Kathleen Cait Murphy, originally from Kinsale, was a nurse in New York City for over 30 years. While in New York, she came to admire the firemen of the city and was shocked at the deaths of 343 of their number who died in the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
She was still a land owner in Ringfinnan, just south west of Kinsale and decided to provide a memorial in the form of a garden, with a tree for each fireman who died in the line of duty that day. There were 343 in total and each tree now bears a small sign naming one of the 343 firemen. Since the garden was planted, many relatives of the dead have visited as have many of those wounded on the day and some of the trees have personal items such as t-shirts or photographs on their branches or at their base.
One of a number of benches in the centre of the garden now also bears patches bearing the logos for a number of fire service units.
Unfortunately, Kathleen wasn't able to make the 10th anniversary commemoration service held there as sadly she had died a few months previously and you will now also be able to visit a memorial to the lady who has helped preseve the story of these New York firremen who died so tragically.
While this cache could well be regarded as a quick cache and grab, I thoroughly recommend visiting and spending some time in the garden and this is the main aim of placing this cache here. It is quite a sobering experience seeing so many trees representing the dead, It is also interesting to see how many Irish surnames are represented here.
Factual information gleaned and partially reproduced from the Kinsale Herritage web site, written by historian Dermot Ryan.
