Well one should try and understand the terrain on which kin lived for 'lifestyle'. Lush meadow or boggy mountain etc also the Magaurans wouldn't really have travelled West for one simple reason... the O'Rourkes! Another tribe! If you go back to the turf cutting photos I sent link to... that is the terrain of the Magaurans all the way up to and into Fermanagh. Also you then have the River Shannon where there would only have been maybe 4 or 5 crossing points in it's 300 mile length until railways came into existence. So, even during famine times there would have been plenty of game, fish, plus a lot of streams etc with shellfish, eels, BUT tenant farmers often had it written into lease that they weren't allowed hunt etc... often there was plenty of food but fear of eviction played a large part in things.. and some of my C of I folk were thrown out for cutting down a tree for firewood during famine, got a bit of land in Tyrone for few years before returning to Monaghan, the 2 sons born there have no church records as Rector knocked over oil lamp and burnt rectory down, records included. Luckily I know, otherwise I'd be looking for them. Even with eels, whoever owned the land where stream is wouldn't allow others to put in traps.. People made their own wicker eel traps to their own design, often only checked them once a week! I can go into pub and ask.... but will I remember when I leave??? :-)) DH On 29/04/2015 14:53, Dee Byster-Graham wrote: > Obvious a convenient location - always providing the local tipple is up to > standard:) > > Dave, was the Inn owned by a Magauran or named after the locality, would you > know? Sounds like an inn may have been on that site for many centuries. > Certainly a great game area - they probably only ate eels during Lent, > being Catholic. I recall reading somewhere that England's Sir Thomas Moore > felt repentant because he was able to eat buttered eel pie during Lent, > when in fact it was his favourite dish thus could not consider it penance. > > It's amazing that wild deer are still found in the area, are they left to > roam free or do people hunt them in the season? > > It adds up to an almost Baronial way of living, doesn't it; my initial > imagined ideas of their life is nowhere near the reality of the situation as > it was. > > Dee. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com