The Ballycastle Blog: Irish Genealogy and More

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

As a child growing up in 1940’s rural Ireland Christmas was a time of excitement and wonderment. During Advent the adults were required to fast but this did not affect us children. The Christmas season really started the Sunday before Christmas and one of the first manifestations of Christmas was a visit to the local shop with an ass and cart to purchase paraffin, flour, candles and other provisions for the Christmas period. My grandfather killed the goose and turkey and plucking, which took place in an outhouse took about an hour and a half. (When my grandfather became too infirm to kill the fowl I took over his duties as my father was too squeamish for the task and I performed those duties for the family for about 10 – 12 years).

Christmas Eve was a day of abstinence (no meat) but my mother believed in the Celtic day which starts at night-fall and so we had a special meal after dark to commence the Christmas festivities. After the war tinned fruit became available and a big treat at that Christmas Eve meal was tinned pineapple, to this day my favourite fruit. A huge excitement was caused by lighting the candles as two candles were lit in every window in the house and to look around the village and to see candles in every window except those houses that had a bereavement during the year. (Someone who was a bit tight- fisted would be described as “He only lit candles in his front windows”).

We were lucky and unusual in that Santy came to our house with a toy, a book, an orange (a huge treat after the war) and a garment knitted by my mother or grandmother.

Christmas Day we walked to Mass fasting and while I was an altar-boy a big treat was the shilling we got from the parish priest after Mass. (We were terrified of upsetting him and he did not know how to deal with children but in hindsight he was a most compassionate and caring man. When I got involved in local history I found out that as a young priest he had campaigned vigorously to improve the material lot of his impoverished parishioners).

We had Christmas dinner in my grandparents’ house next door. My grandmother cooked the turkey and my mother the goose in large ovens by an open turf fire. Glowing coals had to be constantly replaced on top and under the oven and the duties of keeping the fire blazing and providing a supply of hot coals was assigned to one of the children. How they managed to get them as perfectly as I remember is a wonder to me as even with an electric oven I still struggle to get the goose right.

On St. Stephens Day we dressed up as mummers (also known as wren-boys or straw-boys) and went round the village singing and dancing in each house. A neighbour made the classical straw-hats for us and in most houses we got a few pennies and some sweets or cake.

The candles in the windows were again lit on New Year’s Eve and we had the Scottish custom of first-footing where it was considered lucky if the first person through the door was dark and carried a sod of turf for the fire. All children old enough blackened their faces with polish or soot and came as an excited group all together. Ours was a tee-total house so there was no whiskey as is usually involved.

The candles were lit for the last time on the eve of “Little Christmas” the 6th January. It is known in Irish as “Nollaig na mBan” . “The Women’s Christmas” and on that day my mother and grandmother did no cooking.

I still put two candles in a window (I am tight-fisted) after dark on Christmas Eve to welcome the Baby Jesus. Join me.

Guibhim Beannachtaí na Nollag agus Ath-Bhliain faoi shéan agus faoi mhaise oraibh uilig

(I wish for the Blessings of Christmas and that Next Year will be content and successful for everyone).

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

Irish Surnames

The definitive book on Irish surnames is

Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall
Irish Names and Surnames
By Rev. Patrick Woulfe
Published by M. H. Gill and Son, Dublin, 1923.

A facsimile copy appears to have been published in America in 2007 as it is available on Abebooks.com for about $50 though I have not seen it on sale in Ireland yet. It is written in English and the Irish words used and explained in it are in the old spelling and not the standardized spelling introduced in the 1950’s, ( e. g. Gaedheal [old] instead of Gael [new]). This contribution is largely based on Fr. Woulfe’s book.

The patrician classes in Ancient Rome used surnames (inherited family names) but the practice died out after the fall of the Roman Empire. Surnames began to come into use in much of Europe from 1000 to 1400 and most Irish surnames evolved in this period though new ones continued to be created up until the fall of Gaelic Ireland at Kinsale in 1601. Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, who was killed in the decisive battle with the Vikings at Clontarf in 1014, did not use a surname and neither did his sons. However his grandsons adopted the surname Ó Briain (O’Brien) and Fr. Woulfe maintains that all O’Briens are descended from Brian Boru. O means “descended from” and Mac means ”son of”.

Almost as soon as they were created there was pressure to provide Anglicized forms. In 1467 an ordinance required all Irishmen living within the Pale (Counties Dublin, Kildare, Meath and Louth) to adopt English surnames e. g. a colour or trade etc. though 100 years later the ordinance seems to have had little effect.

The main Anglicisation of Irish names occurred 1550-1650 and these attempted to render phonetically in English the Irish surname. The spellings varied substantially and it was between 1750 and 1850 that the current “standard” spellings were established. Many dropped the “O” and ”Mac” and some moved away from an approximate phonetic version. Fr. Woulfe describes the different categories as follows:
1 Phonetically
2 Translation
3 Attraction
4 Assimilation
5 Substitution

1. Phonetically

Fr. Woulfe gives a number of examples. I will retain his spelling and also attempt an approximate phonetic version of the Irish name. “Ó” is pronounced “Oh” and “Mac” is pronounced “Mock”

Ó Néill (Nail) O’Neill
Ó Briain (Breen) O’Brien
Ó hEilighe (Hay-lee) Healy
Ó Ceallacháin (Cal-a-hawn) O’Callaghan
Mac Cárthaigh (Caw-ree) Mc Carthy
Mac Searraigh (Shar-ee) McSharry
Mac an Bhreithimh (un Vreh-iv) Brehony.

