I just completed the paperwork on obtaining Irish citizenship, dropped the papers off at the Consulate General for Ireland's office in Boston this past Monday, and I should receive my (dual) citizenship ... via the FBR (foreign birth registration) method (having a grandparent born in Ireland) in 3-4 months. Although the United States does not *promote* dual citizenship, it does not object to it either... one does *not* jeopardize one's US citizenship by obtaining Irish citizenship as well. For you (Francis J O'Neil) to similarly obtain Irish citizenship, you'll have to obtain: (1) a Form FB1-A from an Irish embassy or consulate, (2) certified copies of birth, marriage, and death records of any of your grandparents, (3) certified copies of the same for the parent through which you are claiming Irish citizenship (obviously, no death certificate is required for a living parent), (4) certified copies of your birth certificate and (although perhaps not necessary) marriage certificate, (5) 2 recent passport size photos of yourself. Both the photos and section E on the Form FB1-A must be signed and dated by one of the following individuals: Clergyman, Medical Doctor, School Principal, Bank Manager, Lawyer, Policeman, or Magistrate/Judge ... no, a Notary Public will not do. All vital records must be "long form" (all pertinent data included). The certified copies, once seen by the official at the Irish consulate or embassy, will be returned to you, but they also need copies to keep, so it would be well to have photocopies of the certified ones made before presentation to the official. This can all be done by mail ... I only went to the Irish Consulate in Boston in person because it's little more than an hour's drive. The cost for citizenship via Foreign Birth Registration is currently $159 (US), payable by cash or certified check (no personal checks) ... plus, of course, whatever it may cost you for the vital records. Hope this is of help ... good luck! Jack Stanton ----- Original Message ----- From: francis j o'neil <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: 14 July, 2001 13:49 Subject: [MAYO] [Fwd: DUAL CITIZENSHIP] > This is a multi-part message in MIME format. > --------------5380DB4B21211930C9CCFADB > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > > --------------5380DB4B21211930C9CCFADB > Content-Type: message/rfc822 > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Content-Disposition: inline > > X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 20:05:33 -0700 > From: francis j o'neil <[email protected]> > Organization: @Home Network > X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en]C-AtHome0407 (Win95; U) > X-Accept-Language: en > MIME-Version: 1.0 > To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> > Subject: DUAL CITIZENSHIP > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > My wife was talking with some fellow employee's about my plans to have a > dual Ireland and USA citizenship and was told that I would be required > to give up my USA rights. Does anyone have data about doing this and > what would I have to give up. I am second generation Irish American, > with both sets of Grandparents born and raised in Ireland, then imm. to > the USA in the early 1900's.Also, both sets became naturalized citizens. > Any help and data on this will be much appreciated. > > Thanks in advance, > Frank > > > --------------5380DB4B21211930C9CCFADB-- > > > ============================== > Shop Ancestry - Everything you need to Discover, Preserve & Celebrate > your heritage! > http://shop.myfamily.com/ancestrycatalog >

This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------5380DB4B21211930C9CCFADB Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit --------------5380DB4B21211930C9CCFADB Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 Message-ID: <[email protected]> Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 20:05:33 -0700 From: francis j o'neil <[email protected]> Organization: @Home Network X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en]C-AtHome0407 (Win95; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Subject: DUAL CITIZENSHIP Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My wife was talking with some fellow employee's about my plans to have a dual Ireland and USA citizenship and was told that I would be required to give up my USA rights. Does anyone have data about doing this and what would I have to give up. I am second generation Irish American, with both sets of Grandparents born and raised in Ireland, then imm. to the USA in the early 1900's.Also, both sets became naturalized citizens. Any help and data on this will be much appreciated. Thanks in advance, Frank --------------5380DB4B21211930C9CCFADB--

