SNIPPET: Per 2004 article -- Rose EGAN (nee PRIOR) who recently celebrated her 90th birthday in March, was born in Kiltyhugh, Ballinamore and is very proud of being a Leitrim woman. She has very fond memories of the people she knew - the FEEs, FLYNNs, McCABEs, McNIFFEs and others around Kiltyhugh. Having a great memory she can recall many places and people from Ballinamore - FLYNN's shop in Church St. and HOY's where they bought the groceries, MAGUIREs, DEIGNANs, CRYANs, MARTIN's P.O. Rose's memories of her childhood and growing up in Kiltyhugh are very happy ones -- walking barefoot through the fields to school with her friend Annie McTIERNAN (nee McGOVERN), dances in Aughawillan and Drumbrick Hall especially the Christmas ball which cost a half crown and included tea and barm brack. She remembers fair days in the town, working hard on the farm, the itinerants at the side of the road making and mending tin cans, pitch and toss and dances at the crossroads. There were dances in the house, too, especially when relations came home from America. Her late brother Sonny was a very good melodeon player and played at the house dances. He also played the French fiddle (mouth organ). Her father John played the flute in a pipeband in the early 1900s. Sadly, Rose's father was tragically lost in the Lusitania disaster on May 7, 1915. He was returning from America having gone there in the latter part of 1913. Rose never saw her father as she was born while he was away. His body was never recovered and his death is recorded on the family headstone in Corraleehan graveyard. Rose's mother, Mary Anne, was left a young widow with three children under the age of three, so it was a very difficult time for her. Happily, some years later Rose's mother married Danny BOHAN from Mohill and they had another daughter, Annie. They had a long and happy life, living into their 80s. Rose attended Derradda National School until she was 15. Her teachers there were Mr. CURRAN and Mrs. GILHEANEY and Rose recalls winning a prize for being "best in class." When she left school she went on to learn her trade as a dressmaker with Mrs. W. ROURKE, Church Street. She was a very good dressmaker and spent all her life making clothes for family and friends. She met Tom EGAN from Sligo in the early 1940s and they were mraried in Corraleehan Church. Tom, a railway worker with the Narrow Gauge railroad, was from a well known family in railway circles, being one of ten brothers and five sisters, many of whom worked for CIE as did his father in Kilfree Junction, Co. Sligo. Rose and Tom lived in Church St. and their son Kevin and daughter Maureen were born there. Shortly after the war Tom was transferred to Rosslare Harbour, Co. Wexford, where they spent ten years and their second daughter Rosaleen was born . In 1957 they returned to Ballinamore. and lived in Railway Tce. Two years later the railway closed down. Tom was a guard on the railway and Rose remembers being on the last train to run on the Ballinamore/Dromod line. They then moved to Sligo. Rose was widowed 23 years ago. Rose's sister, Anne GALLAGHER, lives in Trathnona, Ballinamore, while her other sister, the late Mary Kate KIERNAN lived in Mohill. Her grandson Kian EGAN is a member of the world famous pop group, Westlife, his father being Rose's son, Kevin. Rose was looking forward to the upcoming wedding of her granddaughter Gillian, daughter of Rosaleen, to Shane FILAN, another member of Westlife. A sweet photo of Rose appeared with an article entitled 'Bridging the Generation Gap' in the 2004 issue of the yearly "Leitrim Guardian" magazine.