My wife and I just got back to Canada from our trip.  Thanks to Danny and Noel and everyone else for the hospitality and the well-planned and enjoyable festival.  The events were super and we enjoyed meeting our Irish kin from everywhere.  

The notion of 'family' is a blend of blood, mind and heart and I certainly got all three from the weekend to realize that we are family, despite the generations lost between Kanes in Canada, the US and those in Ireland and elsewhere.  I can still feel the echoes in my heart and the tears when hearing the 200+ year-old harp at the Dungiven priory.  The harpist played (among other songs) Rory Dall Cathains's "Chieftain's Lament" (the Danny Boy song).  I realized that the last time this may have been played (in that style) at the priory or in Dungiven would be in the 1600s and it made me think of my ancestors and why they left Ireland.  The Priory is a powerful place filled with a great sense of what was before.

I hope that we can have the festival more often to celebrate the O'Cathain legacy.  I agree with Chris's comments about our family having the Roe Valley.  I also think that the O'Cathains have each other and that the old warriors from long ago would approve of our gathering and what it might mean for the family moving forward.

Danny and Lenny Kane