Sean O’Shea, a native of Cahiratrant, brought me back to his home place to rekindle old memories. While driving towards the village of Ventry, we visited a small townland called Cahirbeshinnea, a village of 16 small farm holdings, where Sean spoke about the families which lived there. We continued our journey to Church Farm, a place which Sean had often frequented during his childhood. There, he described his emigration to New York and the difficult life he experienced there. He spoke about his return to live in Ballyheigue, where he brought up a family by selling fish and running a small tour bus, which brought people to Mass on Sundays. This marked the end of the first recording.
In the second part of the recording we continued our journey down to Cahinatrant, the village of the O’Sheas, the Murphys, the Longs and the Fitzgeralds, who had their difficulties because of continuous mutual harassment over rights of way. Sean spoke about his great-grandmother, who was Cait Brown, a woman of great strength, both physically and mentally. Our final destination was Fion Tra, looking across at Ceann Tra, we discussed local stories handed down to Sean about this place of spectacular beauty.
Keywords: Cahiratrant, Cahirbeshinnea, village, Slea Head, west Kerry, Great Famine, entrepreneur, tourism, coach tours, business, rights of way, emigration, New York, Ballyheigue, local stories,
