To All Listers, http://mcgrathsearch.com/files/The%20Neighbors%20in%20Ireland%2012-05-11.pdf ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- The Neighbors in Ireland, by Michael F. McGraw and Clare Tuohy The Neighbors in Ireland opens a window that covers the Famine period in selected townlands of Moyaliff and Holycross parishes of Co. Tipperary. Most of the townlands studied are adjacent and their relatively small size allows the area to be truly described as a neighborhood. The Irish homesteads of the main families of Long, Fanning, Tuohy and McGrath were identified and described in detail. In the process the following were accomplished: q Methods were developed for the extraction of information from these records that allowed the tracking of individuals through the valuation data. q The migration paths of persons from the Irish neighborhood were determined. q New neighbors were found and relationships among these neighbors were explored. q An understanding of the environment, in which they lived and the choices that faced our ancestors, was developed in an attempt to answer the question: Why did they leave? The Field, House, Tenure and Cancelled Books, researched by one of the authors (Tuohy), contained a wealth of new source material. The analysis of that material provided a unique view into the lives of these ancestors during the Great Famine and as they were emerging from the famine. The information contained in the House Books was unique and priceless. They contained an inventory of every structure, on each farm, in every townland along with the dimensions of each structure, the materials of construction and their state of maintenance. It is possible to use the Griffith Valuation maps, with the information in the House Books, to develop a mental picture of these buildings. That is about as close as one is going to get to having a photograph of the ancestral homestead from that time period. This document was the result of a trans-Atlantic collaboration between Clare Tuohy, a Dublin, Ireland based researcher, who is descended from William Tuohy of Grange, Holycross parish, and myself, based in Austin, TX, who is descended from Michael McGrath of Moyaliff in Moyaliff parish.