HE CHARGES HER TO LAY ASIDE HER WEAPONS I charge you, lady young and fair, Straightway to lay your arms aside. Lay by your armour, would you dare To spread the slaughter far and wide? O lady, lay your armour by, Conceal your curling hair also, For never was a man could fly The coils that o'er your bosom flow. And if you answer, lady fair, That north or south you ne'er took life, Your very eyes, your glance, your air Can murder without axe or knife. And oh! If you but bare your knee, If you your soft hand's palm advance, You'll slaughter many a company. What more is done with shield and lance? Oh, hide your bosom limey white, Your naked side conceal from me. Ah, show them not in all men's sight, Your breasts more bright than flowering tree. And if in you there's shame or fear For all the murders you have done, Let those bright eyes no more appear, Those shining teeth be seen of none. Lady, we tremble far and near! Be with these conquests satisfied, And lest I perish, lady dear, Oh, lay those arms of yours aside. -- Pierce Ferriter (died 1653) - Translation, Earl of Longford

BIO: The Mount Stewart Gardens in County Down are widely regarded as among the greatest in the British Isles. They renowned not only for their superb layout but for their unrivalled collection of rare and exotic plants. All statuary and baustrades in the gardens were made by local craftsmen after designs by Edith, Lady Londonderry, nee Chaplin. Edith was the granddaughter of the Duke of Sutherland, Britain's largest landowner. She was brought up in Dunrobin Castle in Scotland and, in 1899, at the age of 20, married Viscount Castlereagh, a descendant of the Foreign Secretary who led the British delegation at the Congress of Vienna when a peace settlement for Europe was mapped out, following the fall of Napoleon. Mount Stewart House, which dates from the 18th century, contains the table and chairs from the congress. Edith's husband was heir to Lord Londonderry, and, when he succeeded to the title in 1915, he became the owner of both Londonderry House in London's Park La! ne and of Mount Stewart on the Ards Peninusula. The vast London residence was visited often by the rich and powerful as well as writers, artists and musicians, especially between the wars when up to 2,500 guests attended eve of State Opening of Parliament receptions. In 1915, Edith hosted Wednesday evening dinner parties for those who were engaged in war work and so the Ark Club was born. She founded the Women's Legion, which carried out vital work during WWI, and, in 1916, became the first woman to be awarded the Military DBE. Edith Londonderry was a fighter for women's rights and, helped by the demands of war and her skill with the pen, she demonstrated that women were perfectly capable of carrying out work that had formerly been the preserve of men. By 1915, Londonderry House had been turned into a convalescent hospital for soldiers, which Edith supervised, but it remained Ark Club headquarters and each member had to adopt the name of a creature, real or mythical. Edith was "Circe the Sorceress" and early members included "Winston the Warlock" Churchill, who was Lord Londonderry's cousin, and "Harold the Hummingbird Macmillan." Edith's husband, the Marquess of Londonderry, known as "Charlie the Cheetah," served in France during the First World War. . At the end of the war, the Londonderrys made Mount Stewart their main home. With an interest in gardening, she recruited 20 ex-soldiers for restoring the gardens, who were happy to swap the noise and destruction of the battlefield for the peace of creation. Gertrude Jekyll, the celebrated landscape gardener, was consulted on a design for an English sunken garden and submitted a plan; Edith had her own ideas but she did develop elements of Ms. Jekyll's scheme. The Mairi garden, with its central fountain depicting the contrary maiden, was laid out in the form of a Tudor rose, the emblem of the Women's Legion. The Dodo terrace near the house with its stone ark and enigmatic stone animals depicting the membership of the Ark Club is a most striking feature. One of Edith Londonderry's gardening mentors was Sir John Ross of Bladensburg. Lady Londonderry collected plants and seeds from every continent and she was supplied with many rare speciments by other gardeners and plant hunters. An unusual tree, the Metasequoia glyptostroboides, was thought to have been extinct for 20 million years until rediscovered in a remote area of China. Mount Stewart has had many important visitors including the Duke and Duchess of York, who later became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who stayed there shortly after their marriage. The king's own interest in landscaping and especially rhodondendrons, would have been reinforced by his visit. Lady Londonderry, not content to be a society hostess, landscape artist and writer, was also an able pilot. She died at the age of 80. The formal gardens at Mount Stewart are perhaps the finest now in the care of the National Trust. Mount Stewart is located about 15 miles SE of Belfast. -- Excerpts, "Ireland of the Welcomes"

