Responding to Bill, and his visit to the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery. This morning after Mass for the Holy Souls, we had a procession from our church (St. Joseph's Aberavon/Port Talbot, South Wales.) to the Cemetery, where our Parish Priest, Fr. Joseph Cefai, of Maltese/Gozo extraction, led us in a short service, then he blessed the graves of those buried there. Walking away and reading the names of those buried there- AHEARNE, DOYLE, MADDEN, SULLIVAN, O'SULLIVAN, CROWLEY, SHEA, O'SHEA, SHEEHY, MAHONEY, LEAHY, O'LEARY, WATERS, BARRY, and many more who were born in Ireland. It was the Famine that brought most of them, but it also brought back the Catholic faith to our area, and also further afield, CARDIFF, MERTHYR, NEWPORT, and started up strong Catholic communities, so I was thankful for having that Irishness in me. Best wishes. John Patrick GRIFFITHS. -----Original Message----- From: Bill Gawne <gawne@cesmail.net> To: beara@rootsweb.com Sent: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:11 Subject: [BEARA] An anecdote Dear friends of Beara, By way of commenting on the nature of Irish identity among those who left... I was in Detroit last Memorial Day with my mother. We'd gone there or the funeral of one of my father's brothers. After the olemnities, mom and I went out to Holy Sepulchre cemetery where so any of our relatives are buried. We stopped at the flower shop just utside the main gate to buy flowers, and mom wanted to get little rish flags to go with the bouquets. But they'd already sold out. here were rows and rows of flags from every other country you could magine, and the woman at the counter assured us she'd begun the day ith four rows of Irish flags among them, but they'd all gone out the oor by the time we got there in the afternoon. In the cemetery itself, back in section 6 where so many of my older elatives lie at rest, you can see on stone after stone, "Born in reland" "Born in Beara, Ireland" "Born in Ballylongford, Ireland" the stonecutter had to squeeze the letters to make that fit) "Born in reland" on and on and on as you walk along the rows. So yes, there's a strong and lasting sense of Irish identity, both for hose who came over and those of us who buy up those little tri-color lags to place on their graves. -- Bill ------------------------------ o unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to BEARA-request@rootsweb.com ith the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of he message