First, thanks to John McCabe. Found this in searching around and don't know where or when it was posted. I'd like to know more information about these entries. I'd like to get a copy of Fr. Lavelle's book or information contained in it. Anyway some of us may find this information quoted below helpful...especially if you are involved with the "Tourmakeadies" [sp?] townland. *********************************************************** "I recently came across a single page from the Appendix of a book that discussed more evictions. I believe it to be from the book Father Patrick Lavelle wrote, and I think it covers a year later . The setting here is the activities in court being described, and the evictions made by Bishop Plunket's sister. "....Some stoutley refused, and they were evicted; some gave lying excuses, and they escaped for the while; the rest yielded, and they were left, undisturbed. Lord Plunket never evicted a man who sent his children to the proselytizing school. Up to the period of my appointment he evicted every soul who refused, and gave no hope of yielding !!! The following is the list with their actual families. including new evicted by the Hon. Miss Plunket : - John Durcan 6 in family Widow Walsh 5 Watt Staunton,jun 4 Martin Lally 10 Matthew Lally 9 Michael Smyth 5 James Costelloe 7 Thomas Boyle 5 Austin Higgins 6 Patrick Walsh 6 Pat Stannton 6 Widow Cain 4 Michael Walsh 4 John Boyle 7 Pat Boyle 8 Widow Walsh (2nd) 4 Thomas Lally 4 Martin Lally 10 Pat Murray 5 Ned Joyce 5 Pat Lally 4 John Boyle 8 Michael Cavanagh 7 James Henaghan 5 Widow Lally 4 Michael Heneghan 7 John Walsh 3 Tom Quinn 7 The above were all solvent, and most of them comfortable tenants, not owing a farthing rent. Their places were given to bullocks, to Protestant settlers, or to Catholics who sent their children to school. The list does not contain the names of inhabitants of two whole villages,the Tourmakeadies, evicted by the Bishops relative, to enlarge his Lordship's farm..." John E. McCabe Issaquah, WA" PS. I did read somewhere that most of these families were not actually evicted...just threatened. I think the priest marched into the school and told all the Catholic children to go home, which they did. The priest implored the Catholic parents [from the pulpit] to boycott the school, which they did. The Plunkets ultimately left the area in disgrace and the transplanted families ultimately died out. I think I read this in Quinns 2Vol. "History of Mayo".

TO LISTOWNER: During the past couple of weeksI have received and deleted more than a dozen infected e maills and attachments from Pat Prendergast at [email protected] . Although I have sent direct messages warning him/her that his/her system is infected and urgent virus checker action needs to be taken, these messages are ignored and no action taken. I have informed list admin address, but although normal list practice is for listowner to unsubscribe infected address, and write to subscriber saying why, I am still receiving infected attachments from Pat in answer to every posting I make to the list, and I should imagine I am not alone. Could the listowner please take action as it could be possible that Pat is no longer opening mail at this address for some reason, and is blissfully unaware that system is infected with BADTRANS and putting other listers at risk. Mary G

Hello all, My thanks to all who gave answers to my request on this and I have come to the conclusion that the story is just that A STORY. Kind Regards Terry

Although this website is not specific to Ireland, the information in the articles is relevant to UK. Ireland, America etc. regarding names history, DNA etc. The 1881 surname distribution maps mentioned may be helpul to those with Irish emigrant families in UK in 1881, some of whom may have moved on to USA, Canada, Oz and NZ. Forwarded from the London list. Mary G > BBC Radio 4 is currently running a series on Family History research > on Tuesdays at 11 a.m. It's called Surnames, Genes and Genealogy. > There is a website at: > > http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/beyond/factsheets/surnames/surnames_home.shtm l > > From which I learned that Essex University will shortly have surname > distribution maps based on the 1881 census available shortly. Well > worth a visit. >

This URL wraps so it is better to copy and paste it than click on it. Jerry --- Mary George <[email protected]> wrote: > Although this website is not specific to > Ireland, the information in the > articles is relevant to UK. Ireland, America > etc. regarding names history, > DNA etc. The 1881 surname distribution maps > mentioned may be helpul to > those with Irish emigrant families in UK in > 1881, some of whom may have > moved on to USA, Canada, Oz and NZ. Forwarded > from the London list. > > Mary G > > > > BBC Radio 4 is currently running a series on > Family History research > > on Tuesdays at 11 a.m. It's called Surnames, > Genes and Genealogy. > > There is a website at: > > > > > http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/beyond/factsheets/surnames/surnames_home.shtm > l > > > > From which I learned that Essex University > will shortly have surname > > distribution maps based on the 1881 census > available shortly. Well > > worth a visit. > > > > > > ============================== > Shop Ancestry - Everything you need to > Discover, Preserve & Celebrate > your heritage! > http://shop.myfamily.com/ancestrycatalog > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

