European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 5, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 26 stars and stripes thursday april 5 2007 2 brians excellent Irish adventure sharing the same name prompts men to seek roots in Ireland together by Brian j Cantwell the Seattle times what happens when you do an internet search of your own name one Day Halfway through life and find some one two states away with exactly the same first Middle and last names and though it appears youre not directly related you discover your fathers shared a first name along with a startling number of other coincidences in your family backgrounds eventually you learn that youve each traced your ancestry to Ireland to the same Small town in county Kilkenny what do you do you decide to meet in that Irish town and go on a heritage quest it Felt like having instant cousins the kind youre glad to see but it must have confused our innkeeper in Casti Comer Ireland to get online reservations for the same three nights from two Brian Joseph cant Wells me with my family from Seattle and the other Brian and his family from Palo Alto Calif four years after meeting by email we two brians met for the first time in person at the door step of Mary farrells centuries old farmhouse on the Edge of this Small Irish town that produced our great grandma thers Flower boxes splashed color beneath every window and the Pun gent smell of cow wafted on the August evening Breeze you must be Brian said the Stocky stranger with the Friendly face and thick Swatch of snowy hair you must be Brian i re plied and with a smile and a warm handshake we were friends it want entirely expected this instant Bond but we shared much in tribal heritage and Likely a Distant link by blood and theres something very Basic about answering to the same name and signing the same signature All your lives meeting someone with exactly the same name and its not a common one Felt like looking in a Mir ror to find a different face look ing Back me a journalist from Seattle he chairman of the department of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford univer sity at 61 his hair is pure White at 50 mine is on the Way there but we looked enough alike that we could be cousins in the midst of summer trav Els our families would spend two fascinating Days together on the Trail of our Irish heritage with happily time for a few sips of guinness along the Way Over Mary farrells full Irish breakfast the next morning at a table groaning under plates of Home baked scones marmalade eggs Bacon link sausage and gulp Black pudding usually made with congealed pigs blood sort of the Haggis of we All chattered like High school friends at a 30year reunion trying to catch up on a lifetime around the table the other Brian Tob As i came to refer to him in my his wife Ruth and their sons Kevin 29 and Thomas 17 who shares a name with my Broth plus me my wife Barbara and our daughter Lillian then 14 we were curious to discover any blood relation Between our families we agreed but we were also simply eager to see this place that grew our ancestors Casti Comer pop 2000 about two hours by car Southwest of Dublin was formerly a coalmine ing town producing some of Europe Best Anthracite from the 1700s until the 1960s the other brians Irish great grandma ther Patrick Cantwell had worked As a Miner and after emigrating took up that profession in Pennsylvania my Irish great Grandfather also a Patrick left Ireland to become a founding settler and onetime mayor of Lesueur Minn which gained notoriety a Century later As Home town of the Jolly Green giant a Quirky footnote for a Man from the land of Casti Comer today feels any thing but Industrial a Small Plant on one Edge of town makes Brick the Irish still build Homes with but otherwise the Countryside is mostly narrow roads lined with High Hedges and Rich Green Fields after breakfast we drove in and parked on the treeline town Square where As in Many stars and stripes Thomas Cantwell son of one of the two brians Brian j Cantwell of Palo Alto Calif mimics the pose of a Stone effigy believed to represent Thomas de Cantwell a Welsh mercenary of the 13th Century Irish towns pubs Are the predominant business we strolled Over a Low arched Bridge spanning the tranquil River Dinin looking like some thing from a Thomas Eakins painting to the Church wed seen along the winding Highway this was the first of Many cemeteries where wed look for cant Wells the pretty Stone Church with a locked red door bore no name and we soon discovered in peer ing at Tilting Liche encrusted gravestones its churchyard was distinctly lacking in cant Wells inset in a Stone Wall was a Marker placed in 2001 commemorating lives lost in the Battle of Casti Comer a 1798 uprising against the British that left the Village a smoking ruin it was a Stark reminder that the conflict Between the Island nation neigh Bors is still fresh in Irish hearts and minds strolling Back toward town Tob and i chatting easily about topics such As How we met our spouses we turned in at a Long Low building of ancient Brick Casti Comer estate Yard in the 1700s these were Sta Bles for coalmine ponies Adja cent were the farmyard and Kitchen gardens for the Wandes Forde family the landlords of Casti Comer Demesne a estate that included the mine the town and sur rounding farmlands today Art studios have re placed ponies we chatted with Potter Hilary Jenkinson while jobs son Thomas an Art Stu Dent who specializes in pottery took up her advertised offer to create his own pot in Exchange for a donation to a Charity Jenkinson told us that coalmine ing jobs had made Casti Comer the second most densely populated Rural area of Ireland support ing novel experiments in Agricula act Ture right outside Here were 10 acres of Garden where they grew pineapples and tropical fruit in Coa heated greenhouses in the Early 1900s she said today restoration of Castle Comer Demesne As a tourist the recent recreation of two stocked fishing lakes has put the town on the verge of taking off Jenkinson said we dropped in on Harry Ever Ard a government overseer of the restoration he told us the Manor House had burned in the 1970s a bit of Anglo Irish poli tics he captured our interest with photos from the Early 20th Century of the mines workers crawl ing on their bellies Between Coal seams a work practice that never changed from the Days when jobs forebears worked there until the mine closed see brians Page 27