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Information from our visit to Willy Cunningham.

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A visit with Willy Cunningham who was a good friend of Michael Roche's  We found Willy Cunningham through the neighbours at Roches Point. He lives in the purple house in the row of houses immediately below the lighthouse. Luckily he was in on the Monday morning when we knocked on his door and kindly gave us half hour of his time. He gave us a brief rundown of the family history of the Roche's/Lord Fermoys who had been landowners in the area since 1650. Prior to that they were part of the Fitzgerald clan. Briefly the main Roche 's were Edmond (until 1874), James and Maurice. Maurice, the 4th Lord Fermoy was the grandfather of Lady Diana Spencer. Willy showed us two very informative booklets which he had helped produce, The Point (2001) and Roches Point 1911-2011. Unfortunately he had only one copy of each but we were able to take photos of the more relevant pages, including one where a Mr Gavin, the gamekeeper is mentioned (see below) Some pages from The Point
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Cork, Whitegate Bay, Roches Point

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Retrospective blog and lots of photos! Hi to  anyone reading this blog who is interested in the Gavin family. Writing it on my tablet whilst on the move in Ireland proved too difficult so I am attempting to write it now, a week and a bit after returning from Ireland. The fact that Tim as usual took lots of photos should be useful in jogging my memory and help you all to get a flavour of the visit. Some photos of Roches Point, where we stayed for three nights. Looking West from Roches Point. The road up to Roches Point lighthouse The view from the house, looking out to sea. The view looking towards Cobh. The " coastguards houses" looking from the lighthouse terrace.
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A day around Roches Point and a walk to the Gavin house

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Sunday 21st October 2018 Sunday sailors in Cork Bay with a view of St Colman's Cathedral at Cobh. Watching a yacht race from the house at Roches Point Luminous blue spinnaker Lots of wind now! It wasn't a long walk to where the Gavin house once stood, but looking at old maps there was definitely a path which went from their house directly to the Pilots Bay when they lived there. There is no longer a path and the road layout has changed today. This is the location of the house where the Gavin family lived. The new house was built by a German family with the name Kanne. There is a public car park serving White Bay next to the house. I will post more information about the house on a later blog. Mum often talked of the "borreen" (my spelling) next to the house and as this path goews down to White Bay I'm guessing this must be it. Mum also spoke of the McTigue family who lived close to the beach. Kate Gavin and her
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Some more photos of White Bay

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Our first day in Ireland.

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Off to Ireland in a few weeks

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Greetings to my cousins Myra, Terry, Eileen, Raymond and not forgetting brother Reg, Lauren and Chris. Gavin, Clifford, Amy and James can be added too if they are at all interested. Just to let you know that Tim, Lauren and I will be going on an Irish adventure from 19th-26th October and we will be looking for some of our Irish roots. I am playing around with this blog as a way of recording what we are doing that week and hopefully if any of you are able to add to it that would be great. At the moment I'm not sure whether others can contribute but I can find that out along the way! For now I'm just going to include a brief itinerary of what we are up to that week: Friday 19th - Brief detour to Bundorran in Donegal to see Christy Moore, my favourite Irish musician. Saturday 20th - Drive to Cork to pick up Lauren. Stay at ROCHES POINT!!! Sunday   21st - Visit Trabolgan, Whitegate, Ahada etc Tuesday  23rd - Drive to The Botanics B&F in Glengarriff. Remainder of t
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