IRISH PROVINCES CONNACHT -- Cos. Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon & Sligo. MUNSTER-- Cos. Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary & Waterford. LEINSTER -- Cos. Carlow, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois (Queen's Co./Leix), Longford, Louth, Meath, Offaly (King's Co.), Westmeath, Wexford & Wicklow. ULSTER -- Two subdivisions: (1) Republic of Ireland with Cos. Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan. (2) Northern Ireland with Cos. Antrim, Armagh, Derry/Londonderry, Down, Fermanagh & Tyrone. Added notes: Connacht is often spelled Connaught. "Connemara" is part of Co. Galway

I don't wish to unsubscribe but please remove this address and add wlguion@yahoo.com Wendy

THE LEPRAHAUN In a shady nook one moonlit night, A leprahaun I spied In scarlet coat and cap of green, A cruiskeen by his side. 'Twas tick, tack, tick, his hammer went, Upon a weeny shoe, And I laughed to think of a purse of gold, But the fairy was laughing too. With tip-toe step and beating heart, Quite softly I drew nigh. There was mischief in his merry face, A twinkle in his eye; He hammered and sang with tiny voice, And sipped the mountain dew; Oh! I laughed to think he was caught at last, But the fairy was laughing too. As quick as thought I grasped the elf, "Your fairy purse," I cried. "My purse?" said he, "'tis in her hand, That lady by your side." I turned to look, the elf was off, And what was I to do? Oh! I laughed to think what a fool I'd been, And, the fairy was laughing too. -- Robert Dwyer Joyce (1830-1883)

ALL DAY I HEAR THE NOISE OF WATERS All day I hear the noise of waters Making moan, Sad as the sea-bird is, when going Forth alone, He hears the winds cry to the waters' Monotone. The gray winds, the cold winds are blowing Where I go. I hear the noise of many waters Far below. All day, all night, I hear them flowing To and fro. -- James Joyce (1882-1941) > >

BIO: Leland Lewis DUNCAN was born in Lewisham, Kent, England on 24th August 1862, to Leland Crosthwait Duncan and Caroline Ellen LEWIS. His father, a grandson of Leland CROSTHWAIT, Governor General. of the Bank of Ireland, had left Ireland for London in 1851 and after his marriage settled in Lewisham. Duncan's father worked in the civil service and was much respected in Lewisham, being involved in the running of St. Mary's Anglican Parish Church and local schools. In 1880 Duncan left Colfe's Grammer School and went on a "grand tour" which included visiting his cousins in Dublin and Sligo, but it was the visit to his cousins of the landed gentry in Co. Leitrim that was to make the greatest impact on him. Leland Duncan and his two younger sisters, Caroline Annette and Amy Adela, had enjoyed a secure middle-class Victorian upbringing, and in 1882, Duncan entered the War Office and rose through the ranks to be awarded an MVO and an OBE. He was unmarried and became a keen amateur historian and photographer, with close links to Ireland. His sister Carrie married an Irish first cousin, James SLACKE, of Annadale, Co. Leitrim, and during the 1880s and 1890s Duncan spent most of his summer holidays there, listening to stories and collecting folklore from the servants and tenants He took this collection of photographs between 1889 and 1894, and kept a scrapbook of notes to locate them. His subjects ranged from the big house and the mud cabin, to the well-dressed landlord's daughter and the impoverished peasant. Through his camera lens he captured the men drinking Guinness after the rick of hay is finished, the straw-boy dressed for the wedding party, the woman at her spinning ! wheel, the barefooted postboy and the big-boned blacksmith. This remarkable collection of over 100 photographs gives a unique and intimate view of rural life in the NW of Ireland during late-Victorian times. A marvelous book was subsequently published containing more than 100 of Duncan's photographs and remarks with text by Liam KELLY, an author born in Leitrim in 1952, an author of "Kiltubrid" (1984) a parish history --- "The Face of Time, Leland Lewis Duncan 1862-1923, Photographs of Co. Leitrim," (Lilliput Press/Dublin, 1995). Irish author John McGAHERN wrote in the foreword: "Duncan's photographs have the fascination of nearly all old photographs. Time that is still our element has already washed over these lives, and they seem to look at us out of a depth of time or waters in fashions that have ceased. What an added pleasure it is to see how unselfconscious these people are. They could not imagine how they would look in a photograph. Their mute presences are more eloquent than any idea of self. This is further reinforced by the relatively rudimentary techniques of the period Duncan was working in. They document a society in a time and place, and all the images are picked with care. That he chose to focus on a poor cottage, a barefooted woman in a doorway, two servant girls in their Sunday finery, is significant: but more telling of the eye which he brought to his craft is the angle of the house, the broom next to the doorway, the placing of the birdcage, etc. I believe that he had a su! re grasp on the limitations of photography, its built-in objectivity, and that he was able to use it to express his patent sympathy with the people he was photographing. How, otherwise, could these pictures speak to us so movingly across all the years? They speak to us out of a world that has disappeared; but such is the magic and mystery of art that they do so with a richness and depth that life rarely gives. Time has become reflection."

