This is part 4 of a collection of 65 messages (a thread) saved from the now defunct FidoNet National Genealogical Echo between Jim Curran and myself, as well as a number of others discussing Irish/Celtic heritage and history, posted to the echo between July, 1992 and July, 1993, in four parts.

The final two messages below were not actually a part of the thread on Irish Heritage conducted about a year earlier than the date on these messages, but Paul Delmore did correspond with Jim Curran in that thread, and in his messages here about a year later, he was able to tell us on the Echo what his second cousin had meant by the "War" mentioned in his prior message dated 08-18-92.

Last updated November 25, 2005.

Area:   National Genealogical Echo
Msg#:  7678
Date:   01-11-1993 14:23
From:  Jim Curran
To:       Elsie Savell
Subj:   Irish Cultural Conquest

Elsie—

You asked to be kept apprised of my reading list. I've got a marvelous one for you: The Cultural Conquest of Ireland by Kevin Collins, Mercier Press, 1990, dist by Dufour Editions, Chester Springs, PA, (215) 458-5005.

This book is a very academic approach to the topic, so it won't be everyone's cup of tea. For me, its major strength is its relating the Irish experience to the much broader, more general topic of colonialism and cultural destruction resulting from colonialism. *Very* nice parallels are drawn between the Irish situation and other English colonial situations such as Australia, South Africa and India and still other colonial situations such as the French in Algeria and Southeast Asia.

The author has put into words and an understandable context many concepts and actions that I had previously been unable to correlate even though I was aware of them. I just didn't have the breadth of vision to see the significance of even many of the things I have discussed with you.

Probably the best thing to come out of it for me is the ability to conceptualize what has been meant by "Irish nationality." It is one of those quicksilver concepts that has always seemed to elude me every time I have tried to grab it. My problem has been that I have tried to define it in terms of modern day concepts of the nation-state rather than on its own terms, those that were inherent in the society of the time. BTW this is also the same failing of the English in general when they try to deal with Ireland.

Basically, and very quickly, the top-down, political, governmental, nation-state definition of a nation that grew out of feudalism, absolute monarchism on the English model, the Reformation, and urban-industrial society just has no applicability to the Irish definition of a nation based on their bottom-up, cultural, decentralized, rural, collective ownership, elected monarchism society. While many of these aspects no longer exist in Ireland, the philosophy and psychology growing out of them does and presents a very difficult problem reconciling the conflicting approaches.

One of the neat things this view of Ireland has done has been to put into words the almost unique Irish sense of time and place. I have noted and been fascinated by them for many, many years altho' I didn't understand and couldn't explain them. For instance, in 1987, I stood watching a farm family in Co. Cavan, mother, father and five children, desperately trying to get their haying done before storms hit. When discussing it with our hosts later, I asked why they didn't use machinery. After several moments of equivocation about too expensive, too big, too everything, I persisted in my questions and asked why they didn't form an farm co-op that could provide the equipment for several such farms, I got an answer that rang true even tho' I was astounded. The family would not use the equipment because that was not the "right way to treat the land!"

---QuickBBS 2.76
* Origin: Jack's Genealogy Emporium - (703)373-8215 (1:274/30)

Area:   National Genealogical Echo
Msg#:  8587
Date:   01-27-1993 14:31
From:  Jim Curran
To:       Elsie Savell
Subj:   TRAD. IRISH CULTURE - PT 1

Elsie—

In light of your comments on the cultural aspects of Irish life, thought you might like some comments on what constituted traditional Gaelic culture or society and how it differed from that of England or much of the Continent.

The first and foremost fact to keep in mind is that the entire island of Ireland had a common language and a common culture until relatively recently and that the loss of the common language and common culture was the direct result of deliberate efforts of many centuries' duration to destroy it.

The two topics of language and culture are *NOT* independent. While I don't go so far as some do in this direction, I recognize that language both creates and reflects a mindset within a population, a way of viewing and dealing with the world. This viewing and dealing with the world is just another name for culture, i.e., a culture is a people's rationalization of their observations of the world and of the ways they have found to best cope with the vagaries of existence. And a society is then the institutionalization of a culture. If you lose the language, the associated culture/society cannot last; conversely, if you lose the culture/society, the language cannot stand on its own. All these tendencies are amply illustrated in Irish history.