In a footnote Fr. Woulfe says:-
“It may be remarked that the anglicised form was in most instances originally much nearer the Irish pronunciation than at present, owing partly to a change in the sound of the English letters, and partly to the corruption of the Irish forms. Thus O’Brien and O’Neill were originally pronounced O’Breen and O’Nail.”
Vowel sounds in English in particular have changed since Elizabethan times and “sea”, for instance, was pronounced “say”. Consequently Healy would have been pronounced as Hay-ly, much closer to the original Irish pronunciation. The great majority of Irish surnames are in this category

2. Translation

Some families Anglicised their surnames by translating ( or as Fr. Woulfe testily observes mistranslating) the root word in their Irish names.
In this section I give a translation of the root word in the Irish surname

Ó Bruic (badger) Badger
Ó Bruacháin (miser) but Bruach (bank) Banks
Ó Cadhain (barnacle goose) Barnacle
Ó Coinín (rabbit) Rabbitte
Ó Maoilbheannachta (Servant of the blessing) Blessing
Ó Marcaigh (horseman) Ryder
Ó Bhradáin (salmon) Salmon or Fisher
Mac an tSaoir (craftsman also free) Carpenter or Freeman
Mac Conraoi ( king’s hound) King
Ó Draighneáin (blackthorn) Thornton
Ó Gaoithín (little wind) Wyndham

Different family groupings got different surnames from the same Irish surname

Mac an Bhreithimh (judge) Brehony phonetically
Judge by translation
Mac Searraigh (foal) McSharry phonetically
Foley by translation

3. Attraction

Fr. Woulfe states that some name that were uncommon in some districts were attracted to a more common (or prestigious?) name

Anglicised Attracted to
Ó Bláthmhaic (Blaw-vic) Blawwick,Blowick Blake
Ó Braoin (Brain) O’Breen O’Brien
Ó Duibhdhíorma (Div-yeer-ma) O’Dughierma McDermott
Ó Maoil Sheachainn (Meal Hock-lynn) O’Melaghlin McLoughlin
Ó Duibhir (Div-ers) Divers de Vere.

4. Assimilation

Irish monks writing in Latin instead of attempting to Latinise Irish personal names simply substituted an established Latin name of somewhat similar sound e g

Assimilated
Conchobhar (Kruk-u-er) Cornellius
Eoghan (Own) Eugenius
Tadhg (Tieg) Thaddaeus )

This practice spread to surnames after the middle of the 17th century and a small number of Irish surnames began to assimilate similar sounding English or French surnames

Ó Bruaidair (Brew-der) Broderick
Ó Cairealláin (Car-ill-awn) Carelton
Ó hArachtáin ((Har-act-awn) Harrington
Ó Roideacháin (Red-act-awn) . Reddington
Ó Somachain (Some-a cawn) Summerville
Mac Cathmhaoil (Koch-weel) Caulfield
Ó Lapáin (Lap-awn) de Lapp
Ó Maoláin (Meal-awn) de Moleyns
Ó Duibhdhíorma (Div-year-ma) d’Ermott

5. Substitution

Fr. Woulfe says of substitution :-
“Substitution differs from assimilation only in degree. The similarity between the Irish surname and its English equivalent is in this case much more remote; very often there is no connection whatsoever.”

Ó Clúmáin (Clew-awn) Clifford
Ó Fiannachta (Fien-act-a) Fenton
Ó Lachtnáin (Locked-nawn) Loftus
Ó Niadh (Knee) Neville
Ó Niadhóg (Knee-oge) Newcombe
Mac Conghamhna (Kun-ow-na) Caulfield

(Fr. Woulfe’s surname comes from de Bhulbh (Wolve) a Gaelicised version of the Norman French name le Wulf)

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

After travelling the whole wide world several times Riverdance had its first performance in Connaught last month. I must admit that I am a complete philistine when it comes to music and dance. (My wife gave up on me decades ago as when she puts music on I slope off into the garden or to my computer).

I had seen Riverdance on television and my daughter reminded me that that I also saw it in Dublin several years ago but as it was so near and there was a birthday about we went to see a performance in Castlebar. What struck me was how well the first act evoked our Celtic heritage. In a review, when it first started, the scene where Michael Flatley rushes out to challenge the drums was described (and I quote from memory) “…with the braggadocio and super confidant bombast of a Celtic chieftain going into battle”. The Riverdance itself struck me for the first time as echoing the “buaileadh sciath” by which the Celtic tribes challenged their enemy before battle. The literal translation is “beating the shields”. This was done in rhythm and all together and interspersed with their war cry e.g. they would all beat together three times and then shout

Ó h-Éilidhe Abú
( Oh Hey-lee Ah-boo)
Healy for ever
( This translation does not give all the nuances in Abú which also includes
Healy Invincible
Healy Never Beaten
Healy All Conquering).

Celtic warriors were usually armed with a sword, shield, helmet and two javelins and apart from a leather belt or bandolier they fought naked which gave them all sorts of opportunities to incorporate rude gestures in their “buaileadh sciath”.

The second half I found less easy to interpret. It is obviously and rightly a celebration of Irish America but what struck me mainly was that we had the music and dance of two world powers, America and Russia, and a former world colonial power, Spain, in supporting roles to our music and dance. Robert Emmet’s words on the scaffold in 1803 come to mind “When Ireland takes its place among the nations of the earth then, and only then, shall my epitaph be written”.