Along with many other Catholics in 17th century Ireland, Ann "Goody" GLOVER was exiled to Barbados by Oliver CROMWELL. After her husband's death, Glover came to Boston, MA (c. 1680) as a servant. As an Irish Catholic widow who resisted conversion to Puritan ways, Glover was defenseless when her employer accused her of being a witch. She was thrown into jail to await trial and interrogated by clergyman Cotton MATHER. Although she spoke and understood English, "the court could have no answers from her, but in the Irish, which was her native language." Through a translator, she allegedly gave a "confession." Glover was hanged as a witch in 1688.

BIO: The beloved lyrics for "Danny Boy" (Londonderry Air) were written by a gentleman in England who had an interest in Irish music but who apparently never set foot in Ireland. In 1910 English lyricist, Frederick WEATHERLY (1848-1929) attached his beautiful lyrics to another tune that proved to be an unsuccessful undertaking. Weatherly was a translator of opera and published large quantities of verse and children's books during his lifetime. His "Roses of Picardy," was his most commercially successful ballad during the Great War and made its writer a small fortune. Edward BUNTING (1773-1843) is credited for rescuing the traditional harp music of Ireland. His career began in 1792 when he was hired to write down tunes performed at the Belfast Harp Festival. The tune "A Young Man's Dream" in his collection of ancient Irish music in 1796 seems to be a close match musicality to that of "Danny Boy." A Ms. Jane ROSS from Limavady, Co. Londonderry claimed to have copied down the tune from a blind piper, possibly blind Jimmy McCURRY, who was active in Limavaday at that time. "Oh , Danny Boy, the pipes...the pipes are calling, >From glen to glen and down the mountain side. The summer's gone and all the leaves are falling, Tis you, Tis you must go and I must bide. But come ye back, when summer's in the meadow, And the valley's hushed and white as snow, And I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow, Oh, Danny Boy, Oh Danny Boy, I love you so! But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying If I be dead, as dead I well may be. Then come and find the place where I am lying, And kneel and say an Ave there for me. And I shall hear, though soft your tread above me, And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be. And you shall bend, and tell me that you love me, And I shall rest in peace until you come to me.

Passing this along -- Quietly and without fanfare, the public records office is letting web users access the 1901 census. Not since January have users been able to trawl through the 32m names on the register. The site received 50m inquiries and at its peak was handling 1m inquiries an hour. Only 1.2m a day were expected. It seized up under the pressure and was pulled by the public records office within 24 hours. An attempt to resurrect the site only served to highlight again how woefully the government had underestimated the public's appetite for a peek at the records of their ancestors. The new site at www.pro.gov.uk can only be viewed at certain times (9am to 11pm, Monday to Saturday) and has been stripped of some facilities. Almost apologetically, it asks users to be patient when faced with long waiting times and to give feedback whenever they hit a glitch. The site will, however, be a one-off. Note - I had more luck with the general search engine than the advanced.

