Catherine Heafy(Collender) - Catherine Heafy Collender

I am sure the Collender familly is related to my ancestral Heafys. My emigrant great-grandfather was Thomas Heafy, who came to the US from the Dungarvan area in the early 1860s. He married Alice Morrissey from Lismore and raised a large family, the oldest of whom (also Thomas) became a priest in New York. My grandmother Alicia Heafy Brady (b. 1879) was one of Tom and Alice's children. I have done quite a bit of research on the family (I am 100 percent Irish), visited one of the Heafy farms (now owned by cousins the Ryans) in Dungarvan and the Heafy plot in St. Lawrence Cemetery in Abbeyside. I know my g-grandfather was from a large family. I do know a few of the names, including Edmond (brother; did not emigrate); Michael, who became a priest in the Chicago diocese, and more. I know one of the sisters married a Power. Years ago I interviewed elderly Heafy relatives in the States, and one of them told me about a Father Jerry Heafy (who emigrated to NYC) and his niece Rita Morrissey, who kept house for him. After Father Jerry died, rita returned to Ireland, where she married a man named Spratt and is buried in Lismore. I do not know the exact relationship to us with Father Jerry or Rita Morrissey, but I know there IS one. The same elderly relative who told me about Father Jerry also told me one of the Heafys who married a Collender. She was not sure of the spelling. I have lots of Heafy info.