Ireland visitors looking to bridge historical documentation gap

Kilkenny forming a historical society

A group of special visitors from Kilkenny, Ireland, visited Kilkenny, Minn., on Wednesday, April 16 — husband and wife James and Monica O’Reilly, and baby Julia O’Reilly. They spent the afternoon touring the town and exchanging historical information.

They were accompanied by Jana Freiband, Monica O’Reilly’s mother, who lives in Minneapolis.

Monica O’Reilly grew up in Minnesota and moved to Ireland to study abroad at Trinity College in Dublin in 2016, where she only expected to stay a short period of time. While there, she met James O’Reilly, and they started dating some three hours away from each other. As she says, “I just never came back .”

The couple now lives in Kilkenny, Ireland, where James O’Reilly is from. They visit Freiband about three times a year. He believes that some of his relatives may have connections to Kilkenny, Minn., directly.

A solicitor (lawyer) back home in Ireland, James O’Reilly says, “Because we visit regularly, I want to learn the connections between our two areas because I’m going to be continuing to return here. Now, we have a little daughter who has Irish and Minnesotan heritage, then I think it is important for her to understand the connection between the places.”

He continued, “These journeys that these men from Ireland made previously, I think there is a great story that needs to be told and shared with people from home, because these people with the same names who come from the same villages — people might not know that people that live next door to them where they went to and what they did.”

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Historical society formation

Sellner spoke about future plans of the library and community center to make it into more of a museum and community center, allowing a proper space to display and keep the history of the town alive. She has a strong desire to gather people to make a formalized historical society.

If anyone is interested in being a part of the forming of a historical society in Kilkenny, Minn., they should express their interest with Mayor Holicky at tammyholicky4@yahoo.com or 507-384-7125.