Ireland: Day 7 – Thursday, July 5, 2007 and Final Thoughts

I woke up early, a little bit after Ivan left for the morning, and decided to catch an earlier bus back since I remembered I was supposed to have been checked out of the hostel by 10:30am. I got there a little past noon but they didn’t give me any hassle.

I stopped by the reference library again to have a look at the Easky church records but they were closing for lunch. So I went over to the central library, which doesn’t close for lunch, to use the Internet. I had to wait for a bit and then I was able to get on one, but about 5 minutes later the fuse blew and all of the computers went black. They tried flipping the breaker to no avail, and said they’d have to call an electrician, so I gave up waiting and went on to lunch.

I had lunch at McDonalds and the lack of seating found me next to a 53 year old woman and her young child. She was an interesting character, claiming to be a faith healer, a psychic, a medium and what not. She was excited that she had just been accepted to IT Sligo and asked my opinion of it. It was a long conversation; I think I got her whole life story in about 15 minutes. It’s amazing how open everyone is with you here. I guess today was gypsy day on O’Connell Street, as the good Irish music I heard on the street a few days before was replaced by two boys, not 5 years old, on opposite ends of the street playing a slow hand organ melody while their parents tried peddling balloons to the people walking by. In the midst of this I was approached by some guy around my age who asked me to talk to him, as he was from some charity organization, but once he heard where I was from he moved on. It was a much different feeling than the street had the other day, but still interesting.

Back at the reference library I combed the baptismal records for Feeney’s and Connolly’s. I found my great-grandmother’s baptism in 1864, which was the first year they kept those sorts records (or they survived anyways), so I was lucky to find that. With the baptism record you can gather the parents’ names (including mother’s maiden) and usually the sponsors will be related somehow, but you’ll probably need more information to tie in the sponsors to your tree.

Next I checked the Tithe Applotment from 1833 and found only one Feeney in Owenbeg owing a Tithe. This doesn’t mean that there weren’t other Feeney’s around, as there were all sorts of loopholes to get out of paying tithe, but it does give me another name. Finally I ended the day going through books of graveyard inscriptions for Easky, which gave me dates and some relationships for some markers that I had missed while I was visiting in person the other day. Let me tell you, if you’re going to have a family plot, it would be GREAT if you included words like “daughter” and “son” and “wife” as this helps someone like me several generations removed and hundreds of years later put the pieces together. A few of the Feeney’s did that, the rest didn’t. I didn’t have time to check out too many of the Connolly’s inscriptions, but I did notice about three different ways that they spelt that name over the years.

On the bus ride back to Dublin I was greeted with a full sized rainbow crossing above the road. The city is beautiful at night with all of the bridges lit up on the sides with green lighting underneath. Another night at the airport and I’ll be back in Germany.

WHAT I LEARNED
Rural Ireland is an area still very untouched by the outside world. Many times while riding my bike along even the “main drags” I was able to stop and listen to the silence of nature, from farm animals and bees to majestic streams and waterfalls. The land is filled with natural beauty and wonderfully nice people who honestly care about how you’re doing. From farmers to bus drivers, everyone waves and asks how you are.

I found it a tad different than even rural America. The houses have no numbers, and many of the streets used by the locals are not even on the map, despite their being paved. As you can guess, they also have few street signs, although there are more than somewhere like Germany and when you do see one, it usually is quite helpful.

How they operate like this isn’t a mystery: everyone knows everyone. When you send mail to someone out here, you just put their name and the town name and the post master knows where to take it. I do wonder what would happen if the post master passed away abruptly one day, but I’m sure the locals would point the new one on his way.

Seeing as how I was trying to trace my relatives who I had a hunch might still live in the area, all of this came in quite handy. All I had to do was stop in a few shops and ask around, and someone there would point me in the generally right direction, and as I got closer and closer to the exact area (Owenbeg in my case) it became easy to find who I was looking for.