Hello All, My GG Grandmother's age at death has always been a topic for debate in our family and though she died according to the death certificate in 1906 aged 84 it has always been said that she was 106 years old at the time. I know this sounds like one of those tall tales that crop up from time to time in any family but I have just found another branch of the family in the last few days and have been talking to one of the family members and guess what this same story pops up again only with it came another bit that I have heard before and that is that my GG Grandmother was born in the year of the great storm. Does anyone know when this was as this family tale is now driving me doolally tap and is a hindrance in as much as I don't know at which time to look for her birth. TIA Terry

Year of the "Big Wind" was 1839. Slan go foill, Margaret (Mairead) ----- Original Message ----- From: Terence O'Connor <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: 10 July 2001 3:27 PM Subject: [MAYO] great storm Hello All, My GG Grandmother's age at death has always been a topic for debate in our family and though she died according to the death certificate in 1906 aged 84 it has always been said that she was 106 years old at the time. I know this sounds like one of those tall tales that crop up from time to time in any family but I have just found another branch of the family in the last few days and have been talking to one of the family members and guess what this same story pops up again only with it came another bit that I have heard before and that is that my GG Grandmother was born in the year of the great storm. Does anyone know when this was as this family tale is now driving me doolally tap and is a hindrance in as much as I don't know at which time to look for her birth. TIA Terry ============================== Join the RootsWeb WorldConnect Project: Linking the world, one GEDCOM at a time. http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com

I have been asked by several listers to supply the URL for the above. I found the information during a browse through the archived messages at Rootsweb. To find these, you just put ROOTSWEB in your search engine. You will find the contents page of the Rootsweb site - from here you can have hours of topics and links if you get carried away! Scroll down until you get to the section on lists. Here you can click onto the List Index to find the thousands of lists worldwide. Click on Ireland. The next page takes you to the dozens of Irish lists, some by county, some by name, some by topic. Click on to whatever takes your fancy. You will get the page of instructions for that particular list, including the search/browse archive URL - just click on that. Some lists have been going for 5 or 6 years, and will have thousands of messages. You can search for all messages with a relevant keyword name or place, year by year. Some haven't been going for more than a few months, and have very few messages in the archive. Rather than joining up to lots of lists where you constantly receive messages of no relevance, I have half a dozen where it is useful to be in permanent contact, but for others which might be useful, I just browse the archives occasionally. Saves a lot of time, and you can pick up snippets of info. The two list archives that I was checking through when I found the list of mass graves, were IRELAND-CEMETARIES, and IRISH-FAMINE. There is quite a lot of intersting stuff on the IRISH-FAMINE site. I can't remember which one the list of mass agraves came from, but that is all the information there was in the message. It is unlikely that there are any records of the names of people buried in those pits. During the famine years, even those buried in the churchyards often went unrecorded. Mary George

I am looking for any information about my grandfather Patrick Patton, born probably on Achill Island 1862. Had an older brother Antony Patton born 1850. Antony married Mary Sweeney in Pulranney, church records at Mary Immaculate, Achill Sound. Both brothers and probably other family member came to Cleveland, Ohio. Anyone know of any other siblings or other family information? Mother's name was most likely Mary Forry (Forrey, Furry). Thanks, Leonora Patton Brennan

