The New York Irishman stormed the beaches of Normandy with the allied troops right after D-Day, June 6, 1944. According to family members, Cummiskey suffered facial injuries after a grenade exploded not far from him. He was sent to England to recover, where he remained for the rest of the war, guarding German prisoners.

On June 11, 1944, Cummiskey was awarded the Purple Heart, a medal for wounded soldiers with a history that stretches back to George Washington and America’s revolution against the British.

Believe it or not, Cummiskey’s story only begins with his heroics during World War II. Cummiskey’s journey -– and that of his medal –- spans the six decades which followed, with detours in Queens, Rhode Island as well as Northern Ireland.

In a sense, the story will come to an end on June 12 of this year when dignitaries and members of the Cummiskey family gather for a ceremony at a museum in Derry. Cummiskey has since passed, but his legacy will endure on both sides of the Atlantic, thanks in large part to the selfless efforts of a Northern Ireland researcher and an AOH member from Staten Island, who also happens to be named Cummiskey.

It was Lou Cummiskey who received a call late last year from a Derry gent named Patrick Moore.

“He was calling all the Cummiskey listings in New York City,” explained Lou, who is treasurer for AOH Division 4, Staten Island, and also a volunteer for the Staten Ireland Irish fair, which will be held June 9–10.

Moore explained that a friend of his had found a Purple Heart medal at an abandoned site in the Bogside section of Derry. It was dated June 11, 1944. The name on it was Vincent T. Cummiskey.

Moore, and later Lou Cummiskey, dedicated themselves to returning the precious medal to Vincent’s family.

On this side of the Atlantic, Lou Cummiskey scoured the Social Security Death Index, the National Archives website and other records and located the man he was looking for.

He was born on December 1, 1905 and died in March 1971 in Queens. Vincent, it turns out, enlisted on August 17, 1943, and later settled in the Sacred Heart parish, Cambria Heights, Queens.

So, what now? How had the medal ended up in, of all places, Derry? When did it get there? Why was it seemingly tossed aside?

Just when it seemed as if Lou Cummiskey and Moore had reached a dead end, Vincent’s grandson was found in North Carolina. Then came the revelation that Vincent’s son, a retired Irish history teacher who had worked in New York as well as Ireland, was still alive and living in Rhode Island.

Uniseann mac-Comascaigh (Vincent’s son favors the Gaelic spelling) was about to get the answer to a question he’d pondered for decades — what happened to his father’s Purple Heart medal?

“He figured he’d never see this again,” Lou Cummiskey explained. “He was absolutely amazed.”

It turns out Uniseann lived in Derry as a teacher in the 1970s. In fact, the Cummiskeys had deep roots in the region.

Vincent Senior had spent a lot of time living there, as a child and as an adult. Uniseann lived there, but chose to return to the U.S.

When he did he stored many of his father’s artifacts in a chest. When he later finalized his moving plans and went to retrieve his father medals they had vanished.

It was after that that a Derry girl found Vincent Senior’s medal and turned it over to Patrick Moore, who was known for his researching skills. Thanks to Moore and Lou Cummiskey’s detective work, Uniseann and Cummiskey family members living in Derry are able to enshrine the medal at a museum in Derry. Ceremonies will be held June 12.

When asked why he threw himself into this case with such passion, Lou Cummiskey responds, “He’s a namesake. Plus, I’ve been doing my own family’s genealogy for 25 years now. I’d love someone else to call me up if they found something I was looking for.”

Aside from the Memorial Day connection, it’s not hard to see this story as a vivid illustration of how the Irish in the U.S. and Ireland remain so intimately linked.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@verizon.net.)