Sister Maire

Sister Maire Nic Niallais and her brother Sean Mac Niallais were able to chart a lot of family history of the Meehans and related clans, all in the days before the internet made this a 'click and search' task. 

Here she is at Presentation Convent in Galway:

She is 92 years old and retired, but she still answers the phones at the Convent!

Her grandfather, John Meehan, was brother to Anne Meehan (great grandmother), who marries James McBride.

Sister Maire was a cloistered/enclosed nun in Portadown, near Armagh for the first 20 years of her service, until Vatican II and Pope Paul VI encouraged nuns to become part of the community. Once that happened, she quickly became frequent friends with her nearby cousin, Anna (Murphy) McAvinchey in Armagh.

She was assigned to various jobs in her tenure, including New Orleans as a teacher and principal of a school in Zambia.

Her brother Sean has passed on, but in his day he was a prolific family researcher. He wrote constantly  to family to try to determine family history.

Sister Maire did a lot of research herself and told of train trips to Dublin to spend the day in the archives searching for family info.

That's the way you did it back then!

You can find various links on this blog with the research from both Sean and Sister Maire.

Thank you both for your hard work!

Note that the sister taught me that the 'Nic' in her name was for the female members of the clan/family, 'Mac' for the men. So her brother Sean was Mac Niallais, but she is Nic Niallais.

Note also that there was some confusion at the start of my visit as she thought I was a Thomas O'Grady from NY who had married into the McCallions from MountCharles ... small world, but different family!

Update: the Thomas O'Grady above is the father of the Tom O'Grady I had stumbled on when researching the Meehans:

https://family-mccallion.blogspot.com/2022/04/meehans.html

'His' O'Gradys are from the area near Cashelcolane, were Grandma Regan was from. He said there was an area nearby known as "O'Grady" village. Is this were Michael Grady originates, before he migrates to Derreentighe in 1860s? Is this the link where Grandma Regan supposedly 'knew' Martin before they  emigrated?