Benedict Kiely - Early Life

Early Life

Benedict Kiely was born in Dromore, County Tyrone to Thomas John and Sara Alice (née Gormley) Kiely. He was the youngest of six children, the others were Rita, Gerald, Eileen, Kathleen and Macartan; four of these predeceased him. His sister Kathleen (mother of Omagh country singer Brian Coll) survived him and at the age of 94 attended his funeral in Dublin but died herself six months later.

Kiely's father, Tom, a native of Moville, County Donegal, was a Boer War veteran. When he was only eighteen, he joined the Leinster Regiment. Over the next five or so years, he travelled over Ireland and abroad, including the Caribbean, and finally, to South Africa. He was decorated for heroism, for his actions in the Boer War (during which time he had met with General Christiaan De Wet). Sometime after having returned to Ireland, Tom took up employment with the Ordnance Survey as a survey measurer (or "chain man"--so called because a chain was used to do the measuring).

Three years later, Tom happened to be in Doyle's Hotel in Drumquin, and that was where he met a young barmaid by the name of Sara Alice Gormley, who came from the townland of Claraghmore, near Drumquin. (In Claramore there were so many families with the surname Gormley that each one used their own nickname to distinguish one from the other.)

In the spring of 1920, Tom and Sara Alice Kiely, and their six children, moved from James Campbell's farm in Dromore to Omagh, where Tom took up the position as the porter in the newly-opened Munster and Leinster Bank. After living for a short time in Castle Street and Drumragh, the family finally settled in St Patrick's Terrace in the Gallows Hill area of Omagh. This area was to be a lasting inspiration for Ben.