Five of the main pillars of any society are religion, educa­tion, laws, government/leadership, and skills/arts. In any given society, the level of development of any one ele­ment is different than in any other society. E.g., among the barbarians such as the Huns, Vandals, Goths, Ostro­goths, etc., leadership was highly developed (altho' I would hesitate to call it government), religion ran a poor second in development, and formal education and laws were virtually unknown; skills and arts seem to have been rudimentary. In Celtic society (there I am talking about Celts on the Continent), leadership, religion, and skills/arts were highly developed while education and laws were substantial, but still took a distinct second place. Ireland was a distinctly different case even from their Celtic brothers of the Continent because their society, which originally emulated that of the Continent and England, did not undergo the stresses that the Continent and England underwent.

Successive waves of invaders such as Romans and the many barbarian peoples forced the creation of a hierarch­ical structure on society on the Continent and in England that eventually became the feudal system. Ireland was totally untouched by these invasions; their turn was to come much later. Feudal society was virtually monolithic; all functions of society resided in a single person, the absolute monarch, who could and did delegate some of these functions, but who could reclaim his privilege at any time.

--- Opus-CBCS 1.73a
* Origin: W3NU Online (1:2601/100.0)

Area:   National Genealogical Echo
Msg#:  8588
Date:   01-27-1993 14:33
From:  Jim Curran
To:       Elsie Savell
Subj:   TRAD. IRISH CULTURE - PT 2

It can be easily argued that this comment is too facile, that the leadership / government and religion functions were distinct entities. Yet the power of the absolute monarch was grounded in "divine right" and in some cases he was a semi-divinity. And the symbiosis of the two functions became most obvious in England with Henry VIII's takeover of the Church. And, in fact, England at that point became the most extreme example of what I'm talking about.

Ireland avoided all this. It emerged from the Ice Age much later than most of Europe and basically had no indigenous flora and fauna and that of course includes people. While there were earlier settlers than the Celts in Ireland, they were to the best of our knowledge exceptionally sparse. At least four successive waves of Celts then settled Ireland, the Gaels being the most recent. The best estimate for their invasion seems to be circa 300 BC. From then until roughly 1500, they were left virtually untouched. They escaped the tender ministrations of the Romans and the barbarians. No, I'm not forgetting the Vikings/Norsemen, the Normans and the early English.

The Vikings/Norsemen made little impact on Gaelic society at least during their early period. Oh yes, they created a lot of destruction and forced the Irish into doing such things as building round towers, but their impact was limited to raids up the waterways in Ireland and the creation of bases such as Limerick, Waterford and Dublin for their raids. They never took over their country as a whole or tried to destroy the culture per se. And, in the last analysis, they were beguiled by and absorbed into Irish culture so that they became all but indistinguishable from the original Celts/Gaels.

Much the same can be said for the Normans and early English. Why then was Ireland so able to beguile and absorb these invaders? Why did these peoples become "more Irish than the Irish"?

Irish society was pastoral and almost entirely decentralized. Leadership of the government was invested in the septs, the family groupings. The clans of the Highlands are a special case of the more general concept of septs. While the Irish did maintain control of their society at such a low level, they obviously had a concept of themselves as part of a much greater entity. They, for instance, had their kings and queens of provinces (note particularly Queen Maeve of Connacht) and the Ard Ri, or High King, most notably personified by Brian Boru. But these offices did not have the inherent powers that kings and queens of Europe and England had. What power they had was due more to the force of personality and ability of the individual holder of the office than to any prescribed powers. The reality of this conception of a larger entity and the basis for Irish claims to nationhood tho' denied by the English, can be found in many ways in the Gaelic language. I will quote only one example, the Gaelic word for province, "coicid," which means literally "one-fifth." There were originally five provinces, not the four currently recognized; the fifth was Meath.

--- Opus-CBCS 1.73a
* Origin: W3NU Online (1:2601/100.0)

Area:   National Genealogical Echo
Msg#:  7927
Date:   01-29-1993 09:20
From:   Jim Curran
To:       Elsie Savell
Subj:    Trad Irish Culture - Pt 5

The most striking aspect of this phase was the monastic community. Once again, Ireland applied decentralization, this time to their religon. In Ireland, the abbot of a mon­astery was the highest effective leader. Yes, there were higher authorities, but once again they depended more upon the force of personality and ability of the office-holder than on prescribed authority. Does anything have to be said about the value and effectiveness of this church in light of Ireland's acknowledged role as the repository of Western knowledge and religion during the Dark Ages?