Even after the eleven or twelve years they have been on the road it was a superb spirited performance and we both thoroughly enjoyed the evening. They have been wonderful ambassadors for Ireland. Do the Chinese think that the Irish are a nation of good looking young people, beautifully dressed, superbly athletic and with amazing and elegant skills in their own unique music and dance.

PS
Mike described last month’s contribution as a Culinary Contribution whereas
I would describe it as a Famine Survival Dish. Since then my daughter got some nori in a Health Food shop and I have tried it out. There is no need for the Food-processor; just tear up the sheets into pieces about 2 inches by 2 inches and cook on milk for 15 minutes. Use about three sheets per person for a starter and five or six for a main course. We used to eat the dish with bread and milk.

PPS
The mind boggles. What if Michael Flatley had performed the drum dance authentically dressed as a Celtic chieftain.

According to Irish surname specialists, the surname “Whelan” is the 79th most common surname in Ireland. Thousands of Irish immigrants named “Whelan” came to America in the last two centuries. A large number of them saw their family name recorded “Whalen” by government immigration and census officials on government forms. Consequently, when searching for your long lost Irish ancestor “Joseph Whelan” or “Josephine Whelan”, be sure to look for “Whalen” also. Surname spelling variations occur with other Irish surnames also. To my bemusement, my global search for the surname “Whalen” for the entire country of Ireland in the Griffiths Valuation Survey (1840 – 1860) database produced zero households, and in the 1901 Irish census only 9 households.

Lesson Learned: If at first you don’t succeed in finding an ancestor with one Irish surname spelling, try a slight variation of that surname spelling to see what you might find.

Let us know what Irish surname spelling variations that you’ve encountered in your research and post them here.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

Nineteenth century Ireland suffered many years of localised crop failure. The Gotta Mór (the Great Hunger) of 1845-7 is remembered mainly because the crop failure was so widespread, but also because it was accompanied by major epidemics of cholera and typhoid which devastated a weakened population.

Maritime communities fared marginally better as they had access to food from the sea. The men fished, but it was women and children who scoured the shoreline at low tide for shellfish and edible sea-weed. On rocky shores they found periwinkles in rock pools, limpets attached to rocks and crabs in crevices under rocks or under drifts of seaweed. On sandy shores they could find cockles, mussels, razor-fish and clams.

There are four types of edible seaweed. Dillisk (Rhodymenia palmate) comes from the Gaelic word “ Duileasc “ which is derived from “ duill uisce “which translates as “water leaf” and it has almost become a generic name for all edible seaweeds. It is reddish in colour and grows as a parasite on other seaweeds. It does best in sheltered bays and it can be eaten fresh or dried. You can still find it for sale occasionally usually from a van at a market or from a house with a hand written sign outside.

The most common type of edible seaweed found in exposed areas is “Creathnach” (Ulva lactuca) a kind of sea lettuce that grows profusely on the seaward side of rocks. It can be found all year round and can be eaten fresh but it is much more nutritious if it is boiled (on milk) for at least an hour. It cannot be dried.

“ Sleabhach “ ( Porphyra umbilicalis) grows on rocks from Autumn to Spring but is at its best in January – February. The fronds stick together on the rocks when they dry and can be lifted off flat rocks in large sheets and ribbons. It is boiled for at least an hour often on milk. It cannot be dried.

The fourth type of edible sea weed was “Cairrgín” ( Chondrus crispus ). It starts off red but turns green in sunlight and white when dried. It grows low down on the sea shore so it needs to be a very low tide to pick it. If it is cooked in milk for about half an hour and the fronds are removed, it sets into something like a blancmange. It was considered an excellent food for those convalescing after an illness. It can be purchased in some health food shops as Carrageen moss. The blancmange can be improved by adding a sweetened fruit such as cooked gooseberry or raspberries.

Nori used in sushi dishes is a processed form of “Sleabhach”. Apparently the Japanese farm over 600 square kilometres of the seaweed and the annual crop is worth a billion dollars. Here is a recipe to impress your Japanese friends.

Sleabhach agus Ruacháin
(Slough-uck a-guss Roo-caw-in)
Nori and Cockles

Ingredients per individual serving
3-4 oz. Nori
15 – 20 Cockles
Butter
Milk.

Cook the Nori in milk for an hour. Cook the cockles in their own juice. If the Nori sheets have not broken up put them in a food-processor for a few moments Serve with a Nori mound in the centre, pour over it a little of the cockle juice and top it with a generous blob of butter. Surround the Nori with the cockles and serve.

I have never seen Nori or the inside of a sushi restaurant, but believe it should work. The original is delicious and cockles go particularly well with “Sleabhach” though other types of shellfish were also used. Perhaps someone who tries the recipe might post his or her culinary review.

See additional Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

To trace the Irish origins of a client’s Irish grandfather, I recently searched a number of government record databases. The Irish grandfather’s name was Thomas Hogan. Feeling confident in pinpointing the specific person, I entered the first name, Thomas, and the family name (surname), Hogan, in the search fields of the searchable database. My confidence quickly diminished, when, unfortunately, the search results did not produce the one and only Thomas Hogan I was looking for. Being patient and persistent, I took a chance and broadened the search by simply entering the family name (surname), Hogan, in the search field. Although, as you can guess, this wider search produced hundreds of records, I hoped that it might uncover the correct Thomas Hogan. Eureka! Lo and behold, the “Hogan only” search produced a record for a “Thos. Hogan”, the correct one, the grandfather I was looking for.