THE QUEEN'S AFTER-DINNER SPEECH "Me loving subjects," sez she, "Here's me best respects," sez she, 'An I'm proud this day, " sez she, "Of the illigant way," sez she, "Ye gave me the hand," sez she, "Whin I came to land," sez she. "There was some people said, " sez she, "They was greatly in dread," sez she, "I'd be murthered or shot," sez she, "As like as not," sez she, "But 'tis mightly clear," sez she. "'Tis not over here," sez she, "I have cause to fear," sez she. "'Tis them Belgiums," sez she, "That's throwin' bombs," sez she, "And scarin' the life," sez she, "Out o' me son and the wife," sez she. :But in these parts," sez she, "They have warrum hearts, sez she, 'And they like me well," sez she. "Barrin' Anna Parnell," sez she. "I dunno, Earl," sez she, "What's come to the girl," sez she, "And that other wan," sez she. "Dhressing' in black," sez she, "To welcome me back," sez she; "Though I don't care," sez she, "What they wear," sez she, "An' all that gammon," sez she, "About me bringin' famine," sez she. "Now Maud 'ill write," sez she, "That I brought the blight," sez she, "Or altered the saysons," sez she, "For some private raysins," sez she, "An I think there's a slate," sez she, "Off Willie Yeats, "sez she. :He should be at home, " sez she, "French polishin' a pome," sez she, "An' not writin' letters, " sez she, "About his betters," sez she, "Paradin' me crimes," sez she, "In the Irish Times," sez she.

Resources for Early Data: Your genealogy library likely has books by Ms. Josephine Masterson, "Ireland 1841-51 Census Abstracts." They contain her transcriptions of portions of the Republic of Ireland. There are also extracts of data from Northern Ireland including 1841 Census record from the WILSON family transcription held at PRONI in Belfast. Extracts are divided by county, parish and townland and surname . Data includes important clues such as the county of birth if different that where they resided at the time of the census. Other impossible-to-find tidbits include the names of recently deceased members of the family and the ailment from which they died, and the names and destinations of all those who have recently immigrated. Other information includes occupations, schools the children attended, the names of servants and others living in the household, neighbors, etc. (I believe that the National Archives, Dublin, IR, also has this information, as well as your local LDS FHC on microfilm). I would say that if you know where your family lived and/or were researching an unusual surname and/or knew the surnames of associated family members, these books could potentially provide you with a windfall of undiscovered data. Samples from Ms. Masterson's books: County Cork (1841) - Co. Cork, St. Nicholas Parish, City of Cork, Teiers Walk: McCARTHY, Robert 38 head, married 1829, printer, read & write, born Co. Cork, Mary 31, wife, read & write, born Co. Kildare. John 9, William 7, Robert 5, sons, all at St. Nicholas School, born City of Cork, Welbore 1, son, born City of Cork. Judith CORKERY, 22, servant, born Co. Cork. Deceased: Margaret McCARTHY 1, dau. died 1839 measles. County Dublin (1841) - Co. Dublin, Parish of St. Thomas, City of Dublin, 10 Summer Hill: FEA, Rev. John, 72, head, married, 1795 curate of St. Thomas Parish, read & write. Elizabeth, 60, wife, read & write, Mary Ann, 42, dau, not married, read & write. Elizabeth COOKE alias FEA, 38, dau, widowed, read and write. Elizabeth COOKE JR., 12, gr dau, read and write. John Arthur TUDOR, 8, (no further data), James SHERIDAN, 28, servant, read & write, Sarah O'BRIEN, 30 housemaid, read and write. Mary CASSIDY, 24, cook, read & write - all born City of Dublin. Deceased Arthur FEA, 28, son, surgeon, died 1839 consumption. King's Co/Offaly (1841) -- Eglish Parish, Eglish Townland: BERRY, Smith M, 53 head m. 181 wid. farmer. Thomas Francis BERRY 17 son, Marlboro Parsons BERRY 15 son, 4 female and 2 male servants. Co. Roscommon, Ballintober Barony, Fuerty Parish, Cooly Townland: MANNION, Lacky 58 head, m. 1814, farmer; Bridget 54 wife, knitting; John 24 son not married, laborer; Michael 16 son, laborerer, read and write. Jane QUIGLEY 38 cousin m. 1822, servant. Absent: Patrick 25 son laborer in America. Deceased Mary 12, dau. d. 1833 measles. Co. Roscommon, Ballintober South Barony, Roscommon Parish, Ballypheasan Townland: QUIGLY, Mary 23 head not married. Catherine BANAGHAN 3 dau.; Bridget QUIGLEY 20 sister, m. 1840; Margaret QUIGLEY 17 sister; Mary MULVEY 31 not married visitor; Anne MULVEY 25 visitor, Mary LEHANY 19 visitor, Mary McDONNELL 6 visitor, Patrick FARRELL 14 mo. visitor. Deceased Bridget QUIGLY 40, mother died 1839 decay; Michael 18 brother laborer died 1836 suddenly. (Ms. Masterson notes that the spelling of townlands, surnames are as they appeared on the censuses). NOTE -- I am aware of another book in genealogy libraries containing fascinating excerpts that appeared in very early editions of the "LONDONDERRY JOURNAL." The items pertain to all of counties of Northern Ireland and some from the Republic. Don't recall exact title, but it contains the words Londonderry Journal.

