And a Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all my Hawaiian-Irish cousins in the Cathcart Ohana!

You see, our mutual great-grandfather, Robert William Cathcart, was an Irish immigrant to Hawaii. He hailed from Banbridge, County Down, Northern Ireland.

He had children by several Hawaiian women, including my great-grandmother, Kina Kahooilimoku.

The closest I can come to a list of cousins is from the rolls of the George Galbraith Trust. Galbraith was a friend of Cathcart, and several of Cathcart’s children were named as beneficiaries in Galbraith’s 1904 will.

Here’s what that tiny print says:

To the five children of Robert William Cathcart, of Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, the sum of five hundred dollars ($500) each, said children are named as follows–Helualani, Helen Mary, William Andrew Poaha, Edwin, and Arthur, and I desire that the aforesaid Robert William Cathcard act as trust for his aforesaid five children.

The five named children have multiplied.

Their heirs were listed not long ago in the Galbraith Trust’s List of Known Current Beneficiaries. They appear in Annuity 13 (A through E). In addition, a 1990 court document from the trust files traces the Cathcart beneficiaries.

In any case, I bought a bottle of Irish whiskey, not my usual fare, in honor of the occasion.

I’ll drink a toast to all those Irish cousins, known and unknown, sometime later today.