Liz, What a wonderful piece. Thanks so much for sharing it. I have Forwarded it to 3 of my children who share my interests in these things . . . Best, Rosemary ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2001 8:51 AM Subject: [MAYO] Pompeii in slow motion > >From the NY Times > > A Pompeii in Slow Motion > > By MEGAN HARLAN > > N the boggy coastal moors of County Mayo in northwest Ireland lies > one of the largest Stone Age sites in the world — though it might > not seem obvious at first glance. > It isn't that Ceide Fields, a sprawling Neolithic community of > farms, houses and tombs, has been destroyed or dismantled in the > 5,500 years since it was built. In fact, much of the ancient, > enclosed settlement has been perfectly preserved, thanks to the bog > that began to encroach some five millenniums ago and slowly > enveloped every structure. > The site's lead archaeologist, Seamus Caulfield, of University > College, Dublin, has likened this phenomenon to "a slow-motion > Pompeii." While the bog's sudden and inexorable expansion forced > Ceide Fields' residents to move away, it also kept a good number of > the buildings and objects they used safely submerged beneath what > is today a seven-foot layer of marshy earth. > The Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney evoked the > discovery of North Mayo's buried archaeological treasures in his > 1975 poem "Belderg": "When he stripped off blanket bog/ the > soft-piled centuries/ fell open . . ." Heaney wrote the poem after > an inspiring visit with the local schoolteacher Patrick Caulfield, > the father of the archaeologist Seamus Caulfield. In the 1930's the > elder Caulfield realized that his neighbors, while cutting and > drying bog turf into peat (Ireland's traditional fuel), were > hitting deep-lying, patterned walls of stones. He rightly surmised > that these walls had to be many thousands of years old, since it > would have taken that long for such thick bog to accumulate. > Though only a fraction of the site's five square miles has been > thoroughly excavated since work began in 1969, the entire area is > open to visitors, and from March through November archaeologists > and doctoral students lead tours of numerous fascinating finds. For > those of us harboring latent fantasies of a career in archaeology — > and I'll cheerfully admit, I do — Ceide Fields is a bewitching > place, full of tantalizing clues about humanity's prehistoric past. > On the morning last August when I drove the 20 miles northwest to > Ceide Fields from my hotel in Ballina, a bustling city in the heart > of County Mayo, I passed through the Moy River Valley, with its > quintessentially Irish countryside of peridot green pastures dotted > with cottages and churches, and, farther on, the variegated > Victorian storefronts of tiny Ballycastle town. > But as I headed west along Mayo's North Coast Road, the landscape > suddenly grew dramatic. The road runs for about five miles > alongside the spectacularly serrated Ceide Cliffs, with their > countless horizontal strata of limestone and shale rising some 370 > feet — all in all resembling a huge layer cake cut in jagged > slices. Meanwhile, to my left, the lush meadows of Mayo's interior > had given way to an empty, khaki-colored expanse of bog. > Called blanket bog for good reason, these boglands cover hundreds > of soggy, unfarm able square miles in northwest Mayo, which helps > explain why the region is Ireland's least populous. With its high > sloping, treeless hills, this desolate landscape resembled a desert > — one made of sodden soil instead of sand. > But something glistened in the distance. Ceide means flat-topped > hill in Gaelic (and, trickily, is pronounced "Cajun" without the > "n"), and as I approached this vast hill, a glint of angled glass > reflected in the sun, like a prism catching light. This was the > Ceide Fields Interpretive Center, a sparkling glass-and-stone > pyramid at the hill's coastal base. As if on cue, the changeable > sky, which had undulated between blue and pewter, displayed a > rainbow arching over the pyramid to the Atlantic Ocean. > Rising some 60 feet high, the Interpretive Center won Ireland's > Building of the Year Award when it opened in 1993. It is a handsome > three-leveled edifice, the bottom third sided with bog turf, so > that the building appears to have sprouted naturally from the > ground. Gray-green limestone slabs, the same stone found in Ceide > Cliffs, front the middle section. And the towering apex is composed > of glass walls supported by stainless-steel beams. Designed by Mary > McKenna at Ireland's Office of Public Works, these architectural > elements are at once harmonious with the environment and in > striking contrast to it. > The pyramid's loftlike, oak-and-sandstone interior is just as > stylish. The main floor houses crisp exhibitions on the archaeology > and botany of Ceide Fields; a sleek, 75-seat theater screening a > short documentary on the region; and a pleasant cafe, serving > soups, sandwiches and pastries. The statuesque centerpiece is a > 15-foot section of copper-colored 4,500-year-old Scotch pine > retrieved from a nearby bog. A second-story gallery contains > exhibitions on local geology, while the glassed-in third floor > consists entirely of a platform for viewing the fields, cliffs and > ocean. > The center provides a much-needed window onto the landscape's > often enigmatic patterns of ruins — and a much-needed shelter from > northwest Mayo's frequent rainstorms. But since an hourlong tour of > the excavations was about to begin, I put off exploring it, eager > to get outside into the sunlight that now streamed through the > glass apex. > The tour guide, Dredagh O'Connor, a doctoral student at the > University of Edinburgh and a native of Ballycastle, ushered our > small group out the back entrance and up a wooden staircase > ascending Ceide hill. Gravel pathways snaked through the grassy > boglands, which, up close, reveal purple heathers and sprays of > spotted yellow orchids. The tour follows one such pathway around > the boundary of a five-acre field once inhabited by a Neolithic > family. As she led us across olive green moors stretching south to > the horizon, Ms. O'Connor explained the extent of what we were > looking at. > Ceide Fields encompasses hundreds of individual, interlinked Stone > Age farms once inhabited by as many as 1,000 people. These > homesteads were surprisingly well organized. Sets of parallel field > walls, over a mile long, run inland from the coast. Perpendicular > dividing walls crisscross these longer walls into neat, rectangular > plots of anywhere from 5 to 17 acres. Each plot provided just > enough room to sustain an extended family of cattle herders and > wheat farmers. > While some sandstone walls have been excavated, most remain buried > in a secondary, subterranean landscape. To find these underground > walls, archaeologists have borrowed the traditional method of local > farmers to dig for trees buried beneath the bog: long iron probes > are thrust into the bog; if they strike something hard, a > whitewashed bamboo rod is inserted into the probe's hollow center > and left as a marker indicating the existence of a wall or a tree. > Thus much of what visitors see at Ceide Fields are these bamboo > poles delineating the ancient field wall system — which somewhat > resemble an enormous game of connect-the-dots. And the center and > tour help connect these dots with intriguing evidence about > prehistoric life. > Our first stop was at an ancient animal pen, a small oval > enclosure attached to an excavated field wall. The Neolithic > settlers of Ceide arrived in longboats — probably from France or > Scotland — and introduced to Ireland livestock like cattle and > sheep. This meant they would have spun wool for fabrics — so that > their fashion sense might have looked revolutionary indeed to > Ireland's indigenous Mesolithic people, nomadic fisherman and > hunters who probably swathed themselves in animal skins. > As the sky grew overcast, we hiked another 30 yards to the remains > of the 5,500-year-old Behy house, the base of a round hut measuring > 20 feet in diameter. Ms. O'Connor told us that the Behy house was > abandoned before the Egyptian pyramids were even built. The simple > structure yielded key domestic implements like shouldered pottery, > leaf-shaped arrowheads, a stone ax and, most important, a stone > plow blade, models and drawings of which can be seen in the visitor > center. Along with animal husbandry, the Ceide settlers brought > with them another giant leap forward for mankind from continental > Europe — cultivation of grains. > This portrait of an orderly agrarian society undercuts most > previous theories about human life during the Neolithic era. > Farming was thought to be a much more haphazard affair, because at > other Neolithic sites, vestiges of original, systematic plans of > settlement have been destroyed or rearranged — for example, the > stone walls dismantled and used for new walls. But Ceide Fields is > unique for being so perfectly intact — and looking about as > methodically laid out as any modern suburban subdivision. > More extraordinary still is that Ceide Fields has no defensive > walls. Since the people lived in a dispersed, unfortified > community, they apparently did not fear attacks, either by local or > foreign invaders. So much for visions of warring Stone Age > barbarians: this group, anyway, seems to have lived peaceful, > rather idyllic lives. > As we headed back to the center, an Atlantic squall swept through, > ripping against the sturdy golf umbrellas Ms. O'Connor had quickly > run to fetch for the group. She shouted apologies for the storm > above the winds, but also pointed out that if it hadn't been for > the rain, the bogs would never have grown — and Ceide's artifacts > probably wouldn't have survived. > A bog is 90 percent water, its soil so saturated that when the > grasses and heathers that grow on its surface die, they don't fully > decay but accumulate in layers. At least 175 days of rain a year > are required for this to happen; North Mayo gets an average of 225 > days. > But Ceide's residents may have played a key role in the bog's > devastating growth. To provide fuel, timber and space, they > clear-cut the primeval oak and pine forests, thereby directly > exposing the soil to persistent rainfall. > A climate change more than 5,000 years ago — when the temperature > abruptly dropped five degrees, causing more rain — may have also > been to blame, Either way, the people of Ceide probably moved no > farther than to neighboring settlements at Ballycastle. > Soaked through, our tour group retreated to the center to grab > warming cups of coffee and explore the exhibitions. The most > impressive diorama is a scale model of the Ballyglass house, > excavated on private land on the eastern border of Ceide Fields, > about three miles from the center. The foundation of the house was > discovered beneath a megalithic tomb typical of the region: a cairn > with two galleries contained cremated human remains, and opened > onto a circular standing stone courtyard. > But the Ballyglass house struck me as a more poignant glimpse of > prehistory. About 40 feet long and 20 feet wide, it had a large > central room, two small chambers, a high- pitched ceiling and an > indoor hearth, and was probably roofed with thatch. It is, in other > words, strikingly similar to the traditional thatched cottages so > common in contemporary rural Ireland. > I climbed spiral stairs to the viewing platform in the apex, where > rain thrashed against the glass walls, and gazed at the windswept > fields outside. Seamus Heaney called this "a landscape fossilized." > And it was both eerie and comforting to imagine that the familiar > Irish countryside of today — with its neat, rectangular cottages, > low stone walls partitioning green pastures, and places of worship > — might not have looked so very different in the Stone Age. > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/08/travel/CEIDE.html?ex=995556453&ei=1& > en=e4c9534bb4647410 > > > > ============================== > Create a FREE family website at MyFamily.com! > http://www.myfamily.com/banner.asp?ID=RWLIST2 >

