Nearly 100 descendants of a Tyrone family with roots dating to the mid-1800s gathered at Canavan’s in Garvaghey on Saturday for a reunion organised by local genealogist Paul Carlin.

The event brought together relatives from Philadelphia, Sligo, the Isle of Man, Middlesbrough, Fermanagh and Tyrone. Some attendees had not seen one another for 50 years, according to Carlin.

Carlin said the reunion was prompted by a visit last summer by Jeanette Donnelly, who now lives in Philadelphia but is originally from Loughmacrory. During that visit she spoke with her aunt Bridget McDermott of Dublin. They are descendants of a family of 11 siblings who grew up in Loughmacrory.

Donnelly later contacted relatives and was put in touch with Carlin, whose grandmother Bridget Anne Toner was a first cousin of the McMenamin sisters.

The evening included an opening speech by Martin McDermott, Irish dancing by Fannie Brown and Kitty Corcoran, and music by Joe Campbell. Attendees shared family photographs, some dating to the early 1900s.

Carlin’s research has traced the family to Patrick McMenamin and Mary Daly, his third great-grandparents, who raised six children in Loughmacrory. One of Patrick’s sisters emigrated to Pennsylvania in the early 1900s and contact was lost. A brother remained in Loughmacrory and worked on the family farm.

Many McMenamin family members moved to Middlesbrough in the 1950s, and descendants continue to live in Loughmacrory and the surrounding Tyrone area.