Comment by Patrick J. O'Leary on November 26, 2015 at 11:57pm

The title of the song was most appropriate - 'twas indeed  sung  very softly, -- So Softly in the Twilight  -  seemingly like one preparing for the sunset of  their individual life. ..>>

Comment by Des Wade on November 27, 2015 at 1:09am

Thank you Patrick, but hopefully at 67 I'm in the early afternoon rather than the twilight! If you'd care to hear more of my songs they are here www.deswade.com and here's one about The Great Hunger - http://youtu.be/3QU3-wXn1PA. Anyway, glad you like the song and thanks again. Slán. 

Comment by Patrick J. O'Leary on November 27, 2015 at 10:55pm

So,  I figured the Man on the Bridge  went on to Cradle Mountain  to see if he could meet with the Master of the Game  and would learn that  Sometimes, Goodbye is a long long word  as one departs Adelaide. >>>

Comment by Des Wade on November 27, 2015 at 11:59pm

Thanks Patrick - there's another song in there, I think! Hope all is well with you. Here's a picture of a bush fire that raged just north of Adelaide last week. Two lives were lost as well as thousands of animals and 87 homes and it's only spring down here. It's a long way from Dublin!

Comment by Patrick J. O'Leary on November 28, 2015 at 5:39pm

Aye, Des   All is well here  in the deep south of the US. albeit just a trifle  bit chilly, but comfortable.  Seeing that pix of the bush fire with  lives lost and people losing their home saddens many of us. We can  just hope and pray that the folks get some assistance and somehow  get their lives back together again.  My spouse  has two sisters and a brother  in the Sydney  area  and they knew we would worry a  bit, but they kept us posted on the fire being a distance away  from them,  at that particular time   anyhow. Thanks for posting this -  am listening to Hymns of  Our Times  from that list of yours  -  quite a very good piece, if I may say so. Talk to you later. >>

 

Comment by Des Wade on November 28, 2015 at 6:18pm

Hi Patrick - Thanks for the kind words and that you are enjoying my songs. The writing ideas and production have been rather thin on the ground this past year or so - not that I was every very prolific - but I am pleased with what I managed to achieve. Never had much ambition to promote myself - mainly I was thrilled that I could write at all! Always felt that to be graced with creativity was its own reward. I was fortunate that the Minnesota group Locklin Road covered my song Wings of Angels some years ago and that it spent some time high in one online music chart. It was - and is - my only ambition to have others record or play my songs and so you could say I've realised that. Good to chat and thanks again. What part of Ireland do you - or your antecedents - hail from? Slán. 

Comment by Patrick J. O'Leary on December 1, 2015 at 12:41am

Des,  as  best of  family lore can be had,  it is said  my  great   great  grand father come from County Cork. Where in County Cork, no one knows What I did trace was that my great grandfather's name first appeared in as record of presence in Galion, Ohio, USA  in 1860.  He was named  Patrick.  And that is all we know of the O'Leary family - his parents' name is unknown, brothers an sisters  are also unknown. I did also trace, with the help of other genealogist, that he was married twice. This was a shocker to all in the family. But it was legit - his first wife  died shortly after giving birth to their third child, in 1860. We know the first two passed away early, but we do not know what really happened to the third child, a male.  Grandpa Patrick married a second time, to a Julia Moynihan,  This is the line my siblings an I come from. They had  four children - the youngest was my grandfather, Humphrey.  He was in the Philippine American war, got out, and stayed in the Philippines. There my father and his siblings were born. So did I and my siblings.  I left the islands in 1964, and joined the US Army. Have since  long retired from the Army and have settled here in the southwest corner of the USA.  Just a quick rundown  on  me.  Talk  to you again later.  >>

Comment by Des Wade on December 1, 2015 at 2:30am

Fascinating how the Irish diaspora has spread throughout the world, isn't it? The year 1860 is near enough to the so-called Famine time to indicate that he may well have experienced it, maybe that was even why he left Cork.

Comment by Patrick J. O'Leary on December 1, 2015 at 10:28pm

Des,  Mea  Culpa!  error in what I wrote -- at the tail end of  3rd sentence -- the year 1860 is the wrong year - it should be  1850.   Also, 4 years later, in 1854,  he put in his papers for citizenship, and go married  a short time later. There has been some  ' guesstimating '  as to his age at the time of his marriage  and  the age listed upon his death in 1875. You are right, in that we also presume that he and the family experienced the great famine  and  thus joined the exodus. >>

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