Passing of a Galway-born icon of US Irish community

In Roisín na Mainíoch in Carna where he was born and grew to manhood’s prime, they knew him as Cóilín Joe Choilm Liam – his local name linking him to father, grandfather and great grandfather.

That was four generations but the roots went even deeper in the townland by the sea far west in Connemara.

In the Connemara of the late twenties, thirties and forties, Coley Lydon lived the life of those times; sometimes digging out the stubborn land, sometimes daring far west into the Atlantic in a currach in the quest for fish and a livelihood.

In the midst of it all there were “times” or house dances, the country pastimes and devilment of that era.

Nobody ever told the stories better – and Coley was ably abetted by his wife Bríd (McDonagh) from Letterard.

It was always a pleasure to visit Coley and Bríd in their home in Walpole in Massachussets; you recounted all you could about what was going on at home just now –and they told you about the home they left behind, a long time ago.

Coley Lydon left Ireland in 1948.  He had spent 67 years in the United States when he passed away quietly in his sleep last Friday morning as he approached his 91st birthday.

His native Carna and Connemara would surely be among his last thoughts in his lifetime.

Coley is being laid to rest in Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston this Thursday – alongside the many west of Ireland emigrants in that cemetery. There is also a Mass for Coley in Carna Church at 7.30pm this Thursday evening.

See full obituary in this week’s Connacht Tribune.