The lesson learned: before giving up and suspending your search for a specific first name-last name combination, broaden your search to include an abbreviated first name. You may ultimately find the person you are looking for!

Footnote: To quicken the creation of a written form or record, a government official sometimes abbreviated the first name of a person in that form or record. Today, searchable electronic databases contain those same abbreviations.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

Over twenty years ago, on a holiday in Portugal, we visited a church in, I think, Oporto, which contained a statue of St Brigit the Virgin. My reaction was one of incredulity bordering on culture shock, as with our Bridget of Kildare, her virginity or otherwise was of no consequence or relevance in the Celtic times she lived in about
450 A D.

Bríd (pronounced Breege) was the Celtic mother-goddess venerated throughout Celtic Europe and her feast day was at Imbolc (1st February) and the first day of the Celtic spring. She was associated with regeneration, fertility, growth and spring calving which saw the arrival of milk and butter after the supply had dried up in the winter.

On a recent visit to America I came across a lovely book “ How the Irish saved Civilisation “ by Thomas Cahill, Anchor Books. It is beautifully written and authoritative on the Early Irish Church. He describes how Bridget, the head-strong daughter of a king, was converted by St. Patrick. She founded a double monastery (one male and one female) at Kildare and was a powerful personage in the Early Irish Church. There are some hints that she may have performed some functions as a bishop, e.g. ordaining priests and saying Mass, and her feast day is, guess what, the 1st February. Her monastery was at Kildare, Cill Dara (the Church of the Oak Tree). The oak tree played a central role in druidic ceremonies and beliefs.

My own mother was called Breege and had a great devotion to St. Bridget (or was it Bríd ?) She was a great believer in the “Brat Bríde” or Bridget’s Cloak. Bridget’s colour was red ( not very virginal) and on St. Bridget’s night, the night before 1st February she spread her red cloak all over Ireland to give it protection for the following year. It was the custom to leave out over-night, on a tall bush, a piece of red flannel so that it was touched by Bridget’s Cloak. This was the “ Brat Bríde “ and its touch would cure sickness in people and animals. A newly calved cow was touched by the “ brat” to ensure a good supply of milk and the spuds for planting in spring were also touched to ensure a good harvest.

St. Bridget’s Cross - North Mayo and Native American Design

Over forty years ago when I got married my mother gave us a St. Bridget’s Cross as a wedding present for, as she said, to bless the marriage. Years later, while we were living in England, I included it in a multi-cultural exhibition. One of the assistant curators was an American who was part Native American. He got very excited when he saw my St. Bridget’s Cross as he said Native Americans also made them and they were associated with nature and the gods.

Much of Bríd of the Celts was incorporated into the cult of St. Bridget, but St. Bridget the Virgin ? Not our lassie from Kildare!

(I am taking a short break until September from contributing to Mike’s blog. Any particular topics you would like me to blather on about?)

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

In a few short generations, modern man has forgotten how crucially important fire was for mankind for many thousands of years. As someone who was brought up in the 1940’s, in a house that did not have electricity or running water, I have some appreciation of how important it was for us as a family. Saving and gathering sufficient fuel for a year involved all the family in several weeks work spread over a period from St. Patrick’s Day, when it was time to cut the turf, until it was all brought home from the bog by ass and cart (a slow and grossly inefficient frustrating method of transport) by August at the latest.

Our fire burned in our kitchen/living-room and never went out. Last thing at night two sods of turf were embedded in the hot ashes and with restricted access to oxygen just slowly smouldered throughout the night. The first chore in the morning was to rake out the hot coals formed by the two sods, clear all the ashes from the previous day, to light a new fire with the hot coals and to hang a kettle to boil for the first cups of tea of the day.

My strongest memory of the fire was of its warming power. It was our only source of heat and secondary fires would, very occasionally, be lit in other parts of the house. The main way for distributing the heat was by earthen ware hot water jars wrapped in thick stockings. After the war the high tech of rubber hot water bottles arrived. All our cooking, mainly boiling and frying, was done on the fire and we had a large oven in which my mother did baking and roasting. Years later, on a trip to Scotland, we visited a restaurant that specialised in peat smoked products, salmon, venison, oysters etc. They all tasted just like Mammy’s cooking.

All water for washing was boiled on the fire. We had two types of water: spring water from a pump two hundred yards away for drinking and cooking, and water from a stream one hundred yards away for personal and clothes washing. Hauling water was heavy physical work and a ten gallon pot full of boiling water was a potentially hazardous and heavy article that required two adults to remove from the fire. As kids I know we had a bath in the kitchen for Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day, but how much oftener I cannot recall. As the eldest I was the last in and my memory is of freezing soapy water that I absolutely detested. A big summer event was the annual washing of the blankets. This was done by lighting a fire by the stream and boiling the water there. I recall it as a fun event where we helped with rinsing the blankets in the running water and, of course fell in or got soaked.

Survival depended on the fire and, naturally, superstition evolved around it. It was considered unlucky to give your fire away and if a neighbour had a new house he brought his own fuel to be lit in your fire. A sod of turf glowing at one end would be used to give some light on a dark night when visiting a neighbour. The sod of turf was added to the neighbour’s fire as a sign of friendship. However it was considered good etiquette to bring your own sod of turf to light at the neighbour’s fire for the return trip.