The second conversion was not so pleasant. Rome, after centuries of incompetence and venality, tried to re-exert its primacy and to force conformity upon the Church by overlaying then current Church practice with a centralized feudal system of their own through the bishopric system. In doing so, it took on a self-assured, competent, func­tion­ing church in Ireland and the battle would have been quite unequal except that England was brought into the battle on the side of the Church. England used the Church and the Church used England, each for its own ends. The foremeost example occured in 1172 when the only English Pope issued a Bull authorizing Henry II to invade Ireland, "civilize" the inhabitants, and, by the way, assert the supremacy of the Church and regularize their modes of worship. I have no intention of getting further involved in Church history except to mention two of the more in­cred­ible battles that took place in this contest. One was over how to establish the date of Easter each year and the other was over whether monks should wear tonsures. You better believe no Irishman ever opted for the absolutely Byzantine method of selecting the date for Easter that we now "enjoy". Altho' the battle went on for centuries, the Gaelic Christian Church eventually succumbed to the modern Christian Church.

The ability of Gaelic society to absorb an alien culture, extract its best features and integrate them into their own culture while maintaining the overall integrity of their own is best exemplifed in the area of education. Before the coming of Christianity, Ireland already had a formal net­work of schooling, but, as usual, in a uniquely Irish decentralized manner. The best way to describe them is as school-villages. A single teacher or a small group would found a school and create a community around them to teach usually a single topic or discipline. These school-villages were often religious in nature, but the majority seem to have been secular in nature, dealing with such things as Brehon Law. The coming of Christian­ity brought with it a written language that replaced the cumbersome Ogham script written language that saw very little practical use because of its difficulty. Adoption of written language then became a central part of the school system and the 6th to 12th centuries saw an incredible flowering of Gaelic literature. It was a golden age. Not only were these writings not primarily religious in nature but were written in the vernacular, not Latin. So the writings got a tremendous distribution even on the Continent where Gaelic, because of the efforts of their evangelizing monks, was a lingua franca almost on a par with Latin. An outpouring of this type would not be seen again for several centuries until the beginning of the Renaissance in Italy.

[Additional Note (24-Oct-2007): A more recent author of Irish novels, which are set in the 7th century and feature an early Irish feminine "detective," Sister Fidelma, is Peter Tremayne, the pseudonym of Peter Berresford Ellis, a prominent authority on the ancient Celts. He often includes an informative "historical note" at the beginning of each book that sheds light on the customs of early Irish history. See, St. Martin's Minotaur for the book titles, or search the catalog of your local library.]

---Opus-CBCS 1.73a
* Origin: W3NU Online (1:2601/100.0)

Area:   National Genealogical Echo
Msg#:  8249
Date:   01-29-1993 09:32
From:   Jim Curran
To:       Elsie Savell
Subj:    TRAD. IRISH CULTURE - PT 6

It goes against our experience and is extremely difficult for us to conceive of a society that functioned well for over a millenium with a common set of laws accepted by the populace as a whole that did not not need courts and jails to back up its dictates and was not issued or enforced by a government. Yet this was the case in Ireland under Brehon Law. Brehon Law was the law of the land in some areas as late as the 1800's; English concepts of law and justice did not fit the Irish temperament. I cannot claim to understand how all this worked; I have as much diffi­culty comprehending as anyone else. All I can say is that it existed, it worked remarkably well and was admired in many corners of Europe (always excepting the English, of course).

To anyone familiar with Gaelic arts and skills, little has to be said about the uniqueness, utility and craftsmanship and just plain beauty of the creations of Ireland's Gaelic artisans. The fact that may not be quite so obvious is that Gaelic society was so far beyond a subsistence economy that it could afford to support a very high percentage of her population in endeavors such as the arts, education, religion, law and all the other educated professions which would have been considered unproductive elsewhere at the time. Nowhere in England or on the Continent was there anywhere near a comparable situation.

Starting in the late 1100's and continuing to the present day, it has always suited English purposes to denigrate the Irish and the Gaelic culture as "primitive" and "bar­baric" and to picture the Irishman as an ape. Circa 1900, an English "scientist" devised a scale of human develop­ment that placed Englishman at the top of the scale just below God and the Irish at the bottom just above apes. That holds true even today; all you have to do is look at any cartoon in "Punch" or other English magazine or newspaper that shows an Irishman and see how they are portrayed.