During the famine years there were mass graves at the following sites: Ballycastle, Belmullet Ballina Newport Castlebar Swinford Westport Louisborough Claremorris Ballinrobe Information found in the archive of the Famine List at Rootsweb. Mary G

I have claimed the people who came ashore 5,000 years ago from some unknown place. There was nothing dramatic which sent them away, just the bog moving in and covering everything. They lived and farmed the land for several centuries, then just wandered down the road. I guess they didn't go far as my MULDERIGs and CLARKEs are still in Mayo. Because I can't get any further back with them than the Famine, it's as good a story as any for and answer to "where did we come from?". Ellen "Rosemary R." wrote: > > Liz, > > What a wonderful piece. Thanks so much for sharing it. I have Forwarded it > to 3 of my children who share my interests in these things . . . > > Best, Rosemary > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2001 8:51 AM > Subject: [MAYO] Pompeii in slow motion > > > >From the NY Times > > > > A Pompeii in Slow Motion > > > > By MEGAN HARLAN > > > > N the boggy coastal moors of County Mayo in northwest Ireland lies > > one of the largest Stone Age sites in the world — though it might > > not seem obvious at first glance. > > It isn't that Ceide Fields, a sprawling Neolithic community of > > farms, houses and tombs, has been destroyed or dismantled in the > > 5,500 years since it was built. In fact, much of the ancient, > > enclosed settlement has been perfectly preserved, thanks to the bog > > that began to encroach some five millenniums ago and slowly > > enveloped every structure. > > The site's lead archaeologist, Seamus Caulfield, of University > > College, Dublin, has likened this phenomenon to "a slow-motion > > Pompeii." While the bog's sudden and inexorable expansion forced > > Ceide Fields' residents to move away, it also kept a good number of > > the buildings and objects they used safely submerged beneath what > > is today a seven-foot layer of marshy earth. > > The Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney evoked the > > discovery of North Mayo's buried archaeological treasures in his > > 1975 poem "Belderg": "When he stripped off blanket bog/ the > > soft-piled centuries/ fell open . . ." Heaney wrote the poem after > > an inspiring visit with the local schoolteacher Patrick Caulfield, > > the father of the archaeologist Seamus Caulfield. In the 1930's the > > elder Caulfield realized that his neighbors, while cutting and > > drying bog turf into peat (Ireland's traditional fuel), were > > hitting deep-lying, patterned walls of stones. He rightly surmised > > that these walls had to be many thousands of years old, since it > > would have taken that long for such thick bog to accumulate. > > Though only a fraction of the site's five square miles has been > > thoroughly excavated since work began in 1969, the entire area is > > open to visitors, and from March through November archaeologists > > and doctoral students lead tours of numerous fascinating finds. For > > those of us harboring latent fantasies of a career in archaeology — > > and I'll cheerfully admit, I do — Ceide Fields is a bewitching > > place, full of tantalizing clues about humanity's prehistoric past. > > On the morning last August when I drove the 20 miles northwest to > > Ceide Fields from my hotel in Ballina, a bustling city in the heart > > of County Mayo, I passed through the Moy River Valley, with its > > quintessentially Irish countryside of peridot green pastures dotted > > with cottages and churches, and, farther on, the variegated > > Victorian storefronts of tiny Ballycastle town. > > But as I headed west along Mayo's North Coast Road, the landscape > > suddenly grew dramatic. The road runs for about five miles > > alongside the spectacularly serrated Ceide Cliffs, with their > > countