My McBride Family History As I have found and collated things Growing up, my father kept a large embroidery, of a strange bird with a coloured glass eye, in a walnut frame on a walnut tripod in the living room of the Bank House in Kilcock, Co Kildare. We saw it every day and it was part of the family. Apart from the glass eye the embroidery was faded and not very colourful, but it linked four generations. My grandmother Jane B McBride, who lived with Dad, inherited it from her mother, Anna Eliza Best, who embroidered it in her teenage years in Newry or Warrenpoint, Co Down, before her marriage to Dr Andrew McBride of Newry in 1861. The story was that Andrew gave Anna the glass eye as a courting present, so there was emotion and family history. Anna died in 1878 when Granny Jane Burrell McBride, the youngest child, was only 4 and after a year Andrew married an older family friend, Essie Thompson to tame his family. Andrew died in 1894. After schooling, Granny trained as a nurse at Baggot Street Hospital, Dublin, where she met and married TR Gibson, private secretary to the Earl of Mayo in 1898 at St Matthews’ Church of Ireland, Ringsend, Dublin, close to her lodging. Her eldest sister Mary Scott McBride signed the Register as a witness. After her step-mother Elsie Thompson’s death in 1901, ‘The Bird’, the McBride Family Bible and ‘odds & ends’ went to stay with Granny, and her husband T R Gibson in Naas, Co Kildare, where Dad and his siblings were baptised in 1900s in Naas PC [and my brother James (Jimmy) and I in the 1950s], and after Granddad’s death in 1940, Granny went to live with Dad in Letterkenny and the Bird followed to Letterkenny, Kilcock in the 1950s and Dundrum, from 1962, remaining with Dad after Granny’s death in 1974. When Granny’s will was published, a handwritten codicil had been added, signed and witnessed, giving the embroidery to Dorothy. Dorothy, Dad’s elder sister, had also liked ‘The Bird’ but for a long time had nowhere to keep it, after selling her home after her husband Bertie’s death and moving into a small 1st floor apartment in Cork City. Dad was upset but as the frame and tripod were bulky to move, nothing happened because neither sibling wanted to hire a moving company, and Dorothy lacked the space to display it. Then one morning, apparently without warning when Dad and I were at work, a ‘Nat Ross of Cork’ furniture-moving truck and team called with instructions to collect ‘The Bird’. Mum let the guys in and phoned Dad. By the time she had explained to Dad what was happening, the guys had wrapped and loaded the frame and tripod and were gone. Dad was incensed, and sibling rivalry with his elder sister went to a new high for a while. The frame and tripod had occupied a corner in our small Dundrum house and, probably, Mum was happy for the extra space. The embroidery, frame and tripod passed to Dorothy’s daughter Betty for display in Rock Lodge, Cork and is now (2018) safe and on display at the period home of my 2nd Cousin Peter Haughton, Dorothy’s grandson. ‘The Bird’ gave me my interest in family history, and the curiosity to look for ‘lost’ cousins. One point is Dad’s sister Dorothy married in 1918 and her eldest daughter Betty married in 1940. Dad married in 1950 and I was born in 1953. My Granny, Jane B McBride, is Peter Haughton’s great-granny and the King’s great-grand-aunt. 1 TR Gibson had bought a double grave in the Protestant graveyard at Maudins, Dublin Road, Naas after his 4th born child died only 6 week after birth in 1909. TR was buried there in 1940. His wife Jane outlived him by 34 years, dying in her 99th year. In her last years she was confined to bed at Dad’s Dundrum home, and her children decided it better to move her to a full-care nursing-home in Lisburn, Northern Ireland close to Geraldine, her younger daughter. When she died in 1974, at the height of the ‘Troubles’, the Lisburn funeral director refused to transport the body to Naas as he claimed warnings were received that his hearse would be burnt south of the border. He might have been right as everything was very polarised. After a delay Granny was buried in Roselawn Cemetery Lisburn (beside the Motorway). At the funeral, an old gentleman introduced himself to me as “Dr William Scott McBride of Dromara, a cousin of Jane”. For years later, whenever I passed the Dromara turnoff on the Banbridge-Lisburn dual-carriageway, I always wondered about where that connection occurred – now I know! At the funeral of my Dad in 1994, one of the mourners approached me and introduced himself as ‘David