Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:19:51 -0700 From: "Jean R." <jeanrice@cet.com> Subject: [IRELAND] Ordnance Survey Memoirs -- "Irish Emigration Lists 1833-1839, " ed. Brian MITCHELLl To: <IRELAND-L@rootsweb.com> SNIPPET: In Ireland as a prelude to a nationwide valuation of land and buildings, i.e., the so-called Griffith's Valuation, the Ordnance Survey was directed to map the whole country at a scale of six inches to one mile. It was originally intended to accompany each map with written topographical descriptions for every civil parish. The field officers of the Ordnance Survey gathered a wealth of historical and socio-economic information for many parishes in their notebooks before the idea was abandoned in 1840. All the original manuscripts are deposited in 52 boxes in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. They cover 19 of Ireland's counties: Cos. Antrim and Londonderry contain by far the most detailed information with 17 and 20 boxes, respectively, of work papers. Cos. Donegal, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone consist of 2-3 boxes, whereas the remainder, Cos. Armagh, Cavan, Cork, Galway, Leitrim, Leix, Longford, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Roscommon, Sligo and Tipperary have only one or part of a box each. Although these memoirs were complied a decade before the Great Famine, emigration was already a very significant demographic feature which was commented on and recorded by the compilers of the memoirs. The memoirs for Cos. Antrim and Londonderry are unique in that for many of their parishes lists of emigrants were compiled for a brief period in the mid-to-late 1830s. As emigration records these lists are unparalleled. These list identify both the destination of the emigrant and the place of emigration, and religious denomination is given for each emigrant named in the memoir. Published in "Irish Emigration Lists 1833-1839," ed. Brian Mitchell, Genealogical Pub. Co., Baltimore, MD, 1989. You should be able to find a copy in your genealogy library. http://books.google.com/books?id=MqAYwjPXVngC&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=%22ordnance+ survey+memoirs%22+kerry&source=web&ots=0h_SKfi8qr&sig=OGRsnCBq8T218eAczPuNGx 9SjB0#PPA13,M1 http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5344572/An-epic-journey-into-Ireland .html http://www.newberry.org/genealogy/irish.html http://www.ireland.com/ancestor/magazine/articles/iha_placenames2.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:27:07 -0700 From: "Jean R." <jeanrice@cet.com> Subject: [IRELAND] Recent Trip to Ireland - Cobh, Cork's marvelous "Queenstown Story" Museum To: <IRELAND-L@rootsweb.com> SNIPPET: One of the most moving experiences my sister and I shared on our summer 2006 trip to Ireland was a visit to "The Queenstown Story" museum, Cobh's major sightseeing attraction that fills its harborside Victorian station. The topics and displays - the famine, Irish emigration, Australia-bound prison ships, the sinking of the "Lusitania," and the ill-fated voyage of the Belfast-built "Titanic," are fascinating in themselves. What set it apart for us was the heart-stopping multi-media experience. In a large, darkened room, dramatic film footage of heaving old ships, monstrous, pounding waves, the deafening cries of frightened passengers assail you on all sides. By the time we left we felt "half-drowned," having been at the mercy of a ship on the high seas. It effectively brought history and the emigrant experience home to us. Cobh (pron. "cove") in Co. Cork was the last Irish soil a great many emigrants had under their feet. It was the major port of emigration in the 19th century. Of the six million Irish who have emigrated to America, Canada and Australia since 1815, nearly half have left from Cobh. The first steam-powered ship to make a transatlantic crossing departed from Cobh in 1838, cutting the journey time from 50 days to 18. When Queen Victoria of England came to Ireland for the first time in 1849, Cobh was the first Irish ground she set foot on. The town renamed it "Queenstown" in her honor. It was still going by that name in 1912, when the Titanic" made its final fateful stop before heading out on his maiden (and only) voyage. To celebrate their new independence from British royalty in 1922, locals changed its name back to its original name, Cobh. The harborside has gaily painted houses, St. Colman's towering neo-Gothic cathedral is impressive, and the beautifully-sculpted emigration statue just outside the "Queenstown Story" set the mood for the experience to come. We were there on a gorgeous, sunny day, and the blue sky and sea were stunning. