Lawrence Kelleher

Seanachie: a Story of the Irish Lawrence Kelleher

This story is as told by the patriarch of the OKelleher clan, John OKelleher, to his two great-grand-children, Sean and Little Bell. He is the Seanachie, the Story Teller. His very long life bridged a part of two centuries. He was born in Ireland in 1783, and he died in America in 1880. This is the story of an Irish familys struggle in Ireland, to survive on a day-to-day basis, while living under the oppressive boot heel of a tyrannical foreign government. Their struggle was very much like living with a time bomb, when you never knew just when it might explode. Finally, one day it happened, the family was torn apart by a very violent event which changed its life forever. This is a story of persecution, murder, love, revenge, retribution, sorrow and the bitterness that had developed between two loving brothers. It is an adventure story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, during the mid-nineteenth century. It also attempts to explain my theory of how many Irish surnames were possibly changed after these illiterate immigrants arrived in America. I offer my readers two possible reasons for the changes.