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The Irish Ancestral Research Association 121 Boston Post Road Sudbury, MA 01776 Spring 2019 Volume 36, Number 1 Ancestral Homes and Land in Ireland INSIDE THIS ISSUE The President’s Message 2 Walking in the Footsteps/Early Irish Family 3 Homes of Our Ancestors in Rural Ireland 6 The O’Sullivan Shearig Family 9 Secrets in the Closet 11 Theme for Next Issue 14 The Great Famine Voices Roadshow 17 Blog Watch 18 TIARA Library Notes 19 Digging Deeper for Databases 19 Upcoming Events (Back Cover) TIARA NEWSLETTER Volume 36 Number 1 Spring 2019 TIARA The President’s Message Last Fall, on a trip to Ireland I was able to visit several of the island’s Heritage Sites. At Newgrange, after making our way down the low, narrow passageway to the burial chamber, we saw a demonstration of how the late December sunrise illuminates the interior of the passage tomb. Stone Age farmers built this 5000-year-old tomb aligning the The Irish Ancestral Research Association passage and chamber with the rising sun at the winter solstice. An- 121 Boston Post Road Sudbury, MA 01776 other Neolithic passage tomb, the Mound of the Hostages at the Hill www.tiara.ie of Tara was constructed so that the rising sun lights up the chamber at OFFICERS the Cross Quarter Day of Imbolc (Imbolg), the midpoint between the Co-Presidents Susan Steele Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Virginia Wright Vice President Pam Holland Imbolc’s astronomically derived date can fall anywhere between the Co-recording Secretaries Joanne Delaney second and the seventh of February. Imbolc is the festival celebrated Anne Patriquin since ancient times to mark the beginning of spring. As I write this Corresponding Secretary Pat Deal message at the end of January, here in the Northeast and across the Financial Director Gary Sutherland US we are experiencing record setting frigid temperatures. Spring will COMMITTEE CHAIRS not arrive here in the next few days but it is something to look for- Membership Janis Duffy ward to. Webmaster Pat Landry Foresters Susan Steele Looking forward, not on an astronomical calendar but on the TIARA Library Barbara Brooker Volunteers Allison Doane spring calendar, there are several important items. In June, the execu- tive board members will complete their current two-year term. The DUES: Calendar year membership is (U.S.) $25 per individual & $35 per TIARA bylaws allow a member to serve two consecutive terms in any family for Newsletters sent as a PDF one office. Susan Steele will finish her second term as co-president file via email. An additional $5/yr is and I will not be seeking a second term. Consequently, the position of charged to mail paper copies of the president needs to be filled. newsletters. Canadian and overseas memberships are charged an additional Joanne Delaney is also finishing a second term as Co-recording secre- (US) $10/yr for paper copies of the tary. The executive board is in the process of appointing a three- newsletter. member nominating committee to prepare and submit to the Re- MEETINGS: TIARA meets monthly cording Secretary a slate of officers to be elected at the Annual Meet- except July & August at locations ing in June. At least 30 days before the annual meeting members will throughout the New England area. receive, via the notification format on file, a copy of the slate and the THE TIARA NEWSLETTER meeting notice. Watch for it in your email or postal mail in early May. The TIARA newsletter is published quarterly and distributed to members in There are also some appointed, not elected, committee positions that good standing. need to be filled. TIARA is looking for a website assistant. This job can Editor Mary Coyne be done from home and training will be provided. TIARA needs a Assistant Editors Marie Ahearn Ann Patriquin Book Committee Chairperson to order books and volunteers are Layout Editor Don Ahearn needed to help sell books at conferences. Training will be provided. Submit all correspondence to the above (See Page 5) address or email to [email protected]. President COPYRIGHT All material in this publication is protected by copyright. On the Cover Permission must be obtained for use of Maryann Farrell in front of the house of James and Julia Flynn Farrell, her great, any material and credit given, including great grandparents and their eight children, in Derrycahill, Co Roscommon. Note Title, Author, Volume, and Issue the height of the door, ceiling, size of windows and thickness of the walls. number. 