Last edited Mon Apr 8, 2013, 02:10 PM - Edit history (1)
I've been searching my roots for years. Dad had said the family was from Cork and that turned out to be incorrect. However, I found out that another part of his family that they married into, the Sullivans, were from Cork. I believe that is where this belief came from.
I finally figured it out and they were from Tipperary after locating the obit. of my grgrgrandfather who died in San Francisco at the age of 82 years. He had hidden out more or less being he remarried rather quickly after his wife died of TB in 1885. Seems he had a number of things going on in his life that he didn't want anyone to know about is what I've discovered (i.e. like having two sons by different wives with the same name ...).
I've been to Ireland a few times and traveled throughout the country in various ways. I did my best traveling when I went in 1983 and was in my late 20s when I was still young and quite able. I saw a lot via a bus/rail pass.
I too recently hit the "jackpot" so to speak.
I received an email from a person bearing the name of an old cousin of mine that happened to have been a very well known Monsignor in California that founded many churches during the Gold Rush days in California.
I wrote him back (he knew nothing about the fact that his name is the same as that of the old Monsignor) and he told me that there was another cousin that had been trying to find me, a cousin whose grandfather had been searching for years for his long lost family that left Kilkenny during the Great Famine. This cousin still lives at the same place/house in Kilkenny and the person that contacted me is an elderly woman living near Boston. She sent me pictures of the house and the people living there now, my cousins! WOW!
I was so surprised and shocked I cannot tell you! Seems this part of my father's family had been searching since post-famine days wondering if the family members that left were even alive. Well, we are alive alright! I sent her a few pictures of my father, my uncle, and my grandfather and great grandparents, one being the woman that left Killkenny in about 1860 or so and ended up in New York where she met my grgrgrandfather from Co. Louth (I think ...). She died in San Francisco in 1925 at the age of 85 years. She had born about 10 children at least, one of them being my great grandmother who lived/died in San Francisco.
You mention your relatives were in Calif. too. You could very well be related to me as the population of San Francisco was 70,000 person in 1870 and 80% of the residents were Irish immigrants. 
So, yes, I know how ecstatic you feel about his. It is indeed pay dirt so to speak. Today I hear from these cousins of mine frequently (they send me cards and the like at Xmas, etc.) and my god, it is great really as I have very few living relatives left.
The reason there are no records of the famine is because they were all destroyed or purposefully not recorded at all. The belief in part is that the famine was so horrible that no one cared to remember it nor speak of it and then again the other side of the coin is that they didn't want any records that were particularly accurate on purpose.
You are fortunate to know the parish your family came from. You could likely go to Wexford and there may be records of them around, you never know!
My husband is from Ireland and his grandfather died in the 1940s at the age of 104 years and he never spoke of it to the family either. His family still lives in the same house and there are no records of them much to be found. In the great "Griffith's Valuation", the go to record for finding relatives in Ireland, they are no where to be found nor is the place that they live in to be found either. 
My husband believes that when the man came around to collect his tithe and record the family that he was likely paid off or better yet, driven off of their land, land which they have owned for hundreds and hundreds of years back to the time when the Normans invaded Ireland in the 1600s.
This is about all that is known by his own very large family that still lives there except for an old graveyard on their property bearing the names of the old members of their family that no one remembers, some dating as far back as the 1700s. Recently the Irish government came around to their property asking my brother-in-law about it and wanted info. from him and he had nothing to share with them. I believe he slammed the door in their faces and told them to go away and leave him and the rest of the family alone and also, do not come back. Woah!
So, God only knows how bad this was but given what I saw in 1983 (lots of empty abandoned houses with no one in sight -- remnants of the horrific past I believe), I know it was bad, very very bad and any which one of us that is alive today and Irish as I am (among other things too ... like Native American thanks to my mother's blood) is damn sight lucky to be here as the pop. of Ireland was said to be at 9 million persons when the famine hit dropping to a population of about 3 million which is where it is today. Talk about a holocaust that seems to be almost forgotten, I think we have one here! 
I'm sorry to read that you aren't well enough to travel to Ireland. It is a very long trip indeed (esp. from Calif. where I live). The last time I was there it was such a nightmare with the airline B.S. that I swore I'd never get on a plane again and I likely won't as I ended up at an ER in Hungary with a condition I never knew I had that can be very serious and flying can cause it and also make it a very serious, even life-threatening medical condition so I'm afraid I'm done. Luckily I traveled a lot when I was younger and managed to see quite a bit of places having minimal funds to travel with.
I cannot remember how many times I've told people searching for their relatives this: Seek and ye shall find. So true indeed!
Anyway, I've gone on for too long already here but again, I'm glad for you.
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