Gibson’, a cousin, and later gave me a hand-drawn family-tree. The tree went back to my great-great-grandfather’s generation Alexander Gibson and included T R’s ten siblings and some great-uncles and -aunts. Mum gave me an old A4 photocopied sheet of Granny McBride’s seven siblings and her mother Anna Eliza Best’s family siblings, parents and uncles drawn up apparently by a Presbyterian Minister friend of Dorothy. No dates, no when, who, where or why – a great mystery. Computer searching, and recently DNA matching, led to many people giving me clues. A Canadian lady, Sharon Oddie Brown, writing her own Ulster family history briefly touched on the family of Dr John McBride, brother of Dr Andrew McBride, (http://www.thesilverbowl.com/maps/Woodvale- Environs/Woodvale&JOHNSTONS.html), grandfather of Dr William Scott McBride, Granny’s 2nd cousin. My cousins Douglas McBride (Dec’d) of Waterford & Australia and Beth McBride of New Zealand have added many records. But most of mine are based on documentary evidence, thousands of internet hints some totally inaccurate, some speculative and some just family gossip! My Best and McBride forefathers came from Newry and environs, a seaport with a strong agricultural and industrial hinterland straddling counties Armagh and Down. With the commercial development of the ‘easy to dig’ Lough Neagh/Tyrone coal-field in the early 1700s, near Coalisland using horse and cart carriage to Newry seaport for shipping to Dublin and England. Demand made the opening of a small-canal feasible between the coal-field, Lough Neagh and the port in 1742. The economic importance of Newry grew, and Newry prospered as a deep-water sea-port for 100 years offering trades and jobs off the farms for children and grandchildren. Newry had regular sailings to Britain, Dublin & North America for the passage of people and goods. However, with the introduction of large steel-hulled steam-ships on the Atlantic routes and the opening of the Dublin to Belfast rail-line in 1850, people, trade and prosperity began to leave Newry. The tragic final voyage of the brig Hannah is an example. The Brig transported emigrants to Canada during the Irish Famine. The 287 ton brig was built in Norton, New Brunswick, Canada in 1826 and apart from the captain, could house 12 crew and 200 passengers. Hannah was transporting Irish immigrants fleeing the famine from Forkhill, Warrenpoint and Newry to Quebec City, when it sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on 29 April 1849 after hitting an iceberg, resulting in, it is believed, 49 deaths with 129 saved. She set sail from Newry, on 3 April 1849 with a crew of 12 under its 23-year- 2 old master, Curry Shaw, transporting mainly agricultural labourers and their families. The exact number of passengers is difficult to determine as the ship's list was lost, but it was around 180. It has been reported that ship's doctor William Graham later accused Shaw of several times slipping into the bunks of unmarried young women during the voyage and many accused him of leaving the stricken ship quickly in the only lifeboat with some crew! The McBrides may have come over from Scotland 1607-1633 as part of the 1st Plantation of Ulster. The earliest McBride recorded by Douglas was John McBride (born 1754) who married Susan Maitland. He was a Lieutenant in the Rathfriland Irish Volunteers. Their son was Waddell McBride (1793-1876) married Mary Scott (1804-1881) from Kilkinamurry, Katesbridge, Co, Down. Mary Scott’s parents may have been Andrew Scott and Mary Moore, born around 1780. Waddell lived in Knock house, Rathfriland where his children were born before moving to South Armagh, according to later newspaper marriage notices and retired to Rostrevor, Co Down. Roz Davies website (http://rosdavies.com//SURNAMES/S/ScottLW.htm) using Church records, records Mary Scott, wife of Waddell McBride ; mother of John b. 6 Jun & bpt. 20 Jun 1828 & Mary Margaret b. 23 Jan & bpt. 11 Feb 1830 & Susanna bpt. 10 Apr 1832 & Waddell b. 2 Oct & bpt. 29 Dec 1836 at Ballyroney Presbyterian Church. Great-grandad Andrew McBride was born June 13, 1834 but is not mentioned here, maybe an omission or a missing page. Waddell and Mary’s nine children were: I. John McBride b. 6/6/1828 d. about 1904 travelling. After local schooling, trained as a medical doctor qualifying in Glasgow 1855, trained at Ilminster, England and later Forkhill Co Armagh. Married on 5 Jul 1860 in Creggan Church of Ireland, Armagh, to Mary Stitt (1829–1865) daughter of John Stitt of Freeduff, Co Armagh who died early.