大象传媒

(The Arandora Star was an internee ship en route to Canada when it was torpedoed off the coast of Donegal during the war.Many of the bodies washed up on the Donegal shore and were buried at Cruit Island and at other locations around the county. There were several hundred lives lost on that ship.)
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BY ROSEMARY ORSI
One hundred and five years ago, in 1900, my husband's great grandfather left a little town in Bologna,Italy called Castello d' Argille with his young wife and son who became my husband's grandfather. His elder brother Pietro accommpanied them leaving behind one younger brother, Francesco, and six sisters. Pietro and Luigi never contacted home again but we knew that Luigi went to Glasgow and Pietro went to London because another young man from the town, who
was also with them, did keep in touch with my husbands great grandmother for a number of years. After Francesco got married and had children he had a great tragedy in his life when he lost three of his children on the same day and from that day he really wanted to contact his two brothers but it was impossible. His sons and grandsons carried on searching long after he had died while in Glasgow my husband's family had been doing the same,however, this Year,thanks to the internet and a series of coincidences, the two families met for the first time.

We then set about trying to locate the family of Pietro in London and although we contacted many Orsi families we were always meeting a dead end and just didn't know where to go next until I happened to be reading a book about the Italians in Britain by a professor at Glasgow University called Maria Calpi and she had a complete chapter dedicated to the Sinking of the Arandora Star and she even had the list of recovered bodies of Italians and there was Pietro Orsi, number 300, and it would appear that he is buried either in Carndonagh Co Donegal or Portstewart. Although we cannot as yet be sure that this is the right Pietro Orsi it would explain why we have been able to get no information about him and somehow I have a feeling about this. There are four members of the family from Italy coming to Donegal for a weekend at the end of September and I would like to have some more information for them by that time since one of them is the eldest at 79 and is leaving Italy for the first time and I will update you if I have anything to add to the story.

Thanks again,

Rosemary Orsi. Fanad.

P.S. By the way, the young man who did keep in touch with Adelina Orsi (great grandmother) was by the name of Accorsi.

We don't have a christian name but if anyone of that name reads this and whose family came from the Bologna area we would like to here from them.

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