William Martin Ahern  (1874-1931)

Bill Ahern's brother, Jack (the private) told the following story to his daughter Ellen, who told it to me:

Someone in the village drowned and a large crowd had gathered around the scene. The body was still in the water, but nobody wanted to go in to retrieve it. One of the priests, Fr. Michael Toomey who was the curate at that time (1920), sent someone to go and get Bill Ahern, as he was known to be a very strong man, who wasn't afraid of much.

When Bill arrived, he said that he would do it but,  he had to take off his clothes first, as they would get too heavy in the water.  Fr. Toomey agreed, but not before sending the crowd away. After they had gone, Bill undressed, went into the water and carried the body out in his arms.   

Catholic Church of Tournafulla

William or Bill as he was known, was born in Tournafulla in 1874-5. 

Sometime between 1900 and 1905 he traveled to San Francisco with at least one of his brothers. We're not sure if he intended to emigrate or if he just lived there for a few years, but in any event, in 1906, just before the great earthquake he returned to Ireland and remained there.

A few years after returning to Tour, he met Ellen Kelly (on the day of her arrival back in Ireland after five or six years over in the U.S.). They married in the Catholic church of Tournafulla on February 8th 1910, witnessed by James Sullivan and Hannah Kelly. They owned a farm and land and had seven children, Michael, Daniel, Mary, Hannah, Margaret (my grandmother), William and Ellen. (Hannah and Danny, died as young children).

Ellen died in early 1931 after a botched operation. William now had to try and run the farm and look after the children on his own. He also had a job at the village creamery. It all became too much for him to cope with and so he called his eldest daughter Mary, back home from the College she was attending, to help run the house. 

Later that same year, it was announced that a tax would be put on cream, this caused a big rush of new orders at the creamery, by people trying to get what they could, before this new tax came into effect. Extra drivers were needed to deliver all of the orders and so Bill did his part. While he was driving a truck through the small village of Adare, (probably on route to Limerick City) a duck or a goose wandered onto the street. Bill tried to avoid hitting it and lost control of the truck and struck a tree, causing the steering wheel to push up into his chest. He was taken to a local hospital. He was conscious and spoke to his brother Jack (the private) who had come up to visit him with Jack's wife (Jule) and their son (Lar). Unbeknownst to them at the time, the steering wheel had actually punctured one of his lungs. The next day when his children came up to see him, he had swollen up so much, that he hid himself from them by holding a blanket up to just below his eyes. After warning them of his appearance, he slowly lowered the blanket. He died later that day, exactly 9 months after his wife Ellen had passed on, he was 57.