LET THE TOAST PASS Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen, Here's to the widow of fifty; Here's to the flaunting extravagant queen, And here's to the housewife that's thrifty. Let the toast pass, Drink to the lass, I'll warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass. Here's to the charmer whose dimples we prize, Now to the maid who has none, sir, Here's to the girl with a pair of blue eyes, And here's to the nymph with but one, sir! Let the toast pass, Drink to the lass, I'll warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass. Here's to the maid with a bosom of snow, And to her that's as brown as a berry; Here's to the wife, with a face full of woe, And now to the damsel that's merry Let the toast pass, Drink to the lass, I'll warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass. For let 'em be clumsy, or let 'em be slim, Young or ancient, I care not a feather; So fill the pint bumper quite up to the brim, And let us e'en toast them together: Let the toast pass, Drink to the lass, I'll warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass. -- Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) >From "The School for Scandal"

BIO: Grandson of an immigrant from Longford, DeWitt CLINTON (1769-1828) was one of the most influential politicians in the early republic, serving as mayor of New York City from 1803 to 1815, (except for 1807 and 1810). He oversaw the creation and adoption of Manhattan's street grid in 1811, a decision that sped development of the city and made it conducive to business. Born in Little Britain, NY, DeWitt Clinton graduated from Columbia College, and then studied law. He served as private secretary to his uncle, George Clinton, then governor of NY. Developing a strong interest in politics, DeWitt was elected to the state senate in 1797, and in the following year, he served in the U. S. Senate to fill a vacancy. The next year, he resigned his seat to become mayor of NYC. In 1812, he was an unsuccessful Federalist candidate for President of the United States. During the time Clinton was governor a school system was established. A visionary, he proposed building a 363-mile canal across upstate New York to connect the upper Hudson River with Lake Erie. Unprecedented as a feat of engineering, the Erie Canal (1817-1825) proved a stunning success and launched NY on its way to becoming the Empire State. For most of the 19th century, two-thirds of the nation's imports and exports would flow in and out of New York Harbor. His uncle, George Clinton (1739-1812) was an American statesman and soldier. Born in Little Britain, NY, he served as a brigadier general in the Continental Army in 1777. He was also a member of the New York Assembly and the Continental Congress and served as Vice-President of the U. S. from 1805 until his death. He served under two different Presidents, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. George Clinton served as the first governor of New York in 1777 and won re-election six consecutive times. Clinton strongly believed in states' rights, and at first opposed New York's ratification of the United States Constitution. Under the name "Cato," George Clinton published several letters against adoption of the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton started "The Federalist" paper largely to answer Clinton's objections. .

THE TEAPOT The drained aluminum teapot sat On the edge of the Stanley 8 range, Waiting. >From work, the once bright frame Was now bruised, contorted, The lid bald without its black Bakelite crown. The vent was long stuffed, Its spout running slow Like an old artery closing down. To aize the twisted fingers, the riveted Handle was bandaged With strips torn from a Millford flour bag. That winters night, the house was opened. Friends and neighbours gazed around the kitchen, They eyed the teapot. The youngster spoke: "You'd think he'd be back in a few minutes." -- Patrick Joseph Kennedy, Quivvy, Belturbet, Co. Cavan, full-time sheep, suckler cow and forestry farmer, one of the founding members of the prolific Shannon-Erne writers groups.

