Twohig Quest –

 

Any information on the Twohig family in Macroom/Cork is welcome.  Please contact me [George Cornelius Rehm] at g.rehm@verizon.net or pass this website link on to anyone who may be a descendent of the Twohig family in the Macroom area.  Please read on for my quest…………..

 

This pursuit started in February of 2002.  On my first trip to Ireland, I was a typical tourist on a bus trip from Dublin to Shannon.  I did not have much detail of the itinerary in advance of the trip and I learned about country as we traveled.  However, I did know one thing about myself and my ancestry.  I knew that my Grandfather, Cornelius Twohig, at the age of 7 with his mother Julia and two other children, arrived in Philadelphia, USA, on June 9, 1895, aboard the SS Kensington, from Macroom Ireland.  

 

Our tour took us to Blarney Castle in Cork and on to Killarney.  On the road to Killarney I came to the realization that we were passing through Macroom.  Fortune would have it that we made a brief stop in Macroom; smokers have to smoke, and travelers have to rest.  It was a rainy day, already dark, in the evening on Monday, February 25th 2002.  I had about 10 minutes to get out of the bus and look around Macroom.  As a typical tourist from America, I walked around the square, at the center of the town, camera in hand, looking for that one unique pub with my family name.  No pub was found, but I was elated when on the South Square I found the little garden/hardware shop “W. J. Twohig”, pictured above.  My trip to Ireland had been made fruitful beyond my expectations.  The sight had truly, made my day!

 

Back home, time passed.  My cousin Nancy had begun her research into our family genealogy.  She was able to get a copy of our Grandfather Cornelius Twohig’s death certificate.  With that, a record of the name of our Great Grandfather, William J. Twohig and his wife Julia.

 

Since that discovery, my mission has been to find a family connection in Macroom.  At first I wrote a couple of letters addressed to the proprietor of the shop on the South Square.  I later found that about the time that I started writing, in July 2004, the shop proprietor, Michael Twohig, had just passed away.  Some bad timing on my part, I should have pursued my effort as soon as I came home from my trip to Ireland in 2002.

 

My wife and I made a return trip to Ireland in March of 2009.  On that trip we rented a car and drove from Killarney back to Macroom with the time to spend most of the day looking for information about the W. J. Twohig shop and any possible family connection.  We walked the streets around the center square quizzing anyone who seemed to be willing to help me on my quest.  We met some very nice people as we walked the town.  We were directed out to a Millstreet pub and from there found Dorothy Twohig-Fitzgerald with her daughter Dorothy, son Martin and his wife.  Dorothy was the daughter of William Twohig the owner of the shop in Macroom.  Her brother Michael had operated the W. J Twohig shop until his death in 2004.  The visit with Dorothy and her family was an exciting connection with the Twohig clan in Ireland.  Her son Martin was very kind and followed our visit by sending me some family history and documents.  Meeting these Twohig descendants was the highlight of my 2009 trip.

 

Going over the info that I received on Dorothy’s family was not conclusive as to my direct connection but I was excited to have it.  I recently did the Ancestry.com DNA test.  I have numerous leads to try to follow up.  Hopefully one of them will make the connection to Dorothys family.

 

Please browse through the other pages on this site to see some of the information my cousin Nancy has collected in her research and some of the information and photos I have collected, on this side of the pond.

 

Thanks, George

​