From my Aunt May Lally:
She told me that the first McGing that came to Westport was from Ardara or Bohaun. He was Myles and started a little business buying cow hides and bringing them by the cartload to Athlone and often walked most of the way because he had the cart loaded and heaped. He changed the horses halfway between Westport and Athlone, put the load on the train there and came back to Westport with a load of shoes and leather and sold them in his shop in High Street. I think they called his son Leather James. It seems there was another James by the same surname.
A son of Myles bought a big house across the street and had a pub there.
John McGing's is still there. Another son married the girl next door and
he also had a pub. No pub there for a long time now. There's a Francis
McGing there and she is old and blind and has no interest in family history,
unmarried as well. The two houses are big three story houses. A lot of
people go to John McGing's pub. It is so old and people are tired of the
modern places.
As you probably know, our great grandfather was Pat McGing and his wife was Scahill from Knappogh near Westport. His son Michael took over the place in Ardara. His wife was Basquill from Sraheen. Another son Austin married an O'Malley woman from Isleandready and they had the gatehouse by the railway station. They had no land and his job was opening and closing the gates for the trains and taking change. He was James McGing.
Phillip married in Churchfield to Penelope Morrin. Philips sons were Pat, Michael, John, Martin, Phillip, James, Austin, Francis and Thomas, also Mary Brridgie, Jane and Penelope.
Michael in Ardara had a boy and a girl when he died young and his widow got married again to a Higgins man and had a family by him. They are still in Ardara but are no relation to us. Michael McGing's son went to the States. The daughter stayed home and her mother gave her 1/2 the land and the other half to her son by Higgins. The daughter married and had no family. The Forestry Department planted the land some years ago.
The man (Austin) in Islandready has eleven sons. One stayed home, married and had no family. The other sons all went away to sea, and one of them became a diplomat or so my cousin told me.
James also had a lot of sons, but none of them married at home, so there were no McGings, only the ones in Churchfield and they were the last. All those sons, I wonder where their progeny are, if any?
Pat McGing of Ardara also had 3 daughters married locally. One to Michael (Mickey) Gavin on Tonlagee. Mary married John Sheridan in Aughoghaman. She had eleven children, but only 1 lived (Nora's father, John)This would be in the 1880's. Jane was married to another Sheridan and she also had a lot of boys and one girl who married a nice man we know, John McGuire known as Darkie McGuire. His son is married to a Gavin girl in Raith, and they have a big family, most of them married now.
Honor married Mickey Gavin of Tonglagee. They also had 5 or 6 sons. One stayed in Tongalee known as John Mickey as there are more Gavin there and he married a McGing woman. They were 2nd cousins. They had 5 sons and 5 or 6 girls.
You know a lot of second cousins married long ago. All over this area
and every area as far as I know. They had no transport so they couldn't
go very far.
The Lally history on your Uncle Tommy's side:
This is very complicated as the Lally's Boyles and Gibbons's were mixed up and married for generations and Dolans also came into it before and long before Paddy came here. However, I'll tell you how they were related to my mother.
Tommy's great grandmother was a sister to my mothers great grandmother on Barr Na Hanna, so my mother and Tommy were third cousins. Those two sisters were Thorntons, and their parents and themselves were evicted in Gorteenmore down near the Church in 1833. The year Plunkett came. It was a lovely cozy village and he wanted it for sheep. So like many more, they had to take to the hills and start digging, mostly in the valleys and sheltered spots and erect little cabins for themselves and had to pay rent on that as well.
The Thorntons settled in Gortnalderg, one daughter Salog married Big Luke Gibbons (There was a Small Luke Gibbons near by). He was Tommy's great grandfather and the other one married Whalen in Barr Na Hanna. Whalen died young and left four children one son known as Sean (Small Sean). Tom Whalens grandfather. Small Sean was reared in Gortnalderg with the Thorntons. His mother later married Boyne. This is where we come into it. She had two daughters by Boyne. One married Pat Whalen (Stiophen) and they are my great grandparents. Don't get confused here. Boyne's daughter was no relation to Pat Whalen (Stiophen).
Uncle Stiophen tells me that he was one of the Gortmor Boynes (Nellogs). They are and were a fine respectable people.
Well, Saleog Thornton who married Luke Gibbons (Luke Mor) only had one daughter, Mary Gibbons, known as Nancy Mor. She married a neighbor, Tom Lally when she was a teenager. She was my husband's grandmother. Her father had died young and the story goes her grandparents who were still alive and well were afraid Saloeg, the girls mother, would marry again and they'd have none of their own to look after them in their old age so she did marry Tom Lally known as Thomas Nellie from next door. She had a large family, from 23 years down to one. He was involved in the Fenian movement and had to flee to America, leaving his wife and four children, returned after eight years and had four more.
In her youth, his wife, Nancy Mor visited Barr Na Hanna often. She was
a first cousin to Pat Whalen's wife, my great grandmother and also a 1st
cousin of Small Sean Whalen. She used to say in Irish "My heart rises when
I
go back to Barr Na Hanna" It sounds so much better in Irish. She loved
to visit tem in Bar Na Hanna and if there were any relations place on the
way, she would pass there and not stand on the floor as they used to say.
Tommie learned a lot from this grandmother, she was in her 80's when
she died and he was in his 20's. His sister looked after her to the end
and she also had a lot of stories. I heard a lot more about my people here
than I ever heard in Churchfield.
Stiophan told me years ago that his grandfather was evicted on the times
when he came to Gortmor. They were evicted in Headford when they came to
Clonbur and then Killbride. They weren't evicted for non-payment of rent,
but for writing songs and ballads about Landlords and their Agents
and people singing them at fairs and patten days. They were gifted with
music, song and dance and acting in my mothers time. The old man in Drimcoggy
taught Irish to the professors in the old Irish college here around
the turn of the century and after, he was on stage at Feisanna, reciting
some of his hilarious poems and had his huge audience in raptures. My grandfather
in
Gortmor didn't go into that, he really was a good businessman and they
had a big retail shop there when my mother was young. Sadly, his death
and Michael's death at a young age was the start of the downfall of that
business.
It was his father a poet and shoemaker who started the shop there. He often went to Westport for leather and nails and those things, and before long he started bringing tea and sugar and small things and selling them and before long, he sold a lot of stuff. You know thatbefore he came there he was selling a pair of shoes in Duras in Connemara where he saw the lovely Sarah O'Rourke and he went there again and asked her to marry him and she did. So our great grandmother on that side was an O'Rourfe. A great Irish name.
Those people are not there any ore, they moved to Meath in the 1930's There was only one daughter. She married in Meath, but we have lost track of them. Strange to say, Duran in Connemara was an English speaking village. There were pockets like that all over Connemara where English was the spoken language. She must have spoken English to them in Gortmor, to her family I mean, as there was English spoken in the house quite a lot in my mothers time and that was rare at the time. John Burran's mother is from Duras and John owns the place now. It is like a peninsula, going out into the bay in Lock Corrib. Kate my aunt remembers being there as a child. They went to mass in a boat. The church was on an island in Lock Corrib. Some of the O'Rourkes are buried there. Mostly Duras people. It seems they had boats before they had horses or carts.
[All misspellings are my fault - John McGing]