Kathleen Devins News Today

My mother Kathleen Devins was remarkable. She suffered more tragedy in life than anyone ever deserved. She kept it mostly secret from us, her seven children, and it is only now my six siblings and I fully understand her profound loneliness that was part of her passage through her life.

Brigadier Seamus Devins, my mother's cousin, was among "Noble Six," as they've become to be known, who were killed by Free State forces in Co Sligo in 1922.

Niall O'Dowd remembers his father Donal ahead of Father's Day. On Christmas Eve as a nine-year-old child in 1915, he came over the mountains from the village of Muirioch, destination midnight mass in Dingle Town, County Kerry.