This is something that you just can’t find in America anymore. You used to be able to in the small towns and farming communities, but even those are now overrun by suburbs filled with people who just don’t want to know their neighbor. Unfortunately this is also now happening to Ireland, as related to me by my relative and confirmed by my travels around. Land is being sold to developers as people move from farming to other professions since higher education is free in the EU and the suburbs they build become filled with people from all over the EU. Apparently some towns in Ireland are beginning to face what we’ve been facing in America for a long time: immigrants who don’t speak the language and send their children to English-speaking schools. As a result of all this, Ireland has put in place strong immigration controls, as I experienced when I flew in and went through the non-EU citizen line. Nonetheless, it was relatively easy for me to find a relative in under a day since I knew the general location and a good number of the names of the brothers and sisters of the last generation to be born there.

Another thing I found difficult to adjust to was how the spelling of nouns like town names and family names doesn’t seem to matter to anyone here. Even official signs will change the spelling of the town name depending what corner you’re on. When pronounced it’s fine, but that many spellings can get confusing. Apparently this all comes from the English influence here, as the English tried to change the Gaelic names of everything to something more Anglican. I believe the Gaelic version of the town names only comes in one form, but that’s not what you’ll find on a map.

Life in a hostel isn’t so bad. It is interesting, as you meet a good number of interesting characters. One evening I was stopped by a hippie-looking guy who I think was camping outside in the yard and he asked me the most random of question, and was quite hesitant to do so: “What year were the Atlanta Olympic games?” Apparently this was an important question to him. I also got to meet some French guys and some guys from the Czech Republic, who I chatted to about my upcoming trip to Prague. And despite its outside looks, Eden Hill has some nice facilities, especially the kitchen, dining room, and showers. They also have a house keeper come in each morning and tidy up the place, including making your bed. It’s a shame that it’s closing down for good on September 1, 2007, but I’m glad I was able to experience it while it was operating.

BYPASSING THE COUNTY GENEALOGY CENTER
Yes, the records are mostly free. All you’re paying for at the center is for someone to do your research for you. There is a reference library down the road from the central library which has the property records, like Griffith Valuations, and the census records. The central library doesn’t have anything. You’ll need to know the surname and exact location (not just the county). To get to the reference library, walk east along Stephens St. from the central library and turn right on Bridge St. The reference library will be on your left, about half way down the block.

If you are unsure of the exact location, it might be listed on your ancestor’s birth record. To get a copy of birth, death, or marriage records, you’ll have to go to the Markievicz House (Health Services Board - HSE) up the road from the central library. Walk west along Stephens St. and take the first right up Holborn St. Veer left at the fork in the road and Markievicz will be on your left in a fenced off parking lot. It will cost you 6 euro for a research copy of a record. The location and the mother’s maiden name is about the only thing you’ll find of use on a birth record from the late 1800’s in Ireland – they did not include the parents’ dates and places of birth like we did in the United States. These records also only go back to 1864.

If you want maps, you’ll need to contact the Valuation office in Dublin. They can issue you a map based on the information in the first column of the Griffith Valuation for your ancestor’s land. It is located in the Irish Life Center on Lower Abbey St.

Source Material at the Sligo Reference Library
1. If you know your ancestor’s religion, you can consult church records going back to 1762 in some parishes. This may include births, marriages, and deaths and you can find the parents names (including mother’s maiden) on the baptismal records.
2. 1901 Census of Ireland.
3. 1876 Return of Land Owners Co. Sligo.
a. This would only be for rich families, as landlords hadn’t given over the land to their tenants yet.
4. 1857 Griffith Valuation.
5. 1846-1851 The Famine Immigrants (6 Volumes).
6. 1842 Sligo Borough Valuation.
7. 1837 Sligo Voters Lists.
a. There was not universal suffrage of any kind, so you’re unlikely to find someone here unless they were very influential and wealthy.
8. 1823-1837 Tithe Applotment Books.
9. 1795-1797 Voters Lists for Co. Sligo.
a. See voter lists note above.
10. 1749 Census for the Diocese of Elphin.
11. 1670 Books of Survey and Distribution for Co. Sligo.
12. 1664 Hearth Money Rolls.
13. Graveyard inscriptions sorted by graveyard and indexed by surname for Sligo County, mostly taken from the late 1980’s.

If all you’re doing is records research, it may be easier to base yourself out of Dublin. Aside from the Valuation Office, it also has the National Library, General Register Office, National Archives, Registry of Deeds, and various church libraries. Most of the Sligo Reference Library microfilms are just duplicates of the ones at the National Library.