A chest carried by a Lissycasey man to the United States of America 127 years ago has finally returned to the Banner County and the Clare County Council-run Clare Museum.
Born in Lissycasey in 1876, Denis Melican emigrated to Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1899, following his brother John. He worked as a brewery labourer and, in 1905, married Susan Hurley, whose parents were from Kilmaley. They had four children. Denis died from tuberculosis in 1919, aged 43. Four of his brothers and one sister also emigrated to the United States.
When Denis left Ireland, he brought his worldly possessions with him in a small chest. Made of brown-coloured, lightweight metal, it carries his name stencilled on one side in large white letters, with his destination underneath it.
Over the following 127 years, the chest was stored in the attics of Melican family homes in Worcester, Paxton and Spencer, Massachusetts. After the Second World War, it was used as a secure place to store family letters and papers, which helped to preserve it in relatively good condition.
Denis’s grandchildren, twins Elizabeth and Denis Melican, recently decided that it was time for the chest to return home and offered it to Clare Museum.
Elizabeth, who made the initial contact with the Museum, said, “We never knew our grandfather, and my father also had few memories of the man who was his father, so this chest has been a tangible connection to him. However, it is time now to return it to Clare. He must have purchased the chest in Ennis, so it is fitting that it should return to Ennis again.”
Recalling his family history, her twin brother, Denis said, “Our father, the eight-year-old son of Denis, remembers being at his father’s funeral in 1919. He remembers being told that he was the ‘man of the house now’, even though he was not the oldest boy. He never forgot it. It was a powerful memory that stayed with him.”
Curator at Clare Museum, John Rattigan said, “We are delighted to receive this chest for the museum collection. It is not often we get artefacts associated with people who emigrated in the past. Objects with their stories tend not to return. This chest, and its story, is a valuable contribution to our telling of the history of Clare.”
The chest will now be catalogued and assessed by a conservator, before being placed on long-term exhibition at Clare Museum next year.