Dear friends of Beara, I was snooping around online this afternoon, looking for references to my Beara ancestors, when I chanced across this article in Emara News. http://www.emara.org/news/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1033 It reads, in part: "THE latest lecture in the present series organised by the Beara Historical Society was given recently by Mr. Michael Murphy in Twomey?s Lounge Bar, Castletownbere. One of the largest attendances ever was given a most interesting talk which covered a period of evictions in Kilmacowen and Goulane in the Eyeries parish in 1907. What made the talk more interesting was that the speaker?s immediate family was one of those evicted." [There's an awful lot more, I recommend you go read it by clicking on that link if you're interested and have the time.] The part that I found especially interesting was this mention of the Holland family, my own ancestors: "The story of the Hollands in Kilmacowen is an interesting one. Around 1800 a Harrington man (O hUrdail) owned a major part of the land in Kilmacowen, (Harrington was and is the most common surname in the townland). Stephen Holland came to the area as a hedge school master from Coomhola near Bantry. He married Harrington?s daughter. Her wedding dress was said to have been made of 18 yards of velvet. For her dowry the daughter received 16 seanafachs ? in-calf heifers as a dowry. Harrington later gave them a 300 acre farm. One schoolmaster who did well for himself! The farm was later divided among their three sons. There were three Holland households in Kilmacowen until 1950s. None there now? The teaching gene was still in the family. Con Holland?s older stepbrother was first a teacher, then a schools? inspector and finally a Commissioner of Education." Stephen Holland was my g-g-g-grandfather, and I can say with confidence that the "teaching gene" still survives. -- Bill