A family root explored

This is a second coincidence that I've posted - for some reason I know many - my family, who enjoy my stories as a mild distraction think that the reason I have them is that I'm just plain nosey and ask, say, a further 2 or 3 questions that then establish some link. So here's my second story: My father is from the west of Ireland, ear to the border with Roscommon and when my children were young we began visiting. Eventually we bought a small cottage - but a good 40 miles further west, by the sea in a place called Roonagh Quay. We didn't know the area well. A friend from Manchester told us that as a child he had often visited that part of County Mayo and that now his family had a reunion, every 5 years - all camping at Old Head - a campsite near the town of Louisburgh in a really scenic part of Ireland. He then told us (this being early January 1998) that the next reunion was in August of that year - 6/7 months hence. My friend and his wife decided to hire the cottage next to ours for three weeks which would cover the period of the reunion and leave them time also to have their own family holiday. Roonagh Quay is 6k outside Louisburgh, reached via a long narrow road that runs through a bog. It is the pier from where one travels to Clare Island or Inisturk. Meanwhile, back in Manchester, my friend played 5 a side football and had befriended a local man - a headteacher, who hailed originally from Middlesborough. As they get to know one another week in week out, my friend happened to mention that his wife was from Northern Ireland. His new pal told him that his grandmother back in Middlesborough, now dead, with whom he'd had a strong bond, was also Irish - but had never been back there. he just said it in passing. My friend, another nosey parker like myself, pushed to find out the place his gran was from - he felt some form of block and the Middlesborough man went on to say that his mother and gran (in laws) had never got on. My friend, I think, picked up the sense that the gran of his pal felt like an outsider to some extent. The gran was from County Mayo and the new pal wanted to change the subject. But where in County Mayo, asked my friend. His pal thought about it, said it was an odd name for an Irish town and then said "Louisburgh" "No way!" replied my friend and then went on to tell him the whole story of the reunion, our house, the holiday and all that stuff. My husband and my friend were due in February to fly out to the west of Ireland on a small plane, for a game of golf - there was a space on the plane and so this head teacher went with them on a reconnaissance mission, so to speak. He flew out there, more or less indifferent but returned to Manchester with a different opinion of Ireland - he was amazed at the place - its beauty, the friendliness of the people and other such. Usually he and his family went to Europe for the summer but they decided to hire an apartment at Old Head, close to the beach and at a distance of, say, 8k from Roonagh, on the other side of Louisburgh. The holiday went well, the weather was great (a major blessing for people used to visiting the Med) and then one night, while visiting the cottage hired by my friend, they decided to stay over. In the morning I called round and the head teacher was getting in the car, alone, his wife and children staying to continue enjoying the company. It turned out he'd been doing some investigating and had found a cousin of his grandmother's. That very morning he has arranged to pick up his cousin who was then going to take him to see his grandmother's homestead which was now derelict - an old stone cottage with no roof such as are scattered about the countryside all over those parts. The whole family had eventually emigrated, never to return, or had died. Half an hour later he was back. We could see the car approaching from a long way down the bog road and one of us suggested that the cousin might not have been in. But as the car got nearer we could see a passenger and then surmised that the cousin had come on out to meet everyone. But no. The headteacher swung into the little lane at which corner the rented cottage stood - a lane that led - only 400 yards further on - to a rocky beach - an isolated place and totally untouched by any form of tourism. He pulled up and wound the window down but didn't say anything. 'You're back quick," said my friend to him "did you decide against the visit?" "No," said his new pal. Again a few moments of no talk. "Well why have you come back then?" asked his wife. "Because", he said "this is it." He pointed up a little hump of a hill to an abandoned old place half a minute's walk away. We were dulled by a late night and a week or so of chilling on the fine Atlantic coast. No one grasped the obvious. He had to spell it out. "My grandmother, who was my close companion throughout my childhood, who made reference only from time to time to her home in Ireland, was born and raised in that cottage there." And he pointed to it, standing there in the August sunshine, against, for once, a sheer blue sky that was cut with the jet streams of planes flying out to America. It took us minutes to connect. My friend, it seems, led a new chance acquaintance from a five a side team back to his roots - right to the very door of his grandmother's house - and all by accident.