BIO: In the May-June 2001 issue of "Ireland of the Welcomes" is an article by Alf McCreary of a wonderful project that came together at Camphill Community at Mourne Grange, near Kilkeel, using the ideas, talent, skills and cooperation of a variety of individuals. Clifford Paterson, originally from Dalbeattie in SW Scotland, has been a creative force in the development of the original Celtic Lyre in a workshop near the heart of the beautiful Mourne Mountains in Co. Down The lyre has the appearance of a small hand-held harp with 35 strings and has the versatility suitable for concert or solo work to music therapy and traditional folk music. Mr. Paterson has helped to manufacture the instrument, an Englishman, John Billing, the world's first professional lyre player has given advice on tone and sound, and an Ulsterman, Sam Irwin, designed the instrument. The Camphill Movement began when a small group of young people from Vienna arrived in Scotland in 1939 and under the leadership of Dr. Karl Konig (1902-1966) founded the first Camphill Community near Aberdeen in 1940. Now Camphill is a worldwide movement with almost 100 centers in 20 countries. The insights of Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) provide the foundation for their work in Curative Education and community building. Camphill caters to children, young people and adults in need of special care, because of their various mental, emotional, and behavioural handicaps. The able-bodied and the disabled live, work and share together in a spirit of community! Mr. Paterson brought the insight he had gained from helping to look after his own father for 15 years after a stroke and enjoys his meaningful, mid-life career change from his high-powered motor bike family business and his life in the "fast lane." "The first time I set foot in Northern Ireland, I felt at home. I find the Mournes particularly beautiful. I ride my bike first thing every morning and head up into the hills, where there is a great beauty and stark cleanliness. When you live and work amid such beauty it helps the creative process. The Celtric Lyre Project encompasses not only all my ideals but also my energy as well." Clifford Paterson first heard the sound of the lyre when he attended a concert at Mourne Grange, given by the much-travelled John Billing. Billing was leading a "lyre" group of people with special needs, and Clifford suggested to John that they should be making lyres in the workshop, so that every disabled person who wanted to play could be given an opportunity to do so on their own lyre. Sam Irwin, a Bangor man who has spent a lifetime making highly-crafted musical instruments was contacted. He had already started to design a "modern" lyre some years earlier. From that contact the Celtic Lyre began to take shape. The high-quality lyres are constructed mainly from Irish hardwoods, especially elm and sycamore. Selected European spruce is used for the soundboards and bracing. Each instruments takes three or more months to complete. The switch from making garden seats to the high-quality musical instruments gave adults with special needs an opportunity to be more creative, more involved in the entire production process, from choosing the tree to playing the finished instrument. In May 2000 a number of people from Mourne Grange attended the first-ever Lyre Conference in Hamburg, which was attended by 400 enthusiasts from all over the world. Paterson states, "It is also our intention to form, at the right time, our own Lyre Orchestra where disabled and able-bodied people will play together at Belfast Waterfront Hall, Fiddler's Green International Folk Festival at Rostrevor, and ultimately to perform at the World Lyre Conference in New York in 2003. In summary, he states, "It is remarkable that the people involved have come together unexpectedly in the way they have done..it is sheer magic. There is no other way to describe it." Visit the Camphill Communities main website: http://www.camphill.org.uk

Portumna, Co. Galway -- "This morning in Portleix we were to have begun a trip to the Comeragh Mountains in Co. Waterford, but since snow could be seen lying on the distant peaks of the mountains in Co. Wicklow we decided to visit the annual point-to-point meeting of the East Galways near Portumna instead. Our route lies due west, through the northern end of Co. Tipperary, pleasant rolling wooded country, with here and there a glimpse of fine estates. Then as Lough Derg and the Shannon come in sight the country becomes even more pleasantly wooded. Here in the west there is no snow, and the weather is typical Irish April, heavy rain-clouds interspersed with bursts of brilliant sunshine. The meeting too is a typical Irish point-to-point; there seems to be very little to distinguish these events, in Co. Down or Galway -- except that here the crowd contains perhaps a slightly higher percentage of oddities and "characters" than would a similar crowd in the North. A gentleman in a top-hat sings like a bird before inviting the crowd to invest in his sweepstake lottery. Then there is the inevitable philanthropist dressed as a jockey who apparently tours the country giving out winners, to a perpetual refrain of "What did I tell you?" Delightful occupation. Here he is again, as much at home in Galway as he was last year in Co. Antrim, and still moving at his priest-like task. The crowds sway and push; servant-girls from the big houses in the neighbourhood giggle as they lose their sixpences at roulette or spotting the lady. The "quality" here is to be distinguished by a certain air of genteel shabbiness; ancient riding breeches, dilapidated tweed coats patched at the elbows with leather, almost historical mackintoshes -- nobody here seems to have more than ten shillings to bet with, and everybody seems to be happy, all rubbing elbows in a crowd that contains indifferently the most ancient names in Debrett and dilapidated tinkers with no seats to their pants." -- Denis Ireland, "From the Irish Shore," 1936