Fire was a big component of druidic ceremonies in Celtic Ireland and echoes of two survive. Our big bonfire night is St. John’s night 23rd June (still widely practised, some say, as an excuse for waste disposal) which is of course the Celtic Mid-summer festival with Christian overtones. If you could jump through the flames you would be safe for a whole year. Another fire festival was on 1st May called Bealtaine (Beal’s Fire). A practice in Sligo was to hang whin bushes over the door for luck on 1st May. In the evening the children gathered the whins and had a bonfire.

There is the tale of St. Patrick lighting the Pascal fire on the Hill of Slane before the High King lit his on the adjacent Hill of Tara. In the subsequent conflict with the High King’s druid St Patrick was victorious and thereby converted the High king. Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiach was an authority on the Early Irish church and the missionary Irish which was isolated from Rome for 150 years. His view was that the Irish church had little influence on mainstream Christianity, except that it was possibly responsible for the introduction of the Pascal fire into Easter ceremonies.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

Many Irish surnames begin with O’, such as O’Grady, O’Sullivan, O’Neill, O’Reilly, and O’Brien. An O prefix on a surname translates to “grandson of”, whereas a Mac prefix translates to “son of”. It was not uncommon for Irish immigrants coming to America in the 19th century to lose the O’ or Mac, when they processed through U.S. Immigration, whether by choice or not. When searching for an Irish ancestor’s records in Ireland, it is wise to not only look for the surname without the O’, but also the surname with the O’. For example, in addition to looking for your grandfather James Sullivan in Ireland, you should also look for James O’Sullivan. You may find that your Irish family name originally had an O’ prefix long ago, before your ancestors traveled to America.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

That moment! It is a moment frozen in time and memory. A moment you’ll always remember, the moment that you view a handwritten entry in an old ledger book in a small Irish village parish office, after months or years of searching. The handwritten entry from 1866, recording your Irish grandparent’s birth, or the handwritten entry from 1911, recording your Irish grandparents’ marriage appears before your eyes. An emotional, sentimental feeling comes over you. Here is the evidence and record of a significant event in your Irish ancestor’s life in Ireland. The record connects you with your Irish ancestors’ origins. The record is a part of your Irish family history that, in some spiritual way, may define who you are today.

After you identify your Irish ancestors’ home and parish in Ireland and you travel to Ireland, it is well worth a visit to the parish church to view the baptism and marriage records and find the entries related to all of your ancestors in that parish. The parish pastor will transfer the ledger entries to modern forms with the parish seal, as the official records of your ancestors’ baptisms or marriages.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

A Blessing before Meals from North Mayo

Beannachtaí na cuig arán agus an dá iasc
Mar do roinn Dia ar an gcuig míle fear;

Rath ón Rí a rinne an roinn
Ar ár gcuid is ár gcomhroinn.

A loose translation is as follows:

The blessings of the five fish and the two breads,
That God divided on the multitude of five thousand

The Great King’s blessed bounty
On our food and shared fare.

(I prefer to use loose translations as I find that literal translations are wooden and stilted and also lose a lot of the nuances and subtleties of the originals).

Douglas Hyde was our first President (1938 – 1945) and was also a noted Gaelic scholar. In his book “The Religious Songs of Connaught” he has a version of the blessing and was particularly taken with the last couplet which he describes as a particularly fine example of Bardic poetry.

Bardic poetry was syllabic and great effort was made to ensure that every line contained alliteration. Other types of ornamentation such as a play on words were also valued. There were four main types of syllabic structures and up to twenty others of which a type known as “Deibhidhe” was the most important.

“Deibhidhe” was written in couplets and each line contained exactly seven syllables.

The first line contain no fewer than four “r”s in “Rath”, “Rí”, “rinne” and “roinn”.

The second line contains two sets of alliteration “á” in “ár” and “ár” and “gc” in “gcuid” and “gcomhroinn”.

The couplet is tied together by a play on words i.e. words sounding the same but with a different literal meaning

rinne = made
roinn = divide
gcomhroinn (second syllable) = share.

A version for America:

In this version I hope to retain the original Bardic couplet by giving a phonetic spelling and a pronunciation guide

The blessings of the five fish and two breads,
That God divided on the multitude of five thousand.

Wrah own Wree (P) a wrinn un wrinn (P)
Er awr gidge (P) iss (P) awr go-wrinn

Pronunciation.

I have heard the Irish ”r” sound described as having burrs all over. Think of the “wr” sound in “wrath” and “wrench”.
The “i” sound in “Wrinn” is like the “i” in “ring” and the “nn” has a nasal resonance. To pronounce “gidge” replace br in “bridge” with g. “Iss” is as in “hiss”. I have included (P) for pause to help the phrasing.

Enjoy your meal!

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

Agriculture and farming have a rich tradition in Irish culture and history. Farms dominate the rural landscape, and have done so for centuries. In the 19th century, during the height of Irish emigration, it was a traditional custom for an elderly farmer, about to retire, to transfer ownership of the farm to the eldest son, the first in line to inherit the farm. The eldest son’s siblings would then probably have to find other careers and livelihoods, sometimes emigrating from Ireland to find their fortune elsewhere. Eliminated from the farm inheritances, a large number of Irish Americans’ ancestors traveled to America in the late 19th century and early 20th century to find work and a better life. Their eldest siblings remained in Ireland, carrying on the families’ farming traditions. Due to this farm inheritance pattern, some Irish farms have, consequently, stayed in the one, same family for decades and decades, going back to the late 19th century when Irish land ownership improved and increased.

Once you find your Irish ancestor’s place of origin or townland, it’s a safe bet that you may find distant relatives in your Irish family tree close by, farming in the traditional way on the original family farm. If not, some descendants of your ancestors may be in the area!

