Finding loved ones before Christmas after decades apart

Hello, my name is Catherine McMahon, I am your uncle Owen's niece on the McMahon side. You have a great gift at putting the story into writing - I had heard it before from Owen, but you put it so beautifully that it brought a tear to my eye! very glad to hear that the muldoon family are back in regular contact, as i know that a heartache it had been.

Great ,,and sad as it brought tears to my eyes,, I'm from Roscommon ,, and was a Navvy diging ditch's for the gas works in Bradford,at sixteen, and was shipped out to the usa in 1957,,missed my sister's passing,,my Mother's,,and my Dad's.. it is a deep pain within me,, that I left Ireland for a few dollars,, and lost the love of a family,,

All things being equal this was a beautiful story. I ofter wish I could trace back my lineage to my family in Ireland but som many things are lost to us. My grandmother, American born, would have known her mother's stories of Ireland in famine times. She probably did but she never told stories. Great-grandma Kate could not read or write and we have documents to that fact. Her signature was witnessed by her daughter Nora. There are photos and they are precious of Kate and her sister Mary Louise. So many questions and the "ald" ones, her daughters and grand children have passed on save one. People please write things down so your families in later years will know the stories.

Holy Cow, Ms Muldoon...we may be related. My father immigrated from the Palmdale section of Ballaghderren in 1928. One his best friends/relatives was Jack Frain who settled in Brighton (Boston). Too small an area not to be connected, somehow. Emailed my sister who keeps track of these things and is still friendly with Jack Frain's daughters.

So what's the rest of the story? Why didn't Paddy ever write? What were his personal battles that he was fighting? Where was his wife? ...A nice reunion story, but a lot left out.