Hi Rachymac
I am either your 1st cousins twice removed or something like that
I have the Karr family photo album if I sent you photos would your aunt be able to tell us who some of them are? Also does she know how Nell who married Tommy Shaw fits into the family. I last saw Nell and Tommy in 1998 and auntie Nell was able to name a few of the people in the photos her mum and brother so she must be related via the Karr side but it was such an exciting evening as she showed me a hankie one of her relatives embroidered and gave to King Billy on the way to the Boyne and he later returned it to her among other fantastic stories that I forget a lot of what was said. Oh another thing I would love to know the O'Neills from Lurgan David. Sam and Sue does your aunt know who their parents where I visited them all my life and have no idea where they fit into the tree.
regards Daisy
Below is the clipping when Tommy died and sorry for typo's byt I am in Aussie and if I have the light on the mossies will chew every bit of flesh left on my legs
and typing in the dark its a bit hard
Last Great War veteran dies at 102
By David Sharrock, Ireland Correspondent 12:01AM GMT 06 Mar 2002
THE last surviving Irishman to have served in the Great War was buried with military honours yesterday.
Thomas "Tommy" Shaw, who was 102, died after a fall last weekend. His wife Eleanor, 94, attended yesterday's funeral in Bangor, Co Down, where a bugler from the Royal Irish Regiment sounded Last Post.
Mr Shaw, born in June 1899, joined the Royal Irish Rifles in January 1916. He was on his way to the front when he was seen by his brother, a military police officer.
Mr Shaw was arrested for lying about his age and sent back to Ireland. In 1916 the official minimum age for service in the front line was 18.
As soon as he reached that age he returned to the battlefields with the 16th Battalion the Royal Irish Rifles and saw action at Ypres, Messines and Passchendaele. During the Second World War Mr Shaw was responsible for meat rationing in Northern Ireland. It was as a civil servant working at Stormont that he met his wife "Nell". They were married for 60 years.
Mr Shaw was buried at Clandeboye cemetery, a Union flag decorated with poppies covering his coffin. A Royal Irish pipe major played the lament Flowers of the Forest.