Energy at the Treinfhir Gathering
All roads led to the Monaghan Peace Campus last Thursday, June 18, as the Treinfhir clan came home from across the globe for a gathering rooted in kinship, heritage and a shared surname — whether spelled Treanor, Trainor or Traynor.
Held in Monaghan every four years, the award-winning Treinfhir Gathering delivers a major boost to the local economy, with hundreds of thousands of euro spent locally during the festival, which is supported by Monaghan County Council.
The matriarch of the Trainor family from Shamrock, Prince Edward Island, travelled to Monaghan with her adult children - Michael, David and Cathy - for what has become something of a global family tradition. Prince Edward Island is twinned with Co Monaghan.
What Michael jokingly described as “the Trainor Olympics”, the event was hosted in Prince Edward Island in 2024. This year, the family came to Ireland to experience it as participants.
Interestingly, among the visiting family were not one but two former newspaper reporters. Gertrude, Michael’s wife, worked at the Journal Pioneer in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada for 30 years: “You really knew the people in your community. It was the best job I ever had. I loved it.”
Cathy, her sister-in-law, also had a brief spell in journalism: “I spent five months working as a night reporter for the Charlottetown Guardian, Prince Edward Island.”
The family’s connection to Prince Edward Island and Monaghan runs deep. Michael and David helped organise the 2024 gathering in PEI, which drew 325 people from Canada, the US, Ireland, Hawaii, Costa Rica and the UK. David acted as treasurer, while Cathy has taken on another important family role — digitising the Trainor family tree started by her grandfather in 1980.
The family can trace their Irish roots back to pre-Famine times. David explained: “Our great-great-grandfather, John Trainor, immigrated from County Monaghan in either 1840 or 1841. We still have the family farm and homestead. We’ve been living for almost 180 years in the same community in Shamrock.”
For Michael, arriving in Monaghan brought an immediate sense of belonging: “It’s my first time in Ireland. Driving into Monaghan was like coming home. At one time, Prince Edward Island was 40% Irish.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Husband and wife Ian and Lesley Treanor, from Lancashire, England, returned to the gathering for the third time, drawn back by friendships, family history and Ireland itself. Ian also contributed his father’s story to volume one of the Treinfhir book series, tracing the family line from his grandfather’s roots near Aughnacloy to Glasgow, and then to Blackburn, Lancashire, where his father settled after serving as a soldier from 1932 into the 1950s. For Lesley, the heart of the trip is simple: “Just meeting up with all the old friends that we’ve made.”
UNITED STATES
The Celt also spoke to the Treanor family from Massachusetts, USA, who got a taste for the event in Canada. “We had great fun, met a lot of people and so we wanted to do it again,” said Chris who was visiting Monaghan with his wife Gail and other family members.
“Our grandfather came from Armagh on the Treanor side, half of his siblings moved to the States, half stayed in Ireland back in the early 1900s... We’ve been able to trace them back up about four or five generations.”
Andy, Chris’s brother, proudly told this reporter: “I have dual citizenship with Ireland and the US... I love the country.”
Mary, Andy’s wife, described herself as a STUD! "Spouse Travelling Under Duress! … I just came for the vacation,” she laughed.
ENERGY
Last but not least, this newspaper sat down with one of two Noel Treanors, joint-chairpersons of the Treinfhir Gathering 2026 — a confusion the namesakes have already joked about, saying that if anything goes wrong, they can blame the other!
“There is definitely an energy in the room,” with first-timers and fourth-time returnees eager “to find out about their families/connections” and explore Monaghan, Shercock, Clones and other places tied to the Treanor story.
The voluntary committee, he said, works by letting people give what they can. Despite late dropouts from Australia and elsewhere, the final head count reached 220, and Noel remarked that Monaghan’s welcome had been exceptional: “They go above and beyond.”
The organiser noted that a customs officer in the airport told someone wearing a Treinfhir Gathering t-shirt to have a good time, which demonstrated the reach of the event.
The next event is set for British Columbia in a few years with many Treanors already pledged to join the party.