SR CARMEL MORRIS O’MEARA, AGE 81, DUBLIN

Sr Carmel Morris O’Meara is a member of the community of the Little Sisters of the Assumption, and I visited her in Ballyfermot in Dublin to record the story of her time on Islandmore. She began by telling me that it was the Waller family, under the Cromwellian forces in 1649, who ousted her ancestors from Toomavara. They later settled on this 200 acre island, where they survived by farming and fishing. Sr. Carmel is the oldest surviving member of the O’Meara family and even though she herself was not born on the island, she would return each summer with her mother to visit her grandparents on Islandmore. She spoke with great fondness about her visits there, and how she would arrive in Nenagh by train from Dublin, and would go to Urahill and walk down through the fields, and wait for the cot to take her across to the island. This was as most interesting and informative recording.