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

Have you ever attempted to find your Irish ancestor’s birthplace, hit a dead end, and struck out? Don’t give up! There are a number of resources and systematic, logical approaches for identifying the town or village where an Irish ancestor was born.

As anyone who has been to Ireland knows, an official recorded Irish village can be one building at a crossroads or one building on a small country lane. There are thousands (60,000 at one point) of these small one building villages all over Ireland! Finding the correct birthplace town or village is a big part of tracing your Irish ancestor’s origins and locating the correct Irish family documents. Using the full complement of census records, passenger lists, naturalization records, church diocese information, and Ordinance Survey road maps, one may find the specific details to pinpoint the Irish ancestor’s birthplace in a parish where the ancestor’s baptism record may be found, with information pointing to the correct birth certificate.

In one recent case, a client’s Irish grandfather, born in 1854, emigrated to America in 1880. As in most Irish emigration stories, this Irish emigrant’s parents and some siblings remained in Ireland. No specific birthplace or village of origin was found in 19th century U.S. records for this ancestor. However, by process of elimination, his family remaining in Ireland and their townland were found in the 1901 Irish census. As few Irish farm families moved around Ireland in the 19th century, there is a high probability that the townland of an emigrant’s family in the 1901 census is, in fact, the birthplace of the emigrant. Through systematic, logical thinking and patient step by step process of elimination, one can successfully identify, with some confidence, the correct birthplace of his or her Irish ancestor.

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

On a recent visit to Washington and West Virginia I read an article on the Scots-Irish emigration to America in the 18th century which, unfortunately, I have mislaid so I am quoting from memory. These migrants were Presbyterians, mainly from Ulster, and they started their migration due to religious persecution as they were very seriously discriminated against at the beginning of the 18th century. There is a dispute about the term Scots-Irish but these Presbyterians were only three or four generations in Ireland and probably thought of themselves as Scots. Many settled in West Virginia and the article indicated that over one million arrived in the United States during the 18th century.

I also became aware of the 2006 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics from which an extract from Table 2 is given. Census of Ireland statistics show that Ireland lost over a million population between 1841 and 1851. There were three components to this population loss

i) Deaths from starvation during the Famine of 1845-7 where there was widespread failure of the potato crop in three successive seasons.

ii) Huge population losses caused by a whole series of epidemics of cholera, typhus and typhoid fever that swept through a weakened population. These epidemics took their toll even in areas that had access to food e. g. maritime communities and the families of officials such as police and Coast Guards who could have afforded to buy food.

iii) Mass emigration which really started in 1847. This was largely landlord sponsored e. g. in that year Sir XXX Gore-Booth chartered three ships and sent nearly 2,000 of his tenants to St. John’s, New Brunswick. The authorities there complained that he had rounded up the old, the destitute and the trouble makers on his estate and dumped them in St. John’s where they became a great burden on the parish. The destination recorded for the vast majority of emigrants leaving Ireland in 1847 was Canada as Government assisted migration to Canada cost £3 (=$12) while passage to the United States cost £4 10s. (= $18). I know of one ship that left Killala in 1847, was quarantined in St. John’s, New Brunswick and then proceeded to Boston where most of the passengers disembarked and I suspect that many of those who left for Canada in 1847 ended up in the United States.

I had not appreciated that the mass emigration, triggered by the Famine, continued so strongly right through the 1850’s with, on average, over 100,000 emigrating to the United States each year. For seven decades from 1860 to 1929 the United States was the main focus of Irish emigration with an average of 40,000 per year for all those 70 years.

The world depression of the 1930’s saw Irish emigration shrink to a fraction of what it had been. When it started up again in the 1940’s the main focus was Britain. During the 1950’s nearly 500,000 emigrated to Britain. This was ten times the number emigrating to the United States. This emigration continued up until the early 1990’s and was only reversed in the 2000’s when we have received 400,000 to 500,000 immigrants. We have at last put behind us the legacy of emigration left to us by the Famine.

During the century of American emigration from Ireland 1830 — 1929 4,500,000 Irish people emigrated to America. I will finish this contribution with the heart-warming story of a family who left a rented farm of four acres of very poor quality land in North Mayo in 1847. Landlordism was at its most cruel and avaricious at the time and they would have paid half their annual income to rent those miserable acres. After surviving the coffin ship they eventually ended up owning a 200 acre farm in West Virginia. On my recent visit there I was struck by the very high quality of land and was not surprised to hear that the main farming used to be dairying and orchards, though the orchards have largely disappeared. The climate is relatively mild with long hot summers and only about a foot of snow in each of the months of December, January and February. Looking at the area with tree-less North Mayo eyes it appears to me that trees grow naturally everywhere. This would have provided them with easily accessible material for fuel, housing, furniture and fencing. They must have felt they had reached the Promised Land. America was very good to our people in those dreadful times.

A large Irish immigrant population settled around the B&O railroad yards in west Baltimore during the railroad’s heyday. This photo was taken in that neighborhood in the early 1920’s. This photo portrays one Irish immigrant custom of photographing the youngest member of the family on a pony on a city sidewalk. Notice the prince valiant bowl haircut! This is not quite the rural wild-west scene that many Irish children fantasized about when they went to the cowboy movies at the cinema. We have seen a number of similar photos in family albums over the years. A child on a pony is totally out of place on an urban city sidewalk. At that time, it was not unusual for photographers, hawking their photography skills and services on the streets of Baltimore, to use a pony to close the deal! Apparently, the combination of the Irish love of horses and the American wild-west was irresistible to the Irish immigrants of west Baltimore!

