Colemans of Ginnell Terrace gather for family reunion

Members of the extended Coleman family of Ginnell Terrace, Mullingar, came home from Australia, the United Kingdom, and many parts of Ireland for a reunion recently, the first time they had all been together in 30 years.

They last got together in 1993 for their parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Tom Coleman was from Baltinglass, County Wicklow, and his wife Maisie, née Appleby, was from Ballinderry, Mullingar. Since then, Tom and Maisie and four of their children Marie, Tom, Martin, and John, have passed away. Maisie died in 2001, aged 80 years, and Tom in 2004, aged 89 years.

The five remaining siblings and their extended family gathered in Matt Cullen’s Bridge Bar, Mullingar, for a meal and a catch-up. Geraldine Ogden travelled from Brisbane and Peg Farrelly from Sydney, Lily O’Brien from Kent, PJ from Athlone and his twin Ber lives in the original family home at Ginnell Terrace. There were two sets of twins in the family – Ber and PJ and Geraldine and John.

Marie was the eldest of the family and she married Des Kennedy from Mullingar, brother of well-known local musician and songwriter Ollie Kennedy. The couple went to Australia in the 1960s. Peg followed in the 1970s and Geraldine went soon after her. Lily married Paddy O’Brien from Gneevebawn, Tyrrellspass, and they moved to London.

Tom and Martin both went to the Army School of Music in Dublin when they were 15 years old. They went on to play the trumpet, Tom with the Curragh Army band and Martin with band of the Western Command.

PJ also joined the Army, in the late 1970s and, like his father, served for 43 years, including overseas on numerous occasions. He was stationed in Athlone, where he still lives with his wife, Patricia.

The most recent member of the family to pass away was John, in 2021. He was a talented all-round handyman, painter and decorator, gifted craftsman, and videographer. A splendid model of the Mullingar Market House and Market Square, which he cast in plaster of Paris, takes pride of place in the sitting home at the homestead.

Ber is a songwriter whose biggest hit was After All These Years, released in 1985 by Foster and Allen, and subsequently recorded by Charlie Pride, Philomena Begley and Nathan Carter, among others. She wrote the lyrics and Ollie Kennedy the melodies for this and many other songs including My Tears Will Tell My Heart, which was released by Philomena Begley.

Ber has decided to give up songwriting and to return to her first passion, poetry. She started writing poems in her early teens and is hoping to publish a collection of her latest works in the coming months.

It was Geraldine’s idea to have a reunion and the whole thing took a year’s planning, Ber told the Westmeath Examiner. “It was great to get us all together, we may never get together again.”