Descendants of a Clare-based clergyman will congregate in Ennis today for a special prayer and evensong service to remember their ancestor.
Canon Philip Dwyer, a well-known local historian and social commentator in the 19th century, is remembered mainly for writing the History of the Diocese of Killaloe and for his part in the building of St Columba's Church of Ireland church in Ennis.
A great-great-granddaughter of his, Ms Deirdre Hunt, an associate professor of management in UCC, said the idea of a commemoration began as an idle discussion and had grown into a major gathering of the clan.
More than 50 descendants of the canon have visited Trinity College Dublin and a number of sites associated with the clergyman. "Somehow, the whole thing has got completely, wonderfully out of control," Ms Hunt said.
Among the other books Canon Dwyer wrote is A Handbook to Lisdoonvarna and its Vicinity, which was reissued two years ago by the Clasp Press in Co Clare.
Born on August 2nd, 1822, he came from a family which was exiled in Europe following the Cromwellian siege of Cahir in the 17th century before they returned to live in Limerick.
He spent his childhood at 16 Merrion Square, Dublin, and studied divinity at Trinity College. He spent 38 years in Co Clare, and married Ann Stather Crowe, who was from a prominent local family, in 1857.
In the 1800s he moved to Canada, apparently, according to Ms Hunt, because he was not made Bishop of Killaloe. He went to England in 1887 and died there in 1905 at the age of 83.
Four of his children married and their descendants are coming from Britain, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to be with their distant cousins in the Republic.
"I got a letter from an elderly man, giving me a detailed description of the canon and his eight daughters and four sons, all on donkeys, going across the Panama Canal as it was being dug. There has been an enormous amount of material coming out from just writing to people," Ms Hunt said.
A website has helped to bridge the miles. "We have used the web quite extensively to post up what we are going to do," Ms Hunt said. The site devoted to Canon Dwyer is at www.nmacmillan.com/canondwyer.