We would love to see your (similar) photos and hear your stories. We will post them in the comments section of this website.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

When reviewing and extracting information from an old handwritten U.S. or Irish document, you should look at the entire document to determine the unique handwriting traits of the official who completed the document long ago. From these unique handwriting traits, you can identify how the official formed the individual letters in words on the document. For example, on a handwritten birth certificate, a person’s surname, written in script, appears to have the letter “r” in it. On closer inspection, comparing the script surname with other script word entries on the certificate reveals that the “r” is actually an “e”. If there is any doubt or question about an illegible name on a document, it is smart to look at all of the handwritten words and entries in the document to help solve the mystery of the illegible name.

See additional Irish family document lessons learned and tips in earlier posts below and in the archives.

A client asked for our help to locate and retrieve her Irish grandfather’s birth certificate to add to her file for an Irish citizenship by descent application. To start, our client only had her American born father’s 1910 birth certificate with her Irish grandparents’ names and ages on it. Over the years, through family conversations, our client heard that her Irish grandparents came from County Kerry, near Tralee. Through some patient and thorough “detective” work, we first gathered information about the Irish grandfather from passenger lists and U.S. census data on this side of the Atlantic. Then we traced the Irish grandfather to his origins in Ireland. Putting all of the pieces of the puzzle together, we were able to successfully find and retrieve our client’s Irish grandfather’s Irish birth certificate. This demonstrates that even with limited information about an Irish ancestor, it is feasible to “strike gold” with a bit of persistent fact finding and evidence gathering.

See additional Irish family document lessons learned and tips in earlier posts below and in the archives.

My written thoughts about a once-in-a-lifetime Irish family gathering in 2003 are overdue. I’ll attempt to capture, in simple words, the feelings and emotions of attending an extended Irish family gathering.

One summer bank holiday weekend in 2003, descendants of Thomas Healy and Sarah (Bourke) Healy, pictured above, gathered in Belderrig, north County Mayo, Ireland, to celebrate a common ancestry and pay tribute to parents and grandparents along the way. What a special experience!
To spend four days with over 150 people, related in numerous branches of a Healy family tree, was an experience to cherish for a lifetime.

Day One, Friday – Relatives from all around the world began arriving in north Mayo. Family members traveled from near and far to attend the Healy clan gathering. They came from as far away as Australia, the Mideast, the European continent, and the United States. They came to their ancestors’ small village in a remote part of north Mayo. They gathered together to celebrate and commemorate family members who had gone before and passed on. Late night pub revelry and house parties, with conversations into the wee hours, were the norm. Extended family members, many who had not seen each other for five or more years, renewed relationships and filled in the missing parts of life stories. There were plenty of smiles and laughs that went on and on into the night. There is nothing in the world that can compare to the feeling and memories of late night conversations and storytelling around a fireplace turf fire in an Irish cottage in a remote part of the Irish countryside with the beverage of your choice!

Day Two, Saturday – After the late night revelry and house parties of the previous evening, it was up early at 10 a.m. for a brisk, refreshing walk to the site of a former Irish Coast Guard station that ancestors had manned long ago. The site, on high ground overlooking the wild North Atlantic, is close to dramatic north Mayo sea cliffs. The site offered quite a breathtaking view for the early morning risers. We were walking the trails and paths that our ancestors had walked long ago. We were now wide awake and ready to face the long, exciting day ahead of us. I had great admiration and a new respect for the older members of the group who showed more spunk and energy that some of the younger members.

After a very sociable, hearty lunch in the village community center, the more adventuresome, fit, athletic family members walked from Belderrig to Doonfeeney, a distance of about 13 kilometers or 8 miles. They traced our forbearers’ footsteps and followed the same route that our ancestors walked between the two villages. The modern day walk commemorated our ancestors’ late 19th century and early 20th century travels in north County Mayo. Of course, the less adventuresome, fit, and athletic, including yours truly, drove the route to the destination. At the destination, family members gathered in the Doonfeeney cemetery, where grandparents and great grandparents are buried, to pray for and honor our ancestors long gone.

Later that evening, the family packed the community center for a special, once in a lifetime, intimate concert by family members delivering their best “party pieces”. The talent on stage included wonderful Irish folk singers, poetry readers, comedians, and “three lovely lasses from Bannion”! A great session, with plenty of audience participation, went on well past midnight.

The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) had many rules and regulations governing their constables’ assignments to stations around Ireland. I recently discovered this while working with a client whose grandfather was in the RIC in the early 1900’s. Understanding the RIC’s rules and regulations helped us trace this RIC constable’s assignments in various western counties, including Mayo, Roscommon, and Galway. Knowing the constable’s assignments and years of those assignments helped us pinpoint the towns where the constable’s children were born and baptized.

One RIC regulation prohibited a married RIC constable from being stationed in his wife’s home county. Thus, an unmarried RIC constable, who met his future wife while stationed in her home county, would be reassigned to another county after the marriage. It was not unusual for RIC constables to transfer to different towns every few years. The RIC records listing a constable’s assignments are kept on microfilm in the National Archives in Dublin, Ireland. An RIC record contains some valuable Irish family history information, including the native county of the constable, his wife’s native county, their marriage date, and, in sequence, the counties where the constable was assigned during his career.

See additional Irish family document lessons learned and tips in earlier posts below and in the archives.