Irish Tinkers share their way of life -- "This is how I makes a cup if yer want to know how's the thing done. I sits with the anvil like a saddle between me legs. I just pick up my hammer or a stick that says to me it is going to make a right hammer, and I just hit the tin plate just straight between the eyes that's looking back at me in the mirror of me soul, and I just put together the edges of the tin to make me a handle first, and when I have the two edges bent straight in a line I hit the shape into a ladle and leave it aside me. Then I take up me snips and snip out the cup and with a clean tinwhistle you could see the snips takin' all of the tin in. Then I cuts me the circle, the brim, and I get me the rivets aside me, and I put it together with rivets or I can solder in the fire if the fire is lazy and the solder is right. It's the cleanest trade is the tin. But cleaner still sweeping, and you can clean the sky of sparrows with my little brushes..." "I just combed her hair and said there now child go off and play and patted her head with the sides of the comb to make her fine. I always plaited her hair that time in the morning and then she went out playing somewhere, I don't know where; & that morning they found the where, in the long plaited grasses by the river where she was drowned, may God rest her soul, and I never saw the place before because we never went swimming, until we went swimming that day for to get her little body out and I had a pot of stew hanging on the fire waiting ready hot for to give her. I threw it out on the grass rather than give it - my dead, my dear, dead, daughter. My young son came running in and he says to me, She's stuck, she's stuck, God help her! He was so young he didn't know what had happened. He didn't know she was dead. Oh, my poor dear dead daughter, may God rest her! I hurled myself at her grave. I wrecked myself. I drank myself. I threw white paint and ashes at me mouth.. I didn't want to live after and I swore I'd have no more children after. But I got ten children now, God bless them all, but it's not the same as my Bridget, may God rest her!" -- Excerpts, "Irish Tinkers," Wiedel & O'Fearadhaigh

More Voices of Tinkers: "Well, now I don't gossip about no one just in case the wind is shifty like a weasel or the lake is round like a hollow ear. My ears burn never 'cause to tell you the truth if you know what I mean I like being respected." "I see no harm in letting the children do for themselves with a little bit of education, but if it's all the same to you, they gets a fair amount of that at home with all they have to do -- shouting for the horses in the morning and calling for their dogs in the field and they do knows how to tie a rope to more than a little dog, and how to skin a cat; they knows how to catch a fish in the river with a piece of grass, how to throw a whistling sound to the colt, a whistling coat to the foxes and how to take a chicken from the jaws of a stoat, & 'tis no mean education they gets out of the hammering of tin and the hammering of their mother's voice on their little animal ears..." "Schools can fix children in a bad way you know. It's better you'd keep them out of it betimes. Some of them treats their children terrible. They don't give them what they want in the line of nourishment or contentment..." "We're queer ways travelling people. One night we'll stay and one night we'll not and we'll have the whole camp gone up and thrown into a cart, cocks and roosters and goats and all the crockery and the kettle bar and all your belongings heaped together in a heap on the back of the cart." -- Excerpts of conversation, "Irish Tinkers," Wiedel & O'Fearadhaigh

Voices of Irish Tinkers: "If you ask: What's the time? do you have the time?, people do be vexed and they stare at you with their calculations as if you were riding about in a painted dream on the old horse & cart. We have black teeth but we dream just the same as the people that live in houses. Just to be born on the side of the road is to go down in disrepect. I know a man went down in Australia and he came back in Ireland as a tinker but they still had no respect for him..." "When I was small and went for water up the ditch where my Mammy sent me I saw the houses, standing up high over the hills and trees, some of them. I often thought betimes to meself I wonder why we're sitting outside waiting for to go inside. Mammy brought me inside houses with her when she went every Thursday . Sometimes they'd sprinkle holy water on us and sometimes they'd harm us with a few hard knocks and curse us passing..." "Betimes it do be peaceful on the road. I get a queer feeling when I do hear the goats scratching on the bark of the trees and they hop around in the branches and they rock the caravan of an evening & I lean out & tell them get off heifer, get off rooster, get off, get off, and don't be rocking the old caravan. The wind does have the best job in doing that. There's no need for you to scratch me ears out with your midnight goings on." -- Excerpts of conversation from " Irish Tinkers," Wiedel & O'Fearadhaigh

TINKER'S MOON Four children on a rumbling cart, A woman trudging beside that load, A lank man leaving the horse to guide A wet road; a dry road: A gravelly road that a woman shall walk And a lank man leave the horse to guide; The tinker's children take their chance, and bide. A lane leads on to one more lane, An uphill to one more hill; A potato patch to thin on the way, a hen to kill, And hunger again: and sleep again: And a moonlight flit while the salmon leaps >From a smouldering spot by the riverside; The tinker's children take their chance, and bide. When Wicklow woods first seemed to wait, As still they wait tonight; I heard that creaking, rumbling cart. And stars the same were out. When you gave pennies to the youngest child, A silent child: a tawny child: The tinker's children meekly are, and mild. And still I hear strange woods among Whenever a creaking cart goes down; The singsong twang of the bawneen man: "Thank you my lady, thank you my lady." As when you gave the child a penny. I heard it in an Irish voice to-day, And saw again though long gone by Four children on a rumbling cart, A woman trudging beside that load, A lank man leaving the horse to guide A wet road: a dry road: A gravelly road for a moonlight flit >From a smouldering spot by the riverside; I saw the stony, rocky road where the tinker's children bide. -- Ewart Milne (born 1903)

