Comment by Gerry Regan on May 17, 2014 at 2:43pm

Rob, tell us how you came to capture this extraordinary moment in time!

Comment by Rob on May 17, 2014 at 4:34pm

I ended up at the dance by accident. I had visited the village of Rockchapel, County Cork to see where my grandparents, Patrick and Elizabeth Curtin lived before coming to America.

At the local pub, John Curtin told me to talk to Henry Keogh, the postmaster. Where was Henry? At the dance at the crossroads. He’ll be the guy playing the bodhrán.

On stage were the the Striolán Ceilí Band from up the road in Mountcollins — and Henry Keogh was found, not playing the bodhrán as promised, but flipping hamburgers.

“I’ve come from America looking for Curtins,” I told him.

He gestured toward the stage and dance floor. “Well, half the people here are Curtins!”

I threw out a few names and he thought deeply for a moment. Then he waded into the crowd and came back pulling a woman along with him. “I think this is who you’re looking for,” he said and went back to the grill.

Her name was Eileen Fitzgerald, but before marrying she was called Eileen Curtin, just as my mother was. After comparing notes, we confirmed that her grandfather and my grandmother were brother and sister, making us second cousins.

Eileen brought over her sister, Noreen — I think we were all a bit thunderstruck by the meeting. They both had moved to nearby Brosna years before.

Why’d you move to Brosna, I asked. Eileen laughed, “To find men!”

Earlier in the day I’d walked through the graveyard where dozens of Curtins rested, and while that was a powerful experience, it was the pub, the dance, meeting the sisters — where the present met the past in real life — those were the true highlights of a trip filled with amazing moments.

Comment by Ryan O'Rourke on May 17, 2014 at 4:58pm

The story behind the photo is even better than the photo itself ... and it's a very good photo!

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