Walking in their footsteps
I have just returned from a wonderful trip to Ireland, Scotland and England. One of the reasons for the trip was to visit some of the locations where my ancestors originated.
In Ireland, we visited Cloonmelane, the townland of our McCarthy ancestors. Thanks to assistance from an Irish genealogist, we were able to pinpoint the exact location of the land they would have farmed, the hedge school they would have attended. The final stop was the burial ground where those family members who did not survive to immigrate to Australia would have been buried. However there is no individual record of them in the burial ground because many of the graves are simply marked with rough stones. I can only assume that during the Great Famine, the family could not afford to mark the graves with tombstones. Quite by accident, we also came across Ballycarberry Castle which was a seat of the McCarthy Mohs, the ancient clan from which we are descended. All of these locations provide inspiration for my current manuscript which will be a fictionalised account of this families struggles in Ireland and their immigration to Australia in the 1860’s.
On to Scotland where we explored the townships of Dromnadrochit and Kilmore on the banks of Loch Ness. Here we were seeking evidence of our McDougall ancestors. The new Kilmore Cemetery revealed no clues but I knew there was an older cemetery which we could not find. A question to a passerby revealed the location of the old Kilmore Cemertery and we found the grave we were looking for quite quickly. Alexandra McDougall was the brother of my 3x Great Grandfather, John McDougall who immigrated to Australia. We had hoped to find evidence of their parents Donald and Mary (nee Grant) McDougall but did not have any success
Our final quest was to visit the church where another set of 3x Great Grandparents were married. Mary Ann and Richard are the subject of my third historical fiction novel, Family and Fortune. St Mary’s, Luton, is a wonderful example of medieval architecture, the original sections having been built in about 930AD. The church has undergone many additions and renovations over the years but the section in the first image remains as it would have been when Mary Ann and Richard were married in 1857. Theirs is a fascinating story which you can read more about here.