EMIGRANT LETTER: One of the most graphic accounts of life on board an emigrant ship is contained in a letter by Henry JOHNSON, dated 18 Sept 1848. After an eight-week voyage aboard an unnamed ship, he arrived in NY, but unable to find a job, he moved on to Hamilton, Canada, from where he wrote to his wife Jane at home in Dungonnell, Co. Antrim -- "I have had rather a rough time of it. I was a week in Liverpool before the ship sailed on July 7th. We started with a fine, fair breeze and got along well until the third day when it came on to blow very hard. I was lying in my berth sleeping when I was wakened with a cry, "ship's lost, the ship's sinking." I started up, and such a sight. Men, women and children rushing to the upper deck some praying and crossing themselves, others with faces as white as a corpse. On deck they were gathered like sheep in a pen, crying on the captain to save them. I seen sailors rushing down to the lower deck and I followed, determined to know for my self, and there sure enough the water was coming in through one of the portholes at the bow as thick as a large barrel. For a long time all the efforts of the sailors and two mates were unavailing to stop it and they gave it up in despair and came and told the captain to lower the boats. He cursed them and told them to try it again but the first mate refused and told him to go himself which he did telling the man at the helm at the same time, to put the ship before the wind, a very dangerous experiment at the time as we were near some rocks on the Irish Coast. However, he went down and got it partially stopped which partly quieted the fears of the passengers although some of them didn't get oer it until the end of the voyage. I took the matter cooly enough. I knew if we were to go down I might as well take it kindly as not, as crying wouldn't help me. We got all right again and went on our right course. Up to this time I had not opened my provision box as it was lowered into the hold but when I did get at it I found the ham alive with maggots and was obliged to throw it overboard. The remainder of the stuff I eat as sparingly of as possible but could not spin them out longer than four weeks at the end of which time I was obliged to subsist on the ship's allowance which was 2 lbs of meal or flour and 5 lbs of biscuit in the week. The pigs wouldn't eat the biscuit so that for the remainder of the passage I got a right good starving. There was not a soul on board I knew of I might have got a little assistance but it was every man for himself. Altogether it was nearly eight weeks from the time when we started from Liverpool until we got to New York, the longest passage the captain said ever he had. Six days before we got in, a regular storm came on with the wind in our favour and anything I had read or imagined of a storm at sea was nothing to this. We had some very hard gales before but this surpassed anything I ever thought of. although there was some danger yet the wind being with us and going at the rate of 13 miles an hour through mountains of sea, I enjoyed it well. In the six days the storm lasted we made more than we had done for six weeks before. This was the pleasantest time I had though not for some others. One poor family in the next berth to me whose father had been ill all the time of a bowel complaint I thought great pity of, he died the first night of the storm and was laid outside of his berth. The ship began to roll and pitch dreadfully. After a while the boxes, barrel etc. began to roll from one side to the other, the men at the helm were thrown from the wheel and the ship became almost unmanageable. At this time I was pitched right into the corpse, and there, corpse, boxes, barrel, women and children, all in one mess, were knocked from side to side for about 15 minutes. Pleasant that, wasn't it Jane dear? Shortly after the ship got righted and the captain came down, we sewed the body up, took it on deck, and amid the raging of the storm he read the funeral service for the dead and pitched him overboard." Though Johnson intended his wife and children, Mary and Alexander, to join him in America, sadly, they never saw each other again. Mrs. Johnson and the children sailed for Quebec on the "Riverdale." Johnson died in NY of cholera. -- Excerpt, "The Famine Ships," E. Laxton (1996) > >

Letter -- In the #4 issue of "Irish Roots" magazine (1995) there appeared an open letter containing many possible clues for researchers. Evelyn WEIR wrote - "My mother was born a MacSWEEN. Her grandfather John MacSween, was born 1829 at Snizort, Isle of Skye. His ancestors are buried in the family tomb on St. Columba's Isle, which lies at the head of Snizort Bay. On the tomb is seen the carved effigy of a gallowglass complete with chain mail, helmet and hands clasping a great sword. The effigy is weather-worn but still quite recognisable. I was told at an early age and many times after, that the MacSweens were kin to the MacDONALDs, and had fought alongside them in "earlier times," and though the family on Skye were Presbyterians, they had earlier embraced the Catholic religion and that they had come from Northern Ireland to Skye in the "early days." ...On a map of Ireland I found MacSwyne's Bay at Killybegs in Donegal. This English spelling of the name is the same as that on the marriage certificate of John MacSween, my great-grandfather, of Snizort and later of Port Fairy, in Victoria. On the many certificates I hold for the family the name is written in many different ways but obviously this is the English spelling that John preferred. He, of course, was a Gaelic speaker, and knew that the Gaelic spelling was either Suibhne or Shuibhne, telling his granddaughter that in Ireland the "e" at the end was pronounced making the Irish name MacSweeney or MacSwiney. Mr. Spears refers to the MacSuibhnes of Ireland (referring to an article in issue #2, 1995), as "disappearing from history in the early 17th century with the Ulster Plantation." However for the next 250 years they multiplied on Skye, only to disappear again in the early 1850s with the help of the Highland and Island Emigration Society when their large extended family boarded the Australia-bound ship "Arabian," arriving in Port Fairy, in Victoria in September 1854. However, links with Ireland were re-established when John MacSWEEN of Snizort, married Elizabeth O'BRIEN of Cork on 04 Feb 1856 at Port Fairy, which at one time was known as Belfast. The Danish descendants of a Viking named Sweyn had first come to Argyllshire, then to Northern Ireland, and then to Skye; finally moving on to the other end of the world. My mother, Violet Evelyn MacSWEEN completed the circle by marrying the seventh son of a Danish merchant marine from Copenhagen. The MacSuibhne motto" Constant and Faithful; the crest badge: A wolf rampant ermine holding a pheon gules point downward argent." Submitter sharing information was Evelyn WEIR, Scarness, 4655, Hervey Bay, Queensland, Australia.

