We talked to Parish priests and local citizens in and near the village of Ballylongford and found the last Shanahan living in the area where my children's great, great grandfather was born in 1821. Records were not kept too faithfully during the great famine and research is quite difficult. Through sheer luck, and with the help of a neighbor, Carmel Conner, we were able to meet Michael Shanahan, age 77, who may live on the very land my children's ancestors lived on 200 years ago. We were invited to visit inside the cottage where Patrick Shanahan may well have been born 180 years ago. Although the solid, rock cottage with its slate roof has been expanded and modernized, it occupies the place the original cottage did, high on a hill overlooking the estuary of the River Shannon. Times must have been very bad indeed and Patrick very desperate to leave such a beautiful place. But the rich green fields are good for grazing sheep, only. The soil is filled with rock, garden space still is dear to this day, and people couldn't eat grass.