Thank you for sharing this info on Thomas Nast. When I was a young girl my father gave me a box of old Harper's Weekly from this time frame. What an education I got flipping through page after page of anti-Irish propaganda. While there is no denying Nast's talents as an Artist his political views were shocking even by today's standards. So if you ever have an opportunity to see reprints of his work take the time to look at them. Margaret

BIO: One of the most prolific and influential anti-Irish nativists of the 1860s and 1870s was Thomas NAST. Born in Germany in 1840, he immigrated to America and became a well-known illustrator and political cartoonist for such publications as "Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper" and "Harper's Weekly." He created the symbols of the Democratic ("donkey") and the Republican ("elephant") parties, as well as the modern image of Santa Claus. He also gained national fame for his harsh and derogatory cartoons of the Irish. Nast was already famous when he began attacking Tammany Hall and Boss William TWEED in NYC from 1869 to 1872. The notoriously corrupt Tammany Hall was a symbol of rising Irish political influence and power in the city. Nast's anti-Tweed cartoons played a major role in bringing down Boss Tweed in a corruption scandal that erupted in 1871. Nast was particularly concerned about the rising influence of the Catholic Church in politics and the public schools, and many of his cartoons were explicitly anti-Catholic.

THE FAMINE VICTIM They found her dead by the hawthorn hedge, Her wasted form still fair; In silent sorrow her life went out, She died of hunger there. No roof to shelter her dear young head, No ear to list her sighs; No lip, to whisper a parting prayer, For death had closed her eyes. Alone, through the dreary, dismal night, In anguish, pain and fear, No hand to soothe her feverish brow; No solace, help or cheer. Where was her father, her mother, where, She was her parents' pride! Ah, why did she live to see them starve! They too of hunger died But the God of justice saw her woe, And heard her plaintive cry, And took with paternal care her soul, With Him to rest on high. And his hand shall smite, His wrath shall fall His vengeance stern and sure, On the cruel wrong, oppression fell, That rob and slay the poor. They dug her grave near the willow tree, 'Twas soft and peaty soil - Oh, blighting Famine's withering clutch, Was on the hand of Toil! No coffin had she, or "blessed clay," Only a peasant's prayer But that lonely spot is holy ground, A martyr sleepeth there. -- Poet Patrick T. McGovern was born in Gortnaguillon, in the parish of Kiltubrid about three miles from the village of Keshcarrigan, Co. Leitrim on the 24th Oct 1861. He was the son of Thomas McGovern and his wife whose surname was Taylor was from Currycramp parish of Eslin Bridge. The subject of this poem was actually found dead on the farm now in the possession of Edward Taylor of Currycramp in the parish of Mohill, Co. Leitrim. The spot where her body was found is on the western slope of the hill near the blackthorn hedge. She is buried in the brink of the bog not far from where she was found. Such deaths were of almost daily occurrence in the terrible times of 1846-7. The people were so weakened by hunger and the ravages of the famine that there were not enough left to bear the dead to the graveyards, or to provide coffins. Hence, numbers were buried in ditches while the government looked on and did little or nothing to relieve the situation. The sovereign Victoria, extended her sympathy, but sympathy brought no bread. Patrick McGovern immigrated to the USA circa 1880s. While in Ireland he had contributed some poems to newspaper. He was also a member of the Kiltubrid Land League. In America he went first to his sister in Chicago and worked there. While there he married Kathleen McNamara a native of Lisdoonvarna, Co. Clare. They eventually settled in St. Louis, MO, where he had a dry goods store. They had five children and Patrick was a member of Gaelic societies and contributed poems to Irish American papers. He never returned to Ireland. He has several cousins, McGoverns and Taylors, still in Ireland, a nephew, Edward Flynn, who submitted the poem to the "Leitrim Guardian," two nieces live in the USA including Mary McCarthy, Lorain, OH. -- Excerpt, "Leitrim Guardian"

REVIEW: In 1999, Kevin C. Kearns latest book, "Dublin Voices, An Oral Folk History," was published by Gill & Macmillan.. Perhaps you can locate a copy if the subject interests you. Per review, Paddy Launders, Leslie Taylor, May Hanaphy and Maureen Lynch are just four out of nearly 60 citizens whose memories of their working lives are sensitively presented by Kevin Kearns as a further volume of his wonderful work as a collector of oral history from Dublin's people. Biscuit makers, hairdressers, fortune tellers, cinema ushers - they have made Dublin what it is as much as any politician, planner or captain of industry, the rich or famous. ISBN 0 7171 2650 1