2 TIARA NEWSLETTER Volume 36 Number 1 Spring 2019 TIARA Walking in the Footsteps of my Early Irish Family Janice Kenney Fortado #1095 The day I visited, I was told bility of material from the ceil- Kilcruaig, County Limerick that the ground was too wet for ing falling on us - I had to re- Although simply walking on driving through the fields, but I main in one room and look the land where some of my would be welcome to return through doorways where I ancestors were born has when the land was in better could see two tiny rooms with proven to be an occasion filled condition. When I arrived two a bed in each, a kitchen, and a with emotion, finding the years later - thanking the parlor. Although I knew the home itself, even if in ruins, weather gods that the fields house had been deteriorating has been a particularly moving were dry - I was finally able to for many years, it saddened me experience. One of my favorite see the house. to see the walls inside the discoveries was a home in Kil- house crumbling and to see cruaig, Kilflyn, Limerick. My plants growing in the nooks great-great-great-grandfather and crannies of the various Thomas Gallagher, born c1750 rooms. in Kildorrery, Cork, had moved "next door" to This house that had once been Kilcruaig. home to at least seven children was now just a shell with Sometime in the 1800's the rusted bed frames and crum- stones from Thomas's house bling cupboards. As we headed were used to build another Home of Thomas Gallagher (born back to the truck, Liam pointed house and outbuildings nearer ca 1750) in Kilcruaig, Kilflyn, Co out the section of Gallagher to the river. Searching through Limerick land where a Mass path could estate records in the Manu- still be seen - a path that script Room of the National Liam Drake drove me in his stretched through farmers' Library in Dublin, I found in pickup truck over a few acres of fields and led to the local the Gascoigne sisters' estate very uneven terrain. He church, a name probably left records a map showing the stopped occasionally to pull over from the days when hid- exact location of the Gallagher stakes with wiring attached out den paths led to places where house in Kilcruaig. Using in- of the ground - wiring that was priests celebrated Mass se- formation from the map, on used as fencing to keep his cat- cretly. one of my visits to Ireland, I tle from wandering too far drove to Kilcruaig to search for away. He pointed out changes Ballynamongaree, County Cork the home. that had been made to the My paternal grandmother, An- original house, the metal roof nie Gallagher, the great- After failing to find the exact that had replaced the thatched granddaughter of Thomas Gal- property, I inquired at various roof, the front section of the lagher of Kilcruaig, Limerick, homes until I was directed to a house, and a small shed at the was, on her maternal side, the family who owned a "really back of the house. granddaughter of Annie Galla- old home." As it turns out, the gher of Ballynamongaree, family in this old home had He pulled open the metal cov- Glanworth, Cork. (DNA results been leasing land on the ering in the doorway of the indicate there is no genetic con- Gallagher property for their shed so we could go inside. For nection between these two Gal- cattle so they knew where the safety reasons - all sorts of de- lagher families). The Gallagher house was located. bris on the floor and the possi- TIARA NEWSLETTER Volume 36 Number 1 Spring 2019 3 TIARA house in Ballynamongaree, probably built in the 1700's, is no longer lived in, but it is still in use, most recently for stor- ing farm implements. According to family history, passed down orally by three Castleterry Roche Home completely separate Gallagher Ballynamongaree Gallagher family lines, the Gallaghers House Ellen Roche, Annie Gallagher's had come down from Co. mother, was born about 1820. Donegal to fight at the Battle the Sacred Heart still hanging of Kinsale in 1601. Because of on the wall in the kitchen. The houses I have shown above the devastating loss to the Brit- have all had a connection to my ish, all three Gallagher lines Annie Gallagher left Ballyna- paternal grandmother Annie did not return to Donegal. The mongaree when she married Gallagher. The house below be- Ballynamongaree Gallaghers, William Roche and settled in longed to Annie's husband's according to family informa- nearby Castleterry, Ballindan- family - Dennis Kenney's mater- tion, served as blacksmiths at gan, Co. Cork - the only land nal grandmother Margaret Ken- Glanworth Castle. Because belonging to my extended fam- nedy Carroll, born about 1785. there was a forge listed on ily that I have ever found in the Margaret's family home - now land records (from the time of Books of Survey and Distribu- in ruins - is in Ballyshonack, Griffith's Valuation until tion (compiled between the Farahy, Cork.