My clan all seemed to end up in San Francisco at the turn of the 19th century after being in other places, such as St. John's. Newfoundland and Illinois. We were a large extended family that seemed to have scattered after WW ll like many families. San Francisco in my childhood days was made up of Irish and Italian neighborhoods that no longer exist. There was a flight to the suburbs and then many just lost touch. The church bells that rang all over the city at noon and 6PM are no longer heard. Many of the churches are closed because of low attendance. Time marches on! Tom On Dec 18, 2007, at 10:39 AM, Janet Crawford wrote: On 12/18/07, D and R Hardie <darnhard@ozemail.com.au> wrote: he goes on about Irish > "clannishness" and " devotion to their priests" and ends this para > "Had > there been this degree of attachment among the convicts generally, the > colony's > history might have been very different " Ah, yes, we are very clannish, even today in many places of the world. And perhaps part of the genealogy research is our [unrealized] attempt to put the clan back together in some way now that we are spread across the world. Ireland is so small that the clannishness is still very evident. Everybody is related to everyone else in some fashion or another. I can't tell you how many times there has been a name in the news, perhaps from the North, and someone here will immediately identify the person as so and so's brother-in-law or cousin. And the devotion to the priests is easy - they were our brothers and cousins and the familial devotion came easily. Many of us are realizing it was not just part of our family that came to PEI, or somewhere in Australia, or Chicago, but whole related communities that emigrated together to the same place. We took a good part of our clan with us when we left. It has taken a huge population growth and mobility to break the ancient ties of the clan. I think it is true that the clan is gone in the large cities, but remains to some extent in the rural areas. Or am I wrong? Janet Janet ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to COTIPPERARY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message