Possibly the most infamous Irish slum in America evolved in NYC - the Five Points. Named for a curious five-cornered intersection formed by the joining of three streets in Lower Manhattan, it achieved an international reputation by the 1840s as a neighborhood racked by poverty, crime, drunkenness, rioting, and disease. The Irish formed these ethnic ghettos partly out of choice. Living among their own kind provided social networks, job opportunities, churches and charitable institutions. Yet "Little Irelands" were also as much a product of prejudice and poverty and American hostility. The Irish were often relegated to a few neighborhoods, usually near industrial sites and characterized by substandard housing and lack of urban services like running water and regular street cleaning. A recent archaeological excavation in the Five Points area, however, has called into question this portrait of unrelieved squalor and violence. Researchers found abundant evidence of family life and hard work which remind us that amid the troubles of urban life, residents struggled to live decent lives and raise their families. Anti-Irish sentiment was also inflamed by the prevalence of crime and disorder in Irish neighborhoods. In NYC, for example, 55% of those arrested in the 1850s were born in Ireland. One cannot attribute this to anti-Irish prejudice, however, given that 27% of the city's police force were Irish-born. Street gangs, i.e., the Plug Uglies, Kerryonians and Whyos emerged at this time and were predominantly of Irish background. The story was much the same in Boston, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and New Orleans. Few Americans at that time were willing to see a connection between the extreme poverty and poor treatment of the Irish and the disproportionately high rate of crime and disorder among them. Instead, they attributed criminality and violence to the "flawed Irish character." Like many of their counterparts, Irish immigrants brought with them a culture in which drinking was firmly rooted. For centuries they had equated drinking with socializing, celebrating and mourning. In Boston the number of licensed liquor dealers jumped from 850 in 1846 to 1,200 in 1849, most of the new licensees were Irish. Studies show that while Italians drank the same amount as the Irish they experienced significantly lower rates of alcoholism because they consumed their alcohol (mostly wine) as part of a meal at home. By contrast, the Irish consumed alcohol as recreation, most often than not in a drinking establishment separate from the home. Drinking in the male preserve of the tavern or saloon linked alcohol consumption to images of manliness and strength, a trend that promoted excessive consumption. Not surprising the stresses and strains of adjusting to the harsh life in American cities led many Irish immigrants and their descendants to develop high rates of mental illness. Three out of four admissions to New York's Bellevue insane asylum in the 1850s were foreign-born and two third of them were Irish. The numbers in San Francisco for the period of 1870 to 1900 paint a similar picture. The one man who did the most to publicize and sensationalize the Five Points was Charles DICKENS. During his tour of America in 1842, he stopped in NY. He was shown the splendor and wealth of Broadway, but he insisted on seeing the other side of New York life, and so with a police escort he toured the Five Points and found similarities to conditions in parts of England. His observations appeared in the book he wrote about his travels entitled "American Notes." (1842). "There is one quarter, commonly called the Five Points, which in respect of filth and wretchedness, may be safely backed against Seven Dials, or any other part of famed St. Giles (a London slum)...these narrow ways, diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives are led here, bear the same fruits here as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors, have counterparts at home, and all the wide world over. Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays. Many of those pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu of going on all-fours? and why they talk instead of grunting?" The chief reason for Irish immigrant poverty was the lack of useful skills. Owning little or no land in Ireland, many arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs, having spent everything on passage. Doubtless, they possessed many skills, just not the kind that were in demand in an urban economy. -- Excerpts, "1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History," Edward T. O'Donnell (2002).

