Owen Patrick (Eugene) Gannon
1876 - 1942

Eugene (M) Greek 'well born' a name used to translate Eoghan.
Owen (M) A name used in Ireland to anglicise Eoghan, to which it equates phonetically.
In Wales it represents Euguein. Both names mean 'well born'.

Owen Patrick (Eugene) Gannon was born in Castlebellingham, County Louth Ireland, in 1876 to James Gannon and Mary Agnes Gannon (Dolan).
Other siblings include a stillborn child, Michael J, John Francis, Marianne, Peter, James, Margaret, Bernard, Thomas, Rose, Teresa, Agnes and Bernard Joseph.
Owen Patrick (as he was recorded in the baptismal register), was baptized in the Parish of Kilsaren April 17, 1876. His sponsers were Patrick Gogarty and Catherine Farrell.
Eugene is listed in the Dundalk Democrat newspaper for sports results. He was a competitive cyclist at the turn of the century.
 Left to right Teresa Gannon, Eugene Gannon, Rose Gannon

Left to right Teresa Gannon, Eugene Gannon, Rose Cecelia Gannon

As told by Joan Kilalea nee Gannon, daughter of Eugene

My father was very musical; he wanted to become an engineer but his parents, (James and Mary), decided business was for him, a bad decision. He had a pub opposite the home, (Castlebellingham), and ran it into the ground. He married my mother - Charlotte Smyth B18?? D1922), although I believe grandmother looked down her imperial nose at mother. There was no reason to as mother came from good farming stock.
Grandmother died and left the mill to him. After father married mother they went to live at the mill where all the children were born. Castlebellingham was then run by Tessie, (Teresa), and Barney, (Bernard Joseph). I really do not know much about the mill as we left there when I was very young. The man who bought it from my dad showed me the panels where my dad used to write passages from Shakespeare, when as Packie Connors related, he should have been working.
Farming obviously was not his career, he was clever, educated and maybe a dreamer. Mothers health was not especially good. After having ten children what could you expect, May, Vera, Rose, Irene, Jimmy, Desmond, Catherine, Patrick, Joan and Gabrielle. Patrick and Catherine (?) died in infancy, the former of convulsions and Paddy pneumonia.
Tessie came to join us after the business went under and of course as mothers health was bad she took over the chores, and in fact reared me. The only mother I ever knew and how lucky I was. Mother decided Dunleer too damp and also not near enough to good schools for her children. They moved to Drogheda and rented a private hotel, the West End Hotel. Well, if mother had lived they possibly would have done well, but both Tessie and my dad were not business people and the usual happened, bankruptcy. Mother incidentally died in her 40th year, she had T.B. which was then rampant in the British Isles. The state of her health did not help the Hotel.
After the West End Hotel was gone there was no home for any of us. Except for Irene who lived most of her life with Aunt Maggie and James Boyle. My mother reluctantly let Irene go live there when she was tiny. I guess mother felt very sorry for Aunt Maggie and Irene would be a great comfort to her. Irene was like an only child and I may add spoiled by both Aunt Maggie and Uncle James. She called them Mammie Boyle and Daddy Boyle, they were indeed very good to her. May was sent to Dundalk convent where one of our maternal Aunts was a nun. Vera and Rose went to Acklow Convent and the boys to Christian Bros College in Dublin. Gabrielle and myself were very young, to young for boarding school, so another maternal Aunt in Blackrock, Dundalk offered to take us and look after us.
My dad tried to get employment but it was depression years and he had nothing to offer except a very high education. He was not politically minded which did not help in those days. Sadly the result was to leave Ireland for the United States. You may wonder why he did not appeal to some of the Irish relatives for assistance in securing employment. I suppose like the rest of them, pride forbade it.
It just about broke his heart leaving his family. I can still remember the day he left, young as I was I thought,"you do not look like my pappy". He was, I suppose, just about crazy with grief leaving us all, he loved his family very deeply. I remember how wonderful he was making stilts, and for the short time I stayed at Painstown, before going to Blackrock, being taken on the back of his bicycle around the country roads. He explained what the different plants were and their uses. He finally reached the States, in those days a long sea trip. This would have been about 1926-1927. I am sure it could not have been to pleasant. He got work, certainly not what befitted a gentleman, but it meant putting food in his children's stomachs. My brother Jimmy told me a story related to him by dad, (who was working at that time for a millionaire named Grey - info from his diary), dad spied a car coming down the avenue and in it was his old playmate, one of Sir Henry Bellinghams sons. Dad told Jimmie he quickly hid. How terrible it must have been for him. You will have to come to the conclusion we were a proud family and the lowering of standards was not very easy to take. He was a wonderful father and man, he could have remarried but declined. As stated Gabrielle and myself went to Blackrock to live with our Aunt and family. I did not know until years later that Tessie and my dad were supporting us. I always had a complex as I thought we were staying there as charity cases even though we were related. I was then only seven years of age. Tessie only told me about this later on as she reckoned it would make a better person of me.
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