---TBBS v2.1/NM
* Origin: Nat'l Genealogical Society, Arlington VA 703-528-2612 (1:109/302)

Area:   National Genealogical Echo
Msg#:  8249
Date:   01-29-1993 09:27
From:   Jim Curran
To:       Elsie Savell
Subj:    TRAD. IRISH CULTURE - PT 7/7

But this attitude was held only by the English. Through­out the centuries and throughout the Continent from Spain to Russia, Irishmen were readily accepted and wel­comed at all levels of society and contributed to their adopted cultures as diplomats, field marshalls, clerics, statesmen and in a multitude of other respected positions and professions. Obviously these countries not only saw no detriment to having been raised and trained in a Gaelic society, but also believed that Irishmen with such back­grounds were a positive and valuable addition to their own cultures. Conversely, most of those who came to Ireland, even the conquerors, found no difficulty in adopting the Gaelic language and culture, Gaelicizing their names and living as Gaels.

So the bottom line seems to be that the only improve­ment that England brought to Ireland was "better" war­fare; and, as you well know, might makes right and the victors write the history.

If you think I am painting an idyllic picture of Gaelic life, please disabuse yourself of that notion. Life in Gaelic Ire­land was not easy or pleasant; I have absolutely no wish to return to those days. Life there was, however, far easier and more pleasant than it was for any of their contempor­aries in the rest of Europe. And it is clear that the Gaelic culture could not have survived unchanged into the mod­ern world, but the reality for me is that it was never given the chance to evolve in the dynamic and relatively peace­ful manner it had already proven itself capable of. I can­not help but feel that some very important and unique ways of viewing the world and dealing with its problems have been lost with the loss of Gaelic culture.

--Opus-CBCS 1.73a
* Origin: W3NU Online (1:2601/100.0)

Area:    National Genealogical Echo
Msg#:   7156
Date:    07-08-1993 00:04
From:  Jim Curran
To:       Elsie Savell
Subj:    Irish References

Elsie—

Here are the refs you asked for for your gen. group:

On the assumption you're looking for very readable, general histories at this point, that's what I have selected.

Nonfiction:

For a good history with an English interpretation of many events, but overall, pretty fair —

The Green Flag by Robert Kee, Weidenfeld & Nicholson Ltd., London, 1972

Also released as three separate paperback volumes, — The Most Distressful Country, The Bold Fenian Men & Ourselves Alone Quartet Books Ltd., London as recently as 1983 (I have seen an even more recent reprinting but don't know the date)

With a totally (and sometimes hyper, but always enjoyable) Irish viewpoint —

History of the Irish Race by Seumas MacManus, Devin-Adair Co., NY, 1977 (orig written 1921).
Again, have seen an even more recent reprinting, but don't know date.

Probably my favorite primarily because of its tie-in to music —

Blood on the Harp:  Irish Rebel History in Ballad by Turlough Faolin, Whison Publishing Co., Troy, NY, 1983.

Fiction:

I decided to throw in a couple of very enjoyable potboilers by Walter Macken who is an extremely prolific, widely-read novelist in Ireland. These 3 are different than most of his stuff because they are historical novels and are better than most of his work —

Seek the Fair Land     (about Cromwell)

The Silent Land          (about 1826 Famine)

The Scorching Wind   (about the War of Independence/Civil War period)

If you want references for more detailed histories of specific eras or issues, let me know which ones and I'll make some recommendations. You should be able to find these in Irish stores although it will be rather hit or miss.

Good luck!

--- Maximus 2.01wb
* Origin Mabel's Mansion Sharon, PA (412) 981-3151 (1:2601/507)

Area:   National Genealogical Echo
Msg#:  7157
Date:   07-08-1993 00:21
From:  Jim Curran
To:        Elsie Savell
Subj:    Shanty Irish

Strangely enough, the phrases "shanty Irish" and "lace curtain Irish" were originally both perjorative terms and originated primarily in New England, altho' I am sure a good argument could be made for other places.  Each of the terms has its counterpart in Ireland: "bogtrotter" = "shanty Irish," "West Brit" = "lace curtain."