Like most of Ireland's counies, Longford has been depopulated by emigration over the years, but the Longford emigration, like that of its neighboring county of Westmeath, differs somewhat in that, as well as the traditional movements to Britain, North America and Australia, there was a considerable migration to Argentina from 1842 to 1860, during and after the Great Famine. The Longford families settled mainly in the province of Buenos Aires, where large tracts of land were being offered to European settlers. Edel Miro O'Farrell became President of the Republic of Argentina in 1914, and a kinsman of an even earlier emigrant, Romulo O'Farrill, is one of Mexico's leading media magnates. -- Excerpt, "Irish Counties," J. J. Lee,

On St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1996, Ms. S. Copps, Minister of Canadian Heritage, announced her plans for the national historical site at Grosse Ile, a small island in the St. Lawrence river, 48 kilometers downstream from Quebec City. Gross Ile is the burial site of thousands of Irish immigrants who died of cholera in 1832, and of typhus, ship fever and starvation while fleeing from the Great Hunger in 1847. "From now on," said the Minister, "it will be called Grosse Ile and the Irish Memorial." The only remaining hospital building from 1847, is a long wooden shed called the Lazaretto. White crosses mark the graves of some of the thousands of Irish famine victims buried on the island. A tall Celtric Cross was erected in 1909. Ms. Copps further iterated that the department of Canadian Heritage would clear away the brush that had overgown the mass graves to create a place of tranquility and reflection. Equally important, she said, was that it was to pay homage to the welcome, generosity and devotion of the local population who comforted the afflicted. In 1832, Grosse Ile witnessed a full-scale calamity when thousands of Irish died of cholera. In 1847, worse was to happen as 110,000 Irish Famine refugees sailed up the St. Lawrence. The mortality rate on the coffin ships - merchant vessels used in the timber trade, carrying Irish passengres as paying ballast - was one in four. Many of the dead were buried at sea, but thousands died on the ships, while they were anchored in quarantine in the St. Lawrence at Grosse Ile, or in the vastly overcrowded hospital sheds and tents on the island. Despite heroic efforts by the medial authorities at Grosse Ile, particularly Dr. George Douglas, the Medical Superintendent, the suffering was dreadful. At least 5,000 and perhaps as many as 15,000 Famine victms are buried in the mass graves on Grosse Isle. The story of Grosse Ile is not only one of suffering. Just as impressive and memorable is the remarkable generosity of spirit of the Canadians. In addition to Dr. Douglas - who contracted typhus from the Irish Famine victims and was seriously ill for several weeks - the story of 1847 abounds with Canadian heroism. Four other doctors, five Catholic priests, three Anglican clergymen, and 42 lay workers died tending the sick at Grosse Ile. The Anglican and Catholic bishops and their clergy volunteered to assist on the island. In Montreal, all the nuns of the Grey Sisters who tended the Irish came down with fever, and the Mayor, John Mills, died of typhus. The same fate befell Michael Power, the first Catholic Archbishop of Toronto. The most astonishing part of the story, however, continues to echo in Quebec where Grosse Ile is still known as "I'ile des Irlandais - the Irish island." The Catholic clergy arranged for the adoption of more than 2,000 children orphaned that summer. In many cases, the children were adopted into French Canadian familes who allowed them to keep their own Irish family names. Which explains, in part, how so many Irish names can still be found in completely French-speaking areas of Quebec. When Mary Robinson, President of Ireland, visited Canada in August, 1994, the first place on her itinerary was Grosse Ile. In a moving speech, under canvas in the pouring rain, she said that while the failure of the potato was a natural disaster across Europe, "in Ireland it took place in a political, economic and social framework that was oppressive and unjust." Mary Robinson spoke for us all when she said of Grosse Ile: "This is a hallowed place." -- Excerpt, "Irish America Magazine"

"Pushing Up Shamrocks," by David O'LORCAIN of Burpengary, Queensland. This 1998 book is a good resource for individuals researching Irish to Queensland, Australia. It contains essays on the background of Irish immigration to Queensland. There are 6,000 biographical details on Irish-born persons who died and/or were buried in Queensland. Best of all, there are 2,700 entries supplied by 475 contributors from their own personal knowledge, plus their names and addresses so you can contact them. Information is also abstracted from Pioneer registers. Cemetery inscriptions are arranged by surname, Christian names, year of birth, Irish county of birth, year of death, place or death or burial, and occupation. Note -- One fellow wrote to tell me he was able to identify an ancestor in this reference book and subsequently exchanged letters with the family in Australia.

