James Berry

Who was James Berry?

James Berry, author and farmer, was born in Bunowen, Louisburgh, County Mayo in 1842. Through visiting his uncle Father Ned O’Malley, the parish priest in Carna, County Galway, he met and married a local woman Sarah Greene. They lived together in Carna and went on to have 11 children.

Between the years 1910 and 1913 he had a column in the Mayo News under the title Tales of the West - Recollections of my Early Boyhood. The column centered around tales he heard during his youth growing up in Mayo and described events from the Famine years such as the Doolough Tragedy. In 1967, a collection of his stories were republished as Tales of the West of Ireland by Gertrude M. Horgan of Aquinas College. He died in 1914 and was buried in Mynish cemetery, Carna.