Doobally (Immaculate Conception Church (Co Cavan) ANCESTORS SONG - DOOBALLY What beauty unseen about, that shines day in, day out, a church upon the hill, made by man's goodwill. Who now can take this in, all past, the suffering, before I trod this land, when life was poor, not grand. It shaped the things to come, the roots, the toil in sun, the labour, laying stones, that are now dust and bones. That I might kneel and pray, They toiled with stone, with clay, And built upon the land, a chapel of their own hand. A warmth came from their hearts, to build and thus impart, a sense of family, a spire for all to see. Now I must carry on, their toil though all long gone, and sing from in my heart, the song that they did start. So listen, hear, and see, for they gave life to me, forefathers dead, long gone, forever will live on. -- Eileen McGovern, "The Leitrim Guardian," whose parents, Terry & Breege (nee Dolan) were both from Doobally.

BIO: The first monument to a woman in the United States was erected in honor of selfless Cavan-born Margaret Gaffney Haughey, whose likeness now graces a street in New Orleans, LA. Margaret GAFFNEY was born in Cavan in 1813, left for Baltimore, MD with her parents at the age of five. They died when she was nine and she was brought up by a Mrs. RICHARDS. Upon her marriage to Charles HAUGHEY she left for New Orleans, LA in 1835. When her husband and only daughter subsequently died, Margaret devoted herself to helping orphaned children, of which New Orleans had an unusually large share. During the years 1845 to 1855, over 50% of all immigrants entering New Orelans were Irish. Weakened by starvation many succumbed to typhus and yellow fever. During the first week of May, 1849, New Orleans registered 225 deaths from yellow fever of which 214 were Irish. Many died aboard ship, and left children who had no one or no place to go to. These children and others Margaret Gaffney Haughey cared for, eventually established a bakery and dairy, and spent her profits on the children. Two years following her death in 1884, the people of New Orleans erected a statue in her honor. -- "Irish America" magazine

For some thirty years Dublin's William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) suffered an unrequited love for Irish beauty and nationalist, Maud Gonne (1866-1953). Sadly, for him, she was to marry another on 21 Feb 1903. In 1902, prior to her marriage to Major John McBride (1865-1916), Yeats wrote the lines to the first poem below, in which he rejects the idea of any comfort held out to him. His second poem was written following Gonne's marriage. THE FOLLY OF BEING COMFORTED One that is ever kind said yesterday; "Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey, And little shadows come about her eyes; Time can but make it easier to be wise Though now it seems impossible, and so All that you need is patience." Heart cries, "No, I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain. Time can but make her beauty over again: Because of that great nobleness of hers The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs, Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways When all the wild summer was in her gaze." O heart! Oh heart! if she'd but turn her head, You'd know the folly of being comforted. NEVER GIVE ALL THE HEART Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy, kind of delight. O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.

Much has been written about the disappearance of the corncrake from the fields and meadows of Ireland, but the humble cricket, once a resident of almost every rural hearth, has all but vanished from Irish country life, unnoticed and unsung. Accidently introduced into Ireland from the semi-tropical Mediterranean in the 17th century, they found comfort in the Emerald Isle only around the warm hearth and chimney corners. Hot sunny days enticed them out to the ditches and hedgerows, but they returned to the fireplace at harvest time with the onset of colder weather. Crickets evoked only two emotions in country homes long ago, a great affection or intense dislike, and both of these sentiments were firmly rooted in Irish country folklore which held that they brought either good or bad luck depending on which you believed. One woman was to recall that her husband would bang the tongs on the hob three times and say, "If you came for good luck, stay, but if ye came for bad luck, ! go." Rarely seen in the daytime, it was when night fell that they came to life, moving out from their secret hiding places by the fire to forage. Their musical chirping, produced by the male in an effort to attract a mate, could be heard in almost every country house in Ireland until the rapid modernization of housing that took placed in the early 1960s. The replacement of flagstone floors with concrete, sod-lined thatched roofs with slate and lime walls with cement left no comfort or place for the little creatures to hide. Long ago people believed that their departure foretold a death. Elderly Jimmy FLYNN of Laughty Barr, near Kiltyclogher, has been a gentle guardian and protector of a thriving brood of crickets. Living alone in a house where the warm hearth fire was the focus and heart of his cozy kitchen, he remarked, "They sit up on me shoulder there and sing to me at night. They never did a hate wrong to me, they make lovely music in the summer, all night long, like a French fiddle. Sometimes that's a sign of rain coming. If you bother them though the least they'll do is cut holes in yer socks, but if you lave them alone they'll lave you alone." It's almost too late now to save the humble cricket - that's even if anyone wanted to. There are no nature preserves left aside for them, their fate is sealed. Still, their passing will be mourned by some who fondly remember them, just as is yellow home-made butter, sweet country buttermilk or the lovelorn "kraak-kraak" call of the corncrake seeking a mate in the honeysweet, morning meadowfields of long ago. Excerpt, "Leitrim Guardian"