Word Celebrity Blog

IT'S A SMALL WORLD

Recently Mr. Clyde McDonnell from Killarney Co. Kerry Ireland, was searching the web for someone else who had the same name. By doing this, he discovered this blog. He thought that it was strange to find someone with the same name, living in Ridgway, Pennsylvania, United States of America.

My father's name was Clyde McDonnell. I was named after him. Several years ago, I did a similar search as our guest from Ireland and discovered that there are at least 14 Clyde McDonnells living in the U.S. and scores of others in the past.

He said "I assume your ancestory has Irish blood as Mc Donnell is an Irish name."  In this, our guest is partially correct.  In 1690, my ancestor John MacDonald was expelled from the Glencoe region of Scotland and sent to the Ulster region of Ireland. Our family has 2 different versions of the reasons for the expulsion -  (1) That his political views were unpopular with the Scottish nobles. (2) That he was suspected of "borrowing" some cattle. After the Massacre at Glencoe, he sent for his childhood sweetheart and they were married and immediately left for the colony of Pennsylvania and settled in the region which would become Indiana County. Some say that he changed the spelling of the Family Name to that which was used in Ireland. (Both spellings mean "son of Donald"). Other family members assert that when they came to America, they spoke little English (they spoke Gaelic), and that when the immigration agent asked them what was their names, he wrote down "McDonnell" since the had arrived on a ship from Ireland.  Today, some of my relatives spell their name McDonnell and others spell it McDonald. It is nearly impossible to get a Scotsman to change his mind.

After I posted the story about my childhood hero Colin Kelley, another guest, Averi Hughes writes of her Grandfather Joe Bean (one of Colin Kelley's crew), "he told this story over and over too me when I was a child. I suspect, he never got over watching the plane explode with Kelley inside. He always said, he was a great man." It is always nice to have your opinion reinforced by others.