Newsflash
Newsflash
Fáilte agus Deas ag Bualagh Leat
Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family:
Whatever we call it, whoever we are, we need one.
It's our link to our past; our bridge to our future.
(Welcome and nice to meet you)
While this website contains information on the history and genealogy of Clan Coleman, its main aim is to concentrate on those branches that have descended from John Coleman, great grandson of Daniel Coleman who was born in Turloughmore, County Mayo, Ireland in 1744. John, who was also born in Turloughmore in 1859, married Mary Davoren from the Island of Inishmacatreer in Lough Corrib on 25 May 1901. At this point in history, their descendants are located throughout Ireland, England, Canada, Japan and Australia.
Memories from my childhood call up so many other family names of cousins who do not feature in this website as they belong to different branches and sub-branches of Clan Coleman. Descendants of Peter Coleman of G1 of our family tree and those of Winifred (Coleman) Hughes and Bridget (Coleman) Vahey of G4, as well as those of the Heskin, Walsh, Rochford, Feerick, Daveron, Murphy, Biggins, Holleran and Gibbons families were very much part of my parents and grandparents' family scene. I'm sure a lot of research has already been done by a number of these families and hopefully one day we might be able to bring it all together or establish a network of links.
In recent years, we have conducted a few very successful Clan reunions. The first took place appropriately enough in the West of Ireland in 2004. The second was held in Sydney in 2007. The photo in the Contact page was taken at the Sydney Reunion which was attended by all our Australian descendants as well as family members from Ireland and Canada. Montreal was the setting for the Clan's third reunion which took place in August 2009. Our most recent reunion took place in County Mayo in August 2011.
I see clan and family reunions as significant social events that play their part in developing an awareness of the importance of family to one's own wellbeing as well as that of society generally, and I agree with the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead who said, "Nobody has ever before asked the nuclear family to live all by itself in a box the way we do. With no relatives, no support, we've put it in an impossible situation." Given all that great writers and leaders have said and written about the importance of family and its crucial role as the very fabric of society, it becomes all the more difficult to understand why our modern society seems hellbent on compromising its integrity. One of the great paradoxes of our age! All our important institutions like the Church and the many arms of Government should be playing a far greater and more effective role in re-establishing the family as central to society. In most instances, their support can best be described as lip service and one can be excused for being quite cynical when they are heard to decry the ills of modern society.