BIO: Patrick Sarsfield GILMORE (1829-92) was a native of Co. Galway. He left Ireland in 1848 during the Great Potato Famine, sailing along with the regiment band for which he played the cornet. He became leader of the Boston Brigade Band, later known as the famous Gilmore's Band. Gilmore was bandmaster of the 24th Massachusetts Regiment during the Civil War, and in 1863, he revamped all MA's militia bands. After the war he became of of the world's most famous bandleaders. His signature was the "monster band" that grew to include a chorus of thousands accompanied by hundreds of instruments. In 1869, at the National Peace Jubilee in Boston he organized an extravaganza performance that included more than 10,000 participants, firing cannons, ringing church bells, and a hundred firemen beating anvils in Giuseppe Verdi's "Anvil Chorus." In 1872 he assumed leadership of the 22nd New York Regiment Band. For the next 20 years they performed across the US and Europe and remai! ned extremely popular right up to Gilmore's death in 1892.

BIO: Elizabeth KENNY (1886-1952), an Australian nurse, developed a special method of treating poliomyelitis. She became a nurse in the "bush" (frontier) country of Australia. One day an epidemic of poliomyelitis struck, and Miss Kenny could not get medical help. This led her to work out her own method of treating the victims. She found that prompt application of hot woolen packs relieved muscle spasms and often kept the patient from becoming crippled. Sister Kenny, as she was called after she became a head nurse, served as a nurse in the Australian Army during World War I. In 1933, she set up her own clinic in Townsville (Queensland). Her treatment was accepted for use in Australian hospitals by 1939. She lectured and demonstrated the method in the United States in 1940, and secured funds to set up the Elizabeth Kenny Institute in Minneapolis, MN. Elizabeth Kenny was born on Sept. 20, 1886, in Warrialda, NSW and wrote many treatises dealing with polio, and an autobiography, "And They Shall Walk" (1943)

HOME I come, So keen, To feel it all again, To climb the hill, Knowing the old house is there, And when I reach the top, So happy, and smiling I know, There is nothing there, Yet it is all there, And I know I am home. No sound, But silence, The breeze, the birds, my past, All about me calls to me within, So loudly And yet it is quiet, All life, now gone, Yet so lively, And I know, I am home. Laughter, songs, Long ago laughed and sung, Small feet, in boots, All sound about me, The trees, the bushes, So old, There then and now I hear it all, And I know I am home. So sad, Life past, All gone, No more, But who, Once I have gone, Will love this place as I And know That they Are home? -- Eileen McGovern, "The Leitrim Guardian" > > >

THOUGHTS AT THE MUSEUM One would not hope to meet the concentrated poignancy of "Sixteen" but it's there in a grey-green coat of Casement's a pierced soiled hat, in the gilt of a solitary button and the photograph of many a young head held high. And the soul of it's wove in the letters there "We do not fear to die" "I do not fear to die" "I shall watch the fight from above"... Then a little boy says hushedly "Kevin Barry -- see"; and reads aloud the proclamation. Words, words, words, So many relics of those dead. Did they fight for symbols unseen? And will others again fight for words, for a veiled Kathleen -- or united for an undivided free land for soil that the people will care and share for a land with a home and a life for the like of the wan little fellow there? -- Eileen Brennan (1913- )

Born in Wexford in 1878, Eileen GRAY was brought up in comfortable circumstances in Brownswood House. At the age of 20 she went to London to study art, and on to Paris two years later. So far as is known, it does not appear that she visited Ireland again during her long life. She became a designer of furniture and screens and some other decorative pieces and later in her life she built a house, acting as an architect. In 1975, a year before her death, some of her furniture was reproduced commercially. All of her work is now considered to be of very great importance, particularly her chairs, tables and sofas and those very few pieces outside of museum collections are in the private homes of the leading European designers. She guarded her privacy with determination and only recently has her importance been recognized. A photo of Eileen Gray taken in 1913 with her lovely face peeking out through a sea of peacock feathers can be found in the Jan-Feb 2000 issue of "Ireland of the Welcomes" as well as a fairly recent book, "Eileen Gray," by Francois Baudot, published by Thames and Hudson, (ISBN 0-500-01853-7).