of these brave individuals. Ultimately Patrick Foley, his wife Mary Crowley Foley, and John Regan settled on the prairie of Western Minnesota. I just wonder what they thought when they arrived on that flat, treeless expanse..just a little different from Kilmichael!
Several years ago, my mother received a trio of photographs from her cousin Lorna. Lorna knew that two of the photos were her great-grandparents (see below), but she had no idea about the identity of the woman pictured above. All that Lorna could offer was, “Well, I am sure she’s one of the Foleys…”
Do you think she could be this guy’s mother?
Patrick T. Foley
This is my great-great-grandfather Patrick Foley who arrived in America in 1864. He came from Kilmichael Parish, County Cork and settled in Fisherville, New Hampshire before heading West to Clontarf, Minnesota in the late 1870s.
Or, could the caped woman be this lady’s mother?
Mary Crowley Foley
Mary Crowley married Patrick Foley on November 13, 1869 at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Providence, Rhode Island. Mary also came from County Cork. Patrick and Mary’s photographs are tin-types.
I really can’t tell who she is, nor do I know where the photo was taken. If anyone has input or information regarding these photos, please leave a comment. I would love to know more about the costume in the first photograph, and if you see any resemblance.
The Irish in America 