McCARROLL � GAFFIGAN Marriage. AGNES BRIDGET GAFFIGAN was born and lived in San Francisco before she came to Ireland to marry my grandfather MICHAEL JOSEPH McCARROLL (sometimes aka Carroll) of the Donacavey and Clogher Parishes, County Tyrone. They had met in San Francisco after Michael joined his two brothers. Agnes B. left for Ireland when she reached majority, but we do not know if she accompanied Mickey McCarroll on that journey. Instead of being married in the Fintona area, where his family lived and he chose to settle as a publican/merchant (after residing in Omagh at least until 1914), they were wed at St. Patrick�s Cathedral in Dundalk, County Louth. We don't even know if they traveled together, or where in Ireland they had landed, or even where they stayed before they left for County Tyrone to raise their family. We have no idea if marriage banns were published, but at that time there must have been. I was wondering about if it would be possible to see if some kind of note was placed in St. Patrick's Cathedral's records about their marriage which that took place 25 June 1912. (I do have the marriage record, but nothing else.) Mickey became a publican/auctioneer/seller of shoes and coffins at their public house on Main Street in Fintona (the pub owned by the late Mr. Francis McAtee). Michael and Agnes had a number of children, including my father: MICHAEL JOSEPH, b. 25 March 1914 in Omagh; PATRICK EUGENE, b. 1915, who passed away after three days; MARY CATHERINE (who became Maura when she migrated to the USA), 1917 and passed away in 2004; THOMAS LEO, b. 1918; BERNADETTE ANTHONY, b. 1919; and, KEVIN BARRY, b. 1921. All of these siblings had returned to the States in 1924 with their mother, after the passing of Michael Joseph McCarroll. Michael Joseph Carroll Sr. had left for California in 1887, aboard the Etruria, to join his brothers in San Francisco: THOMAS and PATRICK, who had become USA citizens. In 1904 Mickey also gained US citizenship. After sometime in the Bay Area he returned to Fintona and began a family in 1912. There is some speculation that he was ill in California and returned to Ireland because of that reason, but he had recovered from whatever the illness may have been. You know, this has been a mystery to me (and perhaps a mystery to others in my family) but it does seem quite funny. The two of them went to Dundalk to get married, before the partition so that was not the reason. Dundalk would seem to be half way point to Dublin, but then why would they land, or at least, she would land there from the States? It would seem more likely that they would come ashore at Moville. In those days marriage was fairly strictly regulated for the Catholics and while both were of the age; why not Armagh and its cathedral if they did not want to get married in Fintona? I just thought that there might, and I emphasize the "might," be something in those Cathedral records regarding the marriage of the "Yank" and his lady. Or, someone may have knowledge that would fill in the voids. As they say, "Nothing ventured, Nothing gained." [email protected]