Around Ireland Family lost and found in Derry

By Patrick Markey

William Smith had little idea that a taxi ride to his old home in Derry’s Limewood Street would end a 61-year separation from his two long lost brothers.

So he wasn’t surprised when an unfamiliar face answered the door at the Creggan house where he had once lived. But it turned out his brother Adam didn’t recognize him either, reports the Derry Journal.

"I’m looking for Adam Smith and any relations that are connected to him," William asked his brother unwittingly.

"I’m Adam Smith, what do you want?" the brother replied.

So began a reunion that brought together a family separated more than six decades ago. Adam and Paddy Smith believed their brother William had died many years ago. But after leaving to work in Manchester, William was drafted into the army and eventually left for Australia. The family lost touch.

"We did try to find Bill but had no success. We thought he had died in the war," Adam said.

William had hoped to make a trip back to Derry with his wife, Veronica. But she died of cancer. He had promised that he would return to Ireland as her last wish.

Viking horde

Forty years ago, Elizabeth Moore’s husband and sons were playing around in Dunmore Cave in County Kilkenny when their torch light shone on a small metal object. The boys took the object home to their mother, who wore it for years as a bizarre pin.

This week after reading reports about another discovery in the cave, Moore found out her strange piece of jewelry was an artifact dating back to the Viking times, reports the Irish Times newspaper.

After 16 other pieces were found by a tour guide last year, Moore contacted Victor Buckely, the Duchas arch’ologist, to tell him she believed she might have another one.

"She told me that 35 or 40 years ago her husband and her sons had entered Dunmore cave through a hole in the field," Buckely told the newspaper.

She said they had been carrying torches and found a small metal object about 1.8 inches in diameter.

"We have no idea what it is and it becomes part of the mystery of the Dunmore objects, which are currently being restored and examined in the museum," Buckely said.

Last year’s find in the cave caused great excitement in the world of arch’ology because of its unique qualities.

While half of the find was made up of coins and ingots of silver of Anglo-Saxon origin, the eight other pieces could not be identified.

One of the objects has a conical shape made of silver wire, but nothing similar from the Viking era has been discovered before.

Sign of bad times

A controversial sign at Castlegregory beach warning tourists to watch out for thieves fell victim to a theft itself recently, when it disappeared in mysterious circumstances.

The Kerryman newspaper reports that gardaí believe the sign was stolen, possibly by a prankster, but possibly by a thief operating in the area.

Although only put up a few weeks ago, the sign had prompted a mixed reaction in Castlegregory, where some hostel owners worried it would give tourists a bad impression.

The sign warned tourists to lock their cars and to hide valuables and was erected by Kerry County Council after a number of thefts from parked vehicles.

"The sign stems from discussions which we had with local gardaí. The difficulty is not that cars are being stolen from the beach, but that there was some pilfering from cars taking place," County official Phillip O’Sullivan said.

But Crutch’s Hotel proprietor, Ron McDonnell, said he felt the Castlegregory sign was giving the wrong impression and called it "totally irrelevant."