The first recorded Irish settlement in Maine was made by families named Kelly and Haley from Galway, who located on the Isles of Shoals about the year 1653. In 1692, Roger Kelly was a representative from the Isles to the General Court of Massachusetts, and is described in local annals as "King of the Isles." The large number of islands, bays, and promontories on the Maine coast bearing distinctive Celtic names attests the presence and influence of Irish people in this section in colonial times. In 1720, Robert Temple from Cork brought to Maine five shiploads of people, mostly from the province of Munster. They landed at the junction of the Kennebec and Eastern rivers, where they established the town of Cork, which, however, after a precarious existence of only six years, was entirely destroyed by the Indians. For nearly a century the place was familiarly known to the residents of the locality as "Ireland." The records of York, Lincoln, and Cumberland counties contain references to large numbers of Irish people who settled in those localities during the early years of the eighteenth century. The Town Books of Georgetown, Kirtery, and Kennebunkport, of the period 1740 to 1775, are especially rich in Irish names, and in the Saco Valley numerous settlements were made by Irish immigrants, not a few of whom are referred to by local historians as "men of wealth and social standing." In the marriage and other records of Limerick, Me., as published by the Maine Historical and Genealogical Recorder, in the marriage registers of the First Congregational Church of Scarborough, and in other similarly unquestionable records, I find a surprisingly large number of Irish names at various periods during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In fact, there is not one town in the Province that did not have its quota of Irish people, who came either direct from Ireland or migrated from other sections of New England. * * * * *