FITZPATRICK (MAC GIOLLA PHADRAIG) CLANN
The Fitzpatrick Clann can boast with any of Ireland's clanns for its contributions throughout history towards the freedom of its people at home and in far off lands.

The Fitzpatricks are an ancient Irish Clann. In fact, Fitzpatrick is the only 'Fitz' name whose pre-Norman origins are Irish. Over a millennium ago, in 995 A.D., when surnames were first coming into use, did the Kings of Ossory and their clannspeople become known as Mac Giolla Phadraig, which means son of the guide (or devotee of) Patrick. But these people of the Ossoraighe have inhabited the midlands of Ireland from present day Kilkenny into the Slieve Bloom mountains for more than two millennia. Known as the 'Cradle of Gaelic Civilization' the forests and mountains of the Upper Ossory offered partial refuge for many years from Ireland's many intruders, like the Vikings, the Normans and the Anglos.

In the 5th century A.D., St. Canice (from whom the city of Kilkenny derives its name) started a monastic center in Aghaboe which became a focal point (and small city) for hundreds of years. Plundered by the Vikings, then by the Normans and rebuilt by Fitzpatricks, the present day remains of the 13th century Aghabo Abbey's church and round tower stand prominently, but alone today, in a landscape of bucolic pastoral fields and only a handful of country houses in contrast to the bustling center of some several thousand people only a thousand years before.  

In the 5th century A.D., St. Canice (from whom the city of Kilkenny derives its name) started a monastic center in Aghaboe which became a focal point (and small city) for hundreds of years. Plundered by the Vikings, then by the Normans and rebuilt by Fitzpatricks, the present day remains of the 13th century Aghabo Abbey's church and round tower stand prominently, but alone today, in a landscape of bucolic pastoral fields and only a handful of country houses in contrast to the bustling center of some several thousand people only a thousand years before.  

On a slight rise above and adjacent to the ancient Aghaboe remains, stands a 17th century Georgian home, known as the Aghaboe House, with its commanding view over the boglands west and north to the Slieve Blooms and green pastures all around. With all its outbuildings, at the time of British occupation and Ireland's great famine, this Aghaboe estate was the center of a large beef cattle operation. According to my Father's (Joseph William Fitzpatrick) research, Aghaboe is my great great grandfather's birthplace. Not, mind you, the Aghaboe House, but my brother Michael and I couldn't resist the temptation, when we first set eyes on its abandoned state in 1984, knowing that all this time, Anglos who had been gifted this land by the British hierarchy, who had taken it from the native people, quite possibly from the Fitzpatricks, could now be back in our Clann's hands, to buy it. We did and have reestablished our roots from whence we came.  

William Joseph Fitzpatrick left Aghaboe during the Great Famine, made his way to Liverpool and boarded a ship named the Lebanon and arrived in New York City in 1848. Arriving at the age of 17, William worked as a laborer and settled in Paterson, New Jersey where a textile industry was developing. A year later, his wife Mary Dunn and her parents arrived from Ireland. William became a millwright and worked at this all his life until he became blind from the crude working conditions. His son, William Joseph II, eventually became a street cop for the city of Paterson. His son, my grandfather, William Joseph III, one of three children, ran a grocery store and eventually became the tax assessor for neighboring Clifton, New Jersey. I have a great picture from 1902 where my immigrant great great grandfather William Joseph, his son William Joseph II, and his grandson William Joseph III are standing under a grape arbor in the backyard in Paterson, New Jersey.

My grandfather had an older sister, Margaret, who was a school teacher in Paterson all her life and a younger brother, Harold, who devoted 50 years of his life to the priesthood at St. Brigid's in Jersey City as pastor and then at Holy Cross in Harrison as pastor and Monsignor. My great aunt Margaret's wake and funeral were the first I had ever attended. Three nights and two days, I spent at the wake with my great aunt Margaret laid out. I was introduced to endless relatives and family friends. I felt proud and important to be a Fitzpatrick. Her funeral mass was said by her brother, Monsignor Harold and assisted by five bishops and numerous priests. People said my aunt Margaret was a saint and maybe she was; she went to mass every adult day of her life.

I'll never forget my great uncle Harold's funeral. The Holy Cross cathedral was packed inside, seven bishops with many priests jammed the altar to say mass. After the mass as we walked behind my great uncle Harold's coffin and the tall doors opened to the outside, I was amazed to see that the street was packed with people to say farewell to Monsignor Harold Fitzpatrick. Twenty squad cars from the Jersey City Police, where my great uncle Harold had been their pastor at St. Brigid's for 30 years but 20 years earlier, formed an escort for the 40 minute ride to the family plot near Paterson. My great uncle Harold, although he had no children of his own, had fathered the biggest family I had ever seen. I do have many memories of my great aunt Margaret, my great uncle Harold and my grandfather, but their wakes, funerals and parties afterwards imprinted many subliminal messages of a Clann spirit that remains with me today.