NEWLY appointed Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn has located his family roots in Fermanagh.
The Labour MP for Leeds South has found a ‘family gravestone’ at a cemetery in the Irish county, which bears the name of his great, great grandfather, who was born in Roslea in 1850 but later emigrated to the US.
“Just visited Holy Trinity Church in Clogh, Co. Fermanagh where my great, great grandfather Dr Thomas Graydon is remembered on the family gravestone,” he confirmed.
NI Secretary Hilary Benn finds gravestone of his ancestors in Fermanagh“He was born in Roslea in 1850 but, like so many others, emigrated to the United States where he died in 1900, age 49,” he added.
Mr Benn was in the North over the weekend where he met with Tánaiste Micheál Martin before attending a Twelfth of July parade in Irvinestown.
The family gravestone of NI Secretary Hilary BennHe used his time there to indulge a “personal pilgrimage” to find the homeplace of his ancestors and described their final resting place as “beautiful and peaceful”.
“It was a great pleasure to meet Church Army Minister Captain David Hamilton whose church this is,” he said of his time at Holy Trinity Church.
“And what a beautiful and peaceful landscape surrounds it,” he added.
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