My 2nd great grandparents (O'Brien, O'Leary) lived in County Kildare Ireland; born abt. 1815. Their paternal grandparents were also in Ireland although I have no proof that they were born there; no information on their wives. The O'Brien's immigrated with 3 teen age sons to Jamestown New York in the early 1850s where they read French newspapers and were considered well educated. They were Catholics. She supposedly taught French before she immigrated. There was no French community of note in Jamestown. I have been advised to read Hugenot history for clues. Was there any migration pattern from France to Southern Ireland (could have been County Clare) Thanks Lois Friss Thousand Oaks, CA

-----Original Message----- From: lfriss@usc.edu [mailto:lfriss@usc.edu] There was no French community of note in Jamestown. I have been advised to read Hugenot history for clues. Was there any migration pattern from France to Southern Ireland (could have been County Clare) Lois: Below, find Weiss (the best of the Victorian era historians, I think) on Huguenot migration to Ireland *after* the Revocation. Like all historians of that period, his greatest asset is his voluminous detail and his greatest liability is his sometimes odd interpretations. Weiss, note, was a French scholar, writing in French from French and English primary materials which he does footnote (so if this intrigues you I recommend you get yourself a copy of Weiss from a used dealer, abebooks or alibris). I am sure Samuel Smiles has something to say as well, and I will dig that out in a moment and see if it's complete dreck or not. ---- M. Charles Weiss. History of the French Protestant Refugees From The Revocation Of The Edict Of Nantes To Our Own Day. Translated by Henry William Herbert. New York: Stringer & Townsend, 1854. Volume 1. Pages 253-256 To conclude, Ireland, after the fall of James II., received several thousands of refugees, who spread themselves through the towns of Dublin, Cork, Kilkenny, Waterford, Lisburn, and Portarlington. The French colonies in that island date back to the fourteenth year of Charles II. In 1674, the parliament, established at Dublin, passed an act, by which be promised all the alien Protestants, who should come over and settle in Ireland, letters of naturalization, and free admission into all corporations. The Duke of Ormond, viceroy of Ireland under Charles II., favored, to the utmost of his abilities, the establishment of the Reformed Churches in that country. A faithful servant of Charles I., he had retired to France after the victory of the parliament, and had contracted intimate relations with the ministers of Caen and Paris. In a dedicatory letter, Charles Drelincourt, minister of Chareuton, addressed him with these well-deserved praises—" By the purity of your life, you have vindicated our religion from the charge of libertinage brought against it , and by your inviolable attachment to your sovereign, you have confounded those, who accuse it of rebellion against superior powers." The colony, which the refugees formed in Dublin, partly owed to him its origin and early progress. His agents, scattered throughout France, promised to all Protestants, seeking an asylum in Ireland, great facilities for the manufacture of woollens and linens, and to those who preferred applying themselves to agriculture, fertile pasturages and good arable lands, with all the materials necessary for the construction of houses, on payment of a trifling ground rent. He even engaged to take charge, until they should amount to 50,000 crowns, of all the funds intrusted to him by the emigrants, to deposit them in sure hands, and to pay ten per cent. interest, with permission to the depositors to withdraw their-money at will and to employ it otherwise. He guaranteed free exercise of religion to all who should prefer continuing in the Calvinist religion, on condition of supporting their pastors themselves. But he offered to take on himself the charge of supporting the ministers of those who, after the example of the Dublin colony, should unite themselves to the Church of England. Several Protestant lords followed the example of the viceroy. One of these, whose demesnes lay in the interior of the island, caused numbers of printed notices to be distributed throughout France, with a view to inviting Protestants to come over and settle on his estates. He promised to all who should wish to build, and increase the value of the lands assigned to them, one and twenty years leases, or, should they prefer it, three life leases, without their being subject to any rent for the first seven years—thereafter they should be liable only to a moderate ground rent on which both parties should agree, proportionate to the amount of land brought under cultivation. The English government was laboring at that time to infuse new life into that unhappy country, the population of which, decimated by Cromwell and Ireton, had been forced back, almost entire, into the wild and sterile province of Connaught. The rising of the Irish in favor of James II., and the disastrous war, which was terminated by the battle of the Boyne, having again deluged the kingdom with blood, and covered it with ruins, the Protestant interest required the renewal of the measures adopted under the reign of Charles II. In 1692, the Irish parliament, composed of zealous Orangists, succeeded in reviving the bill of 1674, of which experience had demonstrated the efficiency. The oath of supremacy, which had been exacted from the new colonists up to that time, was abrogated, and the free exercise of their worship was guaranteed throughout the whole island. The French who had accompanied William III., at once profited by the bill. Those who established themselves in Dublin obtained the cession to themselves of the church of the Jesuits, who had been expelled the city by the victors. Many officers, who had accompanied William III., and fought under his banner, reduced to half pay after the peace of Ryswick, united themselves to the Dublin colony, which became one of the bulwarks of the Protestant party, against the enterprises of the Jacobites. Others joined the colonies of Waterford and Lisburn, and their descendants continued to speak French until the end of the eighteenth century, and especially in the colony of Portarlington, on the Barrow, founded in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth. The Marquis of Ruvigny, who had received a vast concession of lands in the vicinity of the last-named town, invited thither about four hundred French, and built a church and school at his own expense. At the same time with these military colonies, intended to cover Dublin, there arose another at Cork, consisting entirely of merchants. The richest of these were Ardouin, Cazalette, De La Millière, Cozart, Bossy, Bonneval, Maziére, Hardi and Fontaine. During a long space of time, they held aloof from all fusion with the native population. Nearly all of them inhabited the same quarter, which forms to-day the parish of St. Paul's, the principal street of which is still known, from its early settlers, as French Church Street. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the French colonies in Ireland received an increase as considerable as it was unexpected. In 1751, the Count of Saint-Priest, intendant of Languedoc, forced a crowd of religionists to emigrate by the severity with which he executed the edicts. In the first moment of terror, most of the fugitives betook themselves to Switzerland. More than six hundred of them passed through the single Canton of Berne, during the months of June and July, 1752. This band, greatly augmented, descended the Rhine to Rotterdam, and after receiving the generous succors of the Walloon churches, proceeded to take refuge in Ireland, where the cares of the British government, of some bishops, and numbers of private individuals, had prepared them establishments. The principal Irish colonies, therefore, did not exist until after the reign of James II. ***