Periodically, in this blog, I will digress from Irish family document related topics to opine about some other subject directly or indirectly related to the Irish and Ireland. This is one of those occasions.

I’m concerned. I have the conversation blues. The art of spirited, spontaneous, impromptu conversation among strangers in public places is gradually being assaulted and sabotaged by electronic devices! Yesterday, while riding the local metro subway, I was surrounded by Generation X (Y, or whatever capital letter applies today!) adults, each feverishly banging away on their Blackberries. They were oblivious, of course, to the world around them. It’s a lonely existence on the subway these days.

Now, you may wonder “what the heck does this have to do with the Irish and Ireland”. I’ll tell you. When I lived in Dublin in the late 1970’s, the spirited, spontaneous, impromptu conversations among strangers in public places were wonderful to behold! Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that this lively interaction among strangers still exists today in Ireland. Call me old fashioned (maybe out of touch), but I found that riding public transportation, with people engaged in lively conversations, to be a much more enjoyable and relaxing experience, than with people transfixed and mesmerized (zombies?) by electronic devices. Anthropologists, sociologists, and other ‘gists could have a field day, studying and postulating on the potential deterioration of human verbal communication skills, as a result of a growing preference to communicate electronically (using hands, thumbs, and fingers!) with other human beings. Whatever happened to a good old fashioned chat or “natter”? Let’s save the art of conversation! Banish those conversation blues! Are you with me? What do you think? (Yes, it’s okay to communicate with me electronically. Type away!)

(This is my first opinion post. After you comment, or not, to this post, you can scroll down to view the earlier Irish family document posts.)

Myth: All birth records were destroyed in the Dublin Four Courts building fire in 1922 during the Irish civil war.

Fact: All Irish civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths has survived intact to our day. Although birth records were destroyed in the Dublin Four Courts fire, copies of the same birth records were kept in Counties’ records offices throughout Ireland, preserving records thought lost.

When you are traveling to Ireland to research your Irish roots, you want to optimize and maximize your travel experience and your research time. As many of you probably know already, jet lag can kill and waste the first day in Ireland for you. However, if you practice some sound jet lag remedies, you may find the energy to enjoy the first day in Ireland as much as the following days.

In the past, before I caught on that there were cures for jet lag, I partied on the outbound legs of my trips to Ireland with the best of them. You know who you are! On vacation trips to Ireland, I partied in the departure airport lounge and on the plane. That’s what vacations are all about! However, arriving in Ireland at 7 a.m. local time (2 a.m. U.S. eastern time), with three beers or vodka tonics in me, the party came to a screeching halt! I’d take myself to the first hotel and first bed I could find, crawl in, and not emerge for hours. Hence, the first day in Ireland, and I’m a no show!

Now that I’m older (and slightly wiser?), I practice the following jet lag remedy with proven good results. It may be difficult for some of you, but consider it anyway. I abstain from caffeine and alcohol 24-48 hours prior to my flight and during the flight. I have my first cup of coffee after landing in Ireland. I’ve found that now I’m energized, awake, and ready to enjoy the entire first day in Ireland. No longer do I crawl into the first bed or sofa I can find in the middle of that first day. I now have enough energy to make a full day of it, waiting until 10 p.m. or later to retire. I hope that this short term caffeine and alcohol abstinence remedy may work for you too! What jet lag remedies have worked for you?

Having courtship transportation limitations in the early 19th century, Irish men wooed and courted Irish women living in close proximity to them. Men traveled as far as existing modes of transportation (e.g. walking or cart) would take them. The invention of the bicycle increased the distances men were willing to travel to court their ladies. The car increased the distances, yet again. Today, I understand that the low cost European air carriers are the bicycles of the 21st century! Some Irish men are regularly traveling on low cost flights each week to European cities, to maintain long distance romances and to court their women with the same fervor and passion of their male ancestors on bicycles long ago.

The English translations of Irish village and town names have taken different spellings over the years. In the early 1800’s, engineering and map surveyors traveled throughout Ireland, translating Irish place names into English, with varying results (see later posting about Translations: The Play). The Irish word for “head” is “ceann”. Irish village names starting with “ceann” translated to “cane” or “keane” in the English versions. In the 1901 Irish census, the grandfather of one recent client lived in Canearagh in County Kerry. The same man’s 1878 birth certificate spelled his birthplace as Keaneiragh. Both of these spellings are correct spellings for the same place. Discovering and knowing these spelling differences make Irish family document searches that much more satisfying and interesting to do.

One interesting aspect of Irish first names, is this name pattern tradition that a large number of Irish families followed in the 1800’s and 1900’s:

1st son was named after the father’s father
2nd son was named after the mother’s father
3rd son was named after the father
4th son was named after the father’s eldest brother
1st daughter was named after the mother’s mother
2nd daughter was named after the father’s mother
3rd daughter was named after the mother
4th daughter was named after the mother’s eldest sister

I’ve seen this tradition in the numerous Irish family document searches that I’ve conducted, while examining Irish records from 1850 through 1920.

While recently working with a client and searching for the client’s mother’s Irish birth certificate, I spoke with a representative from one of the many Irish Family History centers in Ireland. From these conversations, I learned that it was not unusual for the mother-to-be to travel to her parents’ home village or town to give birth to her baby. Consequently, an infant appearing on a census record may not have been born in the village of record at the time of the census. The family may have moved there after the child was born, prior to the census, or the mother returned to her parents’ home to give birth to her baby. Therefore, in either case, document record searches in locations beyond the census recorded home location are necessary and required.