"Shanty Irish" refers to the poor Irish Catholic immigrants who tried to maintain some semblance of their Gaelic way of life in this country. They experienced great agony in this country because they resisted "assimilation." I put quotes around "assimilation" to highlight the fact that assimilation really didn't take place in this country. Assimilation suggests that there is a blending of cultures. Each of the societies/cultures coming to this country had to give up their background in order to be accepted. A minor case is the changing of names at Ellis Island. A major one was the scorn that until recently was heaped on someone who tried to maintain their ethnic identity. This occured even within families as I can well attest even from my own families.

"Lace curtain," on the other hand, referred to those Irish Catholic immigrants and first generation Irish-Americans who were prepared to give up their own culture and adopt that of the Yankee majority. It describes their pretensions to a more "refined" life. It implies smaller families, some money, dropping of typical Irish life styles, adoption of Yankee money-making ideals and willingness to compete in ways unknown to their parents. This might seem to be a laudable goal and therefore "lace curtain" should be complimentary. The fact is, however, that **ALL** Irish Catholic immigrants were so looked down on that the distinction was not between a "good" Irish Catholic and a "bad" Irish-Catholic. Rather, the distinction being made was similar to making a distinction between wild apes and apes who wear clothes. Both are curiosities, to be avoided if possible, but to be laughed at and scorned no matter what. You will note that the term inherently identifies as Irish, not American, and maintains their separateness,

"Maggie and Jiggs" (remember that one?) was the epit­ome of this attitude toward the "lace curtain Irish". Partic­ularly in its early days, the strip had a heavy-handed, virulent tone that was passed off as humor. Even Thoreau got into the act; see his scattered comments about the Irish in "Walden". Much of the music, primarily emanating from Tin Pan Alley in the 1900-1920 timeframe, that purported to be Irish music was also a reflection of these attitudes. The less or non objectionable songs of this body of music have now become "Irish standards" such as Danny Boy, If You're Irish, Molly-O, When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, etc. A man by the name of Chauncey Olcott was responsible for a great many of them. As you saw last week, none of these bear any resemblance to true tradi­tional Irish music. Actually, today's country music bears more resemblance to traditional Irish music than the so-called Irish music of several generations ago. This is be­cause it derives from the Appalachians where vast num­bers of Irish Protestants had settled 2 centuries ago. At that time Irish Protestants acknowledged their Irishness and carried much of their culture with them. Even today, in some of the backwoods "hollers" of WV, KY, TN, NC, SC & VA, you can find an incredibly pure strain of music (particularly fiddle playing) that is truer to its Irish roots than that found today in Ireland! During the Depression, collectors came up with versions of songs that were virtually identical to those of the Childe ballads.

While the meaning of "shanty Irish" has not particularly changed over the years, the same cannot be said about "lace curtain Irish." The Irish who learned to compete and be successful in American ways and on American terms were rightfully quite proud of themselves and what they had achieved, even if there had been a great price attached to that metamorphosis. They themselves adopted the term and gave it a less perjorative connota­tion in many areas. And they used "shanty Irish" to distance themselves from their brethren who were unwilling or unable to make the transition.

Some readings: The fictional (but semi-autobiographical) The Parish and the Hill by Mary Doyle Curran (no rela­tion), Feminist Press, City University of NY, NY, 1986 (orig. written 1948) is an exposition of one family's success and lack thereof in making the change and the price they had to pay. Joel might be particularly inter­ested in Andrew Greeley's nonfiction sociological study, That Most Distressful Nation, The Taming of the American Irish, Quadrangle Books, 1972.

Here's one I should have included in the last note:

Paddy's Lament, A Prelude to Hatred by Thomas Gallagher, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982 (specifically about 1845-1849 Famines)

-!- Maximus 2.01wb
! Origin: Mabel's Mansion Sharon, PA (412) 981-3151 (1:2601/507)

Area:  National Genealogical Echo
Msg#:  6086
Date:  07-13-1993 14:05
From:  Jim Curran
To:       Elsie Savell
Subj:   IRISH MERCENARIES PART 1/2

Elsie, Have found a marvelous book that sheds great addi­tional light on a number of questions you previously asked: Irish Battles, A Military History of Ireland, by G. A. Hayes-McCoy, Appletree Press, 1990.