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:38:02 -0700 From: "Jean R." <jeanrice@cet.com> Subject: [IRELAND] Impressions - Emigrants & Travellers To: <IRELAND-L@rootsweb.com> EMIGRATION: "I was called on deck to smell the land -- and truly the change was very sensible ... It was the breath of youth and hope and love." -- Diary of Mary GAPPER. Regarding immigration to Quebec in 1847: "I spent a considerable part of the day watching a shark that followed in our wake with great constancy .. the mate said it was a certain forerunner of death." -- Robert WHYTE, "The Ocean Plague, or A Voyage to Quebec in an Irish Emigrant Vessel, Embracing a Quarantine at Grosse Isle in 1847, with notes Illustrative of the Ship Pestilence of that Fatal Year," pub. Boston 1848, copy in Library of Congress. "... If any class deserves to be protected and assisted by the government, it is that class who are banished from their native land in search of the bare means of subsistence ... The law is bound, at least on the English side ... to put an end to that system by which a firm of traders in emigrants purchase of the owners the whole 'tween decks of a ship, and send on board as many wretched people as they can get hold of on any terms they can get, without the smallest reference to the convenience of the steerage..or anything but their own immediate profit -- Author Charles DICKENS, "American Notes." "You have stated that, after getting to sea, the two privies on deck were destroyed?" "Yes ... they were only put up temporarily ... the day before she sailed ..." "And that there were none below?" "Yes. None below." "What was the remedy?" "There was no remedy ...." "In consequence of that there was a very bad smell below?" "You could not stand below." -- Testimony of Mr. Delany FINCH, Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Select Committee on Emigrant Ships," 1854. "New York is a very brilliant city. To give the best idea of it I should describe it as something of a fusion between Liverpool and Paris -- crowded quays, long perspectives of vessels and masts, bustling streets, gay shops, tall white houses, and a clear brilliant sky overhead." -- Earl of Carlisle, "Travels in America." If a family could raise only enough money for one passage, the ticket would be bought in the name of the eldest son or daughter. When that son or daughter arrived in America and got a job, money would be sent back to Ireland to help the family pay the rent and eventually to buy another passage ticket for a younger brother or sister. This remittance system of "one bringing another" was to become so firmly rooted on both sides of the Atlantic that sister would follow brother, and brother sister, until the children of an entire family were reunited in America. As the "Cork Examiner," 22 June 1871 revealed, the emigrant's "chain" or link to Ireland does not draw him back despite the peculiar strength of Irish relationships, "but pulls forward those he has left behind." -- Excerpt, "Paddy's Lament, Ireland 1846-47," Thomas & Michael GALLAGHER (1982) "All during my life people kept going to America and there's not a family in this parish but has somebody living in the States. There was always a big night for anybody going away. Neily McCOLGAN, the blind fiddler, would be sent for, and they would dance till day-clearing. Then, too, for anybody coming home there was always a bottle-drink; but these led to so much drinking that Fr. FOX put down the bottle drinks entirely ... Times at home were bad, and they all left home with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The old people said that good health and the grace of God were fortunes enough for any young man or woman." -- Charles McGLINCHY, "The Last of the Name." ".... It was just like a big funeral ... and the last parting ... was indeed sad to see ... The parents especially were so sad, as if the person leaving were really dead ... You would rather not be there at all if you would be any way soft yourself." Manuscript 1411, Irish Folklore Department, University College, Dublin. The Irishman's love of his homeland and of the Irish way of life, despite the hardships imposed by the misbegotten union with Britain in 1800, had always, until the famine, limited emigration. The peasant's desperate hold upon his land, his passion for survival at home, his love of the Gaelic language, and his fear of puritan America's hostility to Catholicism had created a kind of psychological moat confining him to Ireland. But emigration had been used in the past as a remedy for hard times by adventurous Irishmen whose imagination had been fired by stories of America, by letters from emigrants who rode their own horses and spoke of being so far west in America that they had to crouch to let the sun go down. Per letter that appeared in the "Tipperary Vindicator" 5 Jan 1848 -- "I wish to heaven all our countrymen were here," wrote one such emigrant from the Chicago area. "... The labourer can earn as much in one day as will support him for a week. The richest land in the world may be purchased here or in Wisconsin for $1.25 an acre - equal to 5s 3d sterling - pure alluvial soil, for 30 feet of surface ... If I could show them the splendid prairie I am looking on, extending in wild luxuriant verdure far as the eye can reach -- virgin soil that will stand the wear and tear of ages without requiring a shovel full of manure -- how different would their situation be from what it is! How gladly they would fly with their families." -- Excerpt, "Through Irish Eyes," Smithmark Publishers (1998).