James O'Neill of Ardcanaught

http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/features/8434068/A-kind-of-homecoming/ 
wrote SEAN BROSNAHAN 16 May 2013
James O'Neill and Julia Egan, left Kerry to New Zealand in the 1870s. Julia's  family's from the Killeens townland of Currans parish. We drove up and down the road where it was supposed to be without success. Pulling over, I asked a farmer who was strolling along the road. "The Egan place? Sure. It's just along there. Follow me." In fact, it was his place. This was a long-sundered Kerry cousin, Anthony Egan. Alas, the cottage itself was no more. Just a year before, it had blown down in a storm, replaced by a modern barn. Meeting Anthony is something special.

Next up was James O'Neill's home place in Ardcanaught, a townland in the nearby parish of Keel. After travelling separately halfway around the world, James and Julia married in Timaru in 1881. They raised a family of 11 and developed a farm at Cricklewood, a link still commemorated by an "O'Neill's Road" signpost.

Several New Zealand O'Neills had preceded us to Ardcanaught in recent years. John, the current incumbent on the old O'Neill farm, was thus well used to colonial visitors and happy to show us the ramshackle stone barn that had once been my great-grandfather's home. John's modern two- storeyed farmhouse alongside suggested a definite rise in the family's fortunes in the intervening century and a half.

Hi Olwyn

Thank you for posting this link - it was a very interesting story and I would have missed it since I only look a the Timaru Herald on Stuff occasionally.  I have had some email conversations with Sean in the past and he has been very helpful.