Facebook ‘founder’ not hiding in Galway says uncle

Date Published: 10-Aug-2011

The Galway family of an Irish/American man who claims to own half of the social networking website, Facebook, have scotched rumours that he is ‘lying low’ in Corofin.

Paul Ceglia, who filed a lawsuit claiming to own half of the website which is worth one billion dollars, has Corofin roots and there have been widespread mumblings in national and international press that he was now living there.

But his Tuam-based uncle has insisted this week that the media speculation is nonsense. “I will guarantee you, I know my nephew and he’s not in Ireland, he’s not in Galway, and he’s not in Corofin or Tuam,” his uncle Frank Keaveney told the Connacht Tribune this week, stressing that his nephew is a hardworking man who is not on the run.

Frank said he’s not holding out for a major windfall if Paul Ceglia successfully sues the owner and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. “I certainly won’t be sitting out on the front porch downing tequilas waiting for a cheque to arrive in the post,” he laughed.

Paul Ceglia is the son of Veronica (known as Vera to friends and family) Ceglia, nee Keaveney, whose parents hail from Corofin; and Cairmen Ceglia, an Italian native who used to work as a barber in Galway city in the 1980s. He is the grandson of the late Nora and Andrew Keaveney who are well-known for running the Ranch House dance hall on the N17 decades ago.

According to Frank, Paul and his family lived for nine years in a house across the road from the dance hall in Cummer. He attended Corofin National School in the 1980s before the family emigrated back to the US. They are now living in Buffalo in upstate New York close to the Canada border.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.