“Dorothy Wellspring and Fran Deegan on Grafton Street. Fran was a first cousin of Dorothy’s future husband William Hecker. Fran’s and Bill’s mothers were sisters. The Deegans and the Wellsprings both lived on Declan Road where, as children, Dorothy met Bill at the Deegan household. It seems that extended families were much closer in those days. Long before William and Dorothy were married (1938) Dorothy and Fran were well known to each other and interacted on a regular basis. As adults, Fran and her sister, Peg (Margaret) Deegan lived as spinsters just a few doors up Church St. from the famous Cat & Cage Pub on Drumcondra Road (the point at which rebels, during the 1798 rebellion, seized a postal cart in order to signal to others in north County Dublin to revolt). My wife, Doreen, became great friends with her first cousins once removed” and stayed in contact until their deaths – Peg in 1998 and Fran in 2000.””
(1932)
Submitted by Bob Smyth