This article is from page 4 of the 2012-12-18 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
THE small West Clare townland of Kilclogher has strong connections with Newtown in Connecticut, where twenty children and six adult staff members were killed last Friday morning, December 14.
According to sources in America, a large number of Irish emigrants came to live in Newtown in the early 19th century. A large number of these emigrants come from a single parish in West Clare – believed to be Kilc- logher, between Kilbaha and Carrigaholt and the surrounding area.
The Clare emigrants came to Newtown initially to work on the local railroad but settled in the area on tracks of farmland which had been abandoned by previous settlers. Indeed, it is also understood that the majority of the local Clare population settled in the Sandy Hook, where the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings took place on Friday.
It is not yet clear if any of children of teachers killed in the attack had Clare ancestry. One of the murdered teachers, Anne Marie Murphy, is understood to have strong Irish connections but it is not yet clear if her connections date back to West Clare people who settled in the Sandy Hook area. Ms Murphy’s body was discovered in a shielding position around the bodies of a number of her students.
The Irish-American population of the town went from just 5.6 per cent in 1850 to 41.8 per cent in 1890 and 44 per cent by 1900.
Connecticut genealogist, Harlan Jessup, believes that much of these Irish emigrants came from one small area in West Clare. At one point, according to Jessup’s research, the New York Belting and Packing rubber factory in town employed 200 people – 185 of whom were Irish.
Last Friday a lone gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School, killing twenty children and six adult before turning the gun on himself. The gunman, who has been identified by authorities as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, had first killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, at their nearby Newtown home.