It covers the period from the Battle of Clontarf, 1014, to the Battle of Arklow, 1798. Covers relevant immediate history and goes into tactics, strategy, weapons and Gaelic society and its influences on military campaigns. So it deals very directly with your question about the types of fighting that took place.

But more surprising, because it was so unexpected, was the explanation of the words "gallowglass" and "bonnaght" which I was familiar with but didn't realize the full significance of. I knew them to be different types of soldiers from the 13th to the 16th Century. But they were much more.

The word "gallowglass" is the Anglicization of the Gaelic word for "foreign warrior." Up until roughly 1250, Ireland had no true warrior class. All freemen (i.e., not peasants or husbandmen) were expected to do military service, but there were no standing armies of any kind, no warriors whose sole occupation in life was to wage war. But battles with the conquering Normans over the previous century proved that the Irish form of warfare did not work against armored troops and particularly the horsemen whose great weight and relative invulnerability made a Norman charge nearly invincible. At first slowly, and then more quickly after Robert The Bruce's invasion of Ireland to fight the English and draw off English attention from Scotland, and still more quickly as the Lordships of the Isles and the western Highlands of Scotland came under increasing pressure from both the English and the Kingdom of Scotland itself, Scottish soldiers of the Isles and the western Highlands appeared regularly in the Irish ranks as mercenaries and became the first true Irish armies. They were deemed foreign by the Irish even tho' they were recognized as primarily Gaelic (the people they came from were called Gall-Gael, foreign Gaels, from the Isles or Inis-Gall, Island of the Foreigners) because of the high admixture of Viking/Norse blood in their heritage.

Many of these mercenaries stayed on in Ireland and became the first true (and successful) Scots plantation of Ireland, predating Elizabeth's attempts by several centuries.

They lived primarily in what is now Ulster but their fami­lies can be found just about anywhere in Ireland now. The families include the MacDonalds (primarily from the glens of Antrim), MacSwineys (pronounced McSweeney), MacDowells, MacRorys, MacCabes and others.

-!- TBBS v2.1/NM
! Origin: Nat'l Genealogical Society, Arlington VA 703-528-2612 (1:109/302)

Area:  National Genealogical Echo
Msg#:  6087
Date:  07-13-1993 14:06
From:  Jim Curran
To:       Elsie Savell
Subj:   IRISH MERCENARIES PART 2/2

The gallowglasses were strong, skillful fighters, usually wearing quilted or padded jackets, mail shirts and iron or steel helmets. Their primary weapon was a battle-axe that was particularly effective against mounted troops. Apart from the efficacy of their weapons or armor, the gallow­glasses were apparently the epitome of the wild High­lander, combined with some of the aspects of the Berserkers and thus a fearsome soldier.

By 1500, the pressure from the English became so intense that the voluntary hostings of the Irish freemen assisted by their gallowglass mercenaries were insuffi­cient and a new class of Irishman appeared, the bonnaghts. The term is an anglicization of the Gaelic word for "billeted men" which were the first Irish standing armies. They apparently adopted many of the gallowglass characteristics and were fearsome fighters in their own right. "Bonnaght" was sometimes used as an inclusive term designating all mercenaries, both foreign and domestic, but was usually used to designate specifically domestic mercenaries.

In the 16th Century, still another strain of Scotsman emigrated to Ireland, initially as mercenaries in Irish pay, the Albanachs. These so-called 'new Scots' were generally unarmored and their weapon of choice was the great, two-handed claymore. Many of these New Scots came from the same families as the previous gallowglasses had, but they also include many more Scottish families.

To complete the picture, Shane O'Neill in his battles with Queen Elizabeth and her deputies in the 1550's and 60's, needed far more manpower than he had available and, for the first time, non-freemen of Ireland were armed and put in the field to fight.

In rereading what I've written, I think the term "freemen" needs some explanation. It is not used here as the oppo­site of slaves; it means merely those who held title to land or freeholds. The unfree were not slaves, but were the tillers of the soil and all those workers and poor folk with no title to land, the peasants and husbandmen, the "churls", and the "poor earth tillers" that previously had been prohibited from carrying arms and were constrained to assure proper harvests even in the time of war. So, as is usually the case, the actual situation is much more complicated than it originally seemed. The gallowglasses and Albanachs would, of course, have been Catholic, there having been no Protestant church at the time. Yet many of their Scottish families and they, to a great degree, converted once Protestantism arrived. Many are signif­icant Ulster Protestant Scots families today, yet were the strongest possible supporters of the Gaelic order against the later Scots plantations of England's monarchs.

