Carolyn and I recently had an interesting and, for us, a heart-warming experience, and I wanted to document here, mainly for the next generation of my family: my two sons, nephews and nieces, my cousins and their children. Hopefully, eventually, they can find and continue to share this note and even expand on it with their own experiences. My sister Mary (Needham) Turek provided extensive details documented below, since she has been researching our family’s history for several years.
I guess I should start at the beginning.
On Christmas Day in the year 1900, John Needham was born to Michael and Ellen (Heston) Needham in the village Doohooma, in County Mayo, Ireland. He was the first of six children, followed by Patrick (born 1901), Bridget (born 1904, who died at age 8), Phelim (born 1905, also referred to as Phelix and Felix in some documents), Michael (born in 1907/1908), and Tady (born 1911, who died as an infant). In the Irish 1901 census the Needham family was living in house number 9 in Doohooma. By the time of the 1911 census they were living in house number 53 in the same village.
John Needham from Doohooma was my paternal grandfather.
Doohooma, County Mayo, Ireland
Just up the road was a Mary O’Malley, from the village of Doolough, pronounced doo-LAH by modern day locals. Mary was born in Sterling, Scotland but was Irish and the child of Catherine (Henaghan) and John O’Malley. Catherine was born in Doolough in 1883 and lived in house 17 in that village. In the 1901 Irish census no Mary O’Malley was living with the Henaghan family, but in the 1911 census Mary O’Malley, age 6, lives with the Henaghans, listed as a grandchild, Catherine is not listed as living there. For the 1911 census the family was living in house number 48 in Doolough.
Mary O’Malley from Doolough was my paternal grandmother.
Doolough, County Mayo, Ireland and the road to Doolough Beach
Doohooma and Doolough are both in northwest County Mayo, on the north Atlantic ocean, and are about 8 miles apart. There is, in my mind, some small likelihood that John Needham and Mary O’Malley met at some point in Ireland, but I have no information about that. It is entirely possible that at this point in our story, they had never met.
At any rate, John Needham emigrated from Doohooma to America on the Leviathan out of Southampton, sailing on October 12, 1926. He was 25 at that time. He left behind several siblings, listed above.
Roughly 18 months later, Mary O’Malley emigrated from Doolough to America on April 1, 1928 on the Caronia out of Cork. She was 22 or 23 years old at that time.
And somehow, these two immigrants from two towns, eight miles apart in far northwest County Mayo, in Ireland, who may have never met before, met in Chicago, married, and had seven children of their own: Michael Needham (USMC, RIP), John (Jack) Needham (Chicago Police Captain, RIP), Patrick Needham (Chicago Police Captain, RIP), Phelim Needham (USAF, RIP), Jerome (Jerry) Needham (RIP), Kathleen Needham, and Ellen (Needham) Corcoran.
John Needham’s and Mary O’Malley’s son Patrick was my father.
Here is where things get quite interesting:
In September, 2026, more than a hundred years after John Needham emigrated to America, and a little less than a century after Mary O’Malley did, my wife Carolyn and I travelled to Ireland. It was a first visit for both of us. We spent five days exploring Dublin, then drove out to Westport on Clew Bay, in County Mayo, right on the Atlantic, specifically so we could make a day trip up to Doolough and Doohooma. On our last day in Westport, we made that trip.
We drove to Doolough first - there is not much left in that little village. Just some homes, no shops, no restaurants, no pubs. There is a nice beach there - Doolough Beach, and that’s where most of the homes are, but I don’t think that’s where my Grandma was raised. Google Maps took us to what it marked as Doolough, but there was literally nothing there - no homes, no buildings of any kind.
We stopped for lunch in a village called Bangor, and as happens, we were asked what we were doing there. We said we were exploring Doolough, from which my grandmother emigrated 100 years before, and then we were heading down to Doohooma, from where my grandfather emigrated. We were promptly introduced to a woman from Doohooma who was in the same cafe in Bangor, who asked my name, and when she learned I was a Needham, told me that there was still one family in Doohooma named Needham, in fact, it was her next door neighbor. We thanked her and said we would go look for them.
On the way out of Doolough, we stopped at the local cemetery (Gweesalia Cemetery) which was filled to the brim with Heneghans and O’Malleys but I have no idea if any of them are relatives.
Then we drove down to Doohooma and went to the cemetery there. We searched for about an hour, found just one Needham gravesite, but it was pretty recent and not a long-ago relative. At least, that’s what we thought.
Unlike Doolough, Doohooma does have two pubs. So we stopped in one, The Sea Rod Inn. There was nobody there except the bartender. We ordered up a pint, told her we were in town looking for Needhams, and she said “my brother married a girl from Doohooma named Marie Needham” and explained that the couple lives in London now.
Then, out of nowhere, she called her sister in law Marie Needham in London and asked Marie if she would talk to me. Marie graciously agreed. In speaking with Marie, it became clear that she is a cousin. When my grandfather John Needham emigrated to America, he left behind siblings, including Phelim, who it turns out was Marie’s grandfather. Marie, my cousin, and I had a lovely long chat, and she told me that her parents still lived in Doohooma, in the green house just down the road from The Sea Rod Inn. So we stopped there, too, to meet another Needham, from another line in the family. Marie and I exchanged e-mail addresses and promised to keep in touch. It is pretty cool to have a newly discovered cousin.
The bartender at Sea Rod Inn confirmed that there is a whole section of Needhams in the Doohooma cemetery and told us where it was, so we went back there and we did find John Needham’s brother Phelim’s tombstone, along with other family member’s final resting places.
What are the odds? Two people from northwest County Mayo emigrate to America in the 1920s, meet, marry, have a house full of kids, and 100 years later one of their grandsons travels back to their hometowns and gets connected with relatives, including a cousin and uncle that he never knew about before that trip. The world certainly is full of surprises, that is for sure.
This was the perfect capstone to our trip to Ireland.
What follows is some of the Needham family final resting places, with identities as best as I know, along with some other images from Doohooma and Doulough.
Phelim Needham, my grandfather John Needham's younger brother.
Ellen Needham, I believe this is my great grandmother's final resting place; she would have been John’s and Phelim’s mom.
The sign for Doohooma Cemetery, in Irish and English.
The road into Doohooma.
Back in Doolough, this is the beach house next to the road to Doolough Beach. It was closed when we were there.
That’s all for now, but updates will be added here as new information or corrections become available.
John P. Needham
Friday, October 2, 2026
Naples, FL
