The Gaffney &
Cassidy Families

From Ancient Connacht to Cincinnati

A note to my family—

This is a story with many characters, much like the family we all know and love. I’ve been fortunate enough to learn about the farmers, athletes, artists, teachers and freedom fighters that make up our ancestry. What feels most familiar to me are the brothers, sisters and cousins that love each other deeply, and choose to live as neighbors on two continents.

The story begins in the 1850s, as four Gaffney brothers farmed adjacent plots in Falleens, a tiny townland in south Sligo. Within a generation, the Land War, eviction, and emigration scattered them across Ireland, England, and America. Meanwhile, in nearby Charlestown, two unrelated Cassidy families—one of National Teachers, the other of tenant farmers and IRA volunteers—would each send a child across the Atlantic. Philip “Finny” and Peggy Cassidy married in Cincinnati in 1929, joining two lines that had been neighbors in the west of Ireland for centuries. This is their story, pieced together from civil records, census returns, parish registers, military archives, and newspaper clippings.

This project is a labor of love for our family and I hope you all receive it as such. I’d like this to be a living record where we can add and expand the narrative of our ancestors and our own stories as our family evolves.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day,
Meghan