So this may give you a somewhat different view of the issue of Scottish settlement in Ireland.

-!- TBBS v2.1/NM ! Origin: Nat'l Genealogical Society, Arlington VA 703-528-2612 (1:109/302)

Area: National Genealogical Echo
Msg#: 4943
Date: 15 Jul 1994 18:28:01
From: Paul Delmore
To:       Bonnie Bunce
Subj:   FAMINE YEARS

BB> g.grandmother that probably came to the US in
BB> about 1870. She missed passing the Statue of
BB> Liberty and Ellis Island, but I believe she may have
BB> been one of those who fled from Ireland during the BB> Great Famine there.

Depending on her age, she was probably a child of the famine. The classical famine was from about 1845 to 1851. The population of IRELAND which had rapidly expanded after the introduction of the potato, was reduced to almost half in the period starting with the 1845 famine. I heard that 2,000,000 emigrated starting about 1845. Another million died from starvation and disease. My grandmother's family survived since they were "herdsmen." They tended the flocks of others. Almost all IRISH families had their own poultry and pigs. Most had a cow. After the great emigration, landlords fell behind in the taxes they owed the govt. So, in some cases they sold some holdings (which were sometimes very extensive) to pay the bills. Some tenants were evicted by the new owners. My grandmother came from a typical family that lived in a small 2-room cottage. As the family grew, the eldest were literally crowded out. There just was 2 small rooms in that bldg. She was born in 1870 and left in 1886 when another child was born. Her parents were still there in 1911 (census) with one handi­capped son and the youngest child (another son). I am still trying to find out what happpened after that. But, I keep trying to avoid going too far astray when I have other ancestors to trace. It's difficult to avoid spending all of one's time on what looks easiest!

BB> So needless to say, I like the HISTORICAL
BB> aspects of genealogy.

So, do I.

__Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
* WM v3.11/92-0108
! Origin: AutoMania! Wmson, NY 315-483-9455 HST/DS 16.8k (1:2613/601.0)

Area:  National Genealogical Echo
Msg#:  5145
Date:  20 Jul 1994 16:18:17
From:  Paul Delmore
To:       Bonnie Bunce
Subj:   FAMINE YEARS

BB> How marvelous that you know the exact address
BB> where your Irish ancestors lived in Ireland! I don't
BB> even know which county my g.grandmother came
BB> from. She had a very common surname, Clark, so it's
BB> going to be difficult to track down. I find this
BB> particular g.grandmother interesting, because she is
BB> the earliest of my matrilineal line; she was my
BB> mother's grandmother, so I think I'm probably a lot
BB> like her.

My grandmother was a MAHER from TIPPERARY. They don't get more common than that. But, eventually, after a series of failures, I found her CIVIL REGISTRATION BIRTH record in 1870. After that, it was just some fancy detect­ive work. A nephew of hers remarked one day that his mother and father (father was grandma's brother) lived near each other in IRELAND but never knew each other until they came to NYC where they were married. They lived near ROSCREA, he said. With that clue, I was able to separate her from the numerous Catherines born in a given year. We found her US marriage record which gave her approximate age and her parents' names. I'm still digging family out of the records. She had subtracted 9 years from her age in all of the later US records and that threw me off until we found the marriage record. So, you never know.

On my trip in September, my cousin told me of some of the things that happened during what she calls the "WAR." She meant the last days of the struggle for independence. She said my grandmother's family, or what remained of it was driven from their home by the "Black and Tans." Unfortunately, I did not have time to pursue this further. I did not want it to appear as if I was there just for information. I do not know if they were affected by the famine since the region they lived in was largely a dairying area. But, the pressure of a growing family in a tiny cottage was the spark that led my grandmother to the boat in 1886. A Mary Maher was with her. At first it appeared she might be an older (1 year) sister. Now it looks like she might have been a cousin. Good Luck. TTYL

... SEARCHING: MCVEIGH's Co MAYO;FLYNN's-Co LEITRIM
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Part 1 of Irishness
Part 2 of Irishness
Part 3 of Irishness
List of 850+ Irish Surnames from Irish Tourist Board brochure
List of Recommended Genealogical Publications on Irish Ancestry