SNIPPET: Young mother Linda FLYNN shares a wonderful tale of family tradition: "The great famine was a sad and grey period in Irish History. It has touched many families and stories were passed on from generation to generation. Notorious English landlords, like the infamous Lord Leitrim, reigned over the native Irish population. My great-grandmother, Esther Mary Anne (AISLING) BRENNAN, was born in 1839 in Dunlavin, County Wicklow. She was the eldest daughter of James Anthony BRENNAN and Mary Anne COGGANS. Coming from a small farm family she travelled to The Big Smoke of Dublin to serve in the big houses in Dublin's Inner City. It was there she met my great-great-grandfather, Adriaan van GALEN, who was a sailor. His father was a farmer, too, but because he was not the eldest son he would not inherit the farm under Saxon inheritance laws and took to the sea instead. He persuaded Esther, after a period of courtship, to become his wife and make the journey to The Netherlands. They got married and settled in Woensel, now part of Eindhoven, in the Southern Province of Brabant. Esther's parents were, of course,sad to see their daughter go away but in those days it was a parting that was inevitable in many families all around Ireland. People immigrated to England, America, Canada, or even Australia to seek a better future. In a wooden box that her mother gave to Esther at their last farewell was amongst other things a delicate christening dress and matching bonnet. Her mother told her to make sure to be a good catholic and christen her children (if she and Adriaan were blessed with them) in this christening dress so that they would always have something Irish on the most special moment of their lives. The dress was said to be made of material of a wedding dress. Esther brought it safely over to Holland and never returned to her beloved Ireland or to her family again. The only contact was through letters of which a few are still kept by the family to this day. The dress was worn by Esther and Adriaan's children and passed on to her eldest daughter Anna. When she did not have any children she gave it to her brother, my great-grandfather, Peter van GALEN. All his children wore the dress and he passed it on to my granny Lamberta. Her children wore the dress and she in turn gave it to her eldest daughter, my mother Annie. My sister, my brother and myself were christened in the dress. My first visit to Ireland was in 1987 when myself and two of my cousins had a pleasant holiday. We visited many places and followed the trail of our Irish Ancestors. Most of them hail from Wicklow and Sligo but the journey also took us to Antrim in the North. Many holidays to Ireland followed from then on. I met Peadar in 1996 in Dublin and I moved to Ireland a year later. When we got married in 1999 in Amsterdam my mother gave me the dress. In July 2000 our little girl Shannon Anne Marie was born and she was christened in St. Patrick's Church in Mohill, Leitrim, wearing none other than AISLING's Christening Dress. Altered and mended through years of wear and tear it survived the two world wars. It was kept under the floor boards by my granny to hide it from the ever-plundering German soldiers who occupied The Netherlands under HITLER. It has survived all those years and hopefully when Shannon is grown up I can pass the christening dress on to her and she in turn can pass it on there after. AISLING's Christening Dress has gone full circle. It left Ireland in 1860 and returned to Ireland in 2000, around 140 years later, only not to Wicklow but to Lovely Leitrim. I live in Mohill with my husband and daughter and I have made many good friends over the years. I still like to visit The Netherlands because my family and friends live there but it is always good to come home to Mohill." -- Photos of Esther Mary Anne BRENNAN (1839-1919), Linda FLYNN and infant Shannon Anne Marie FLYNN in the christening dress, can be found in the 2005 issue of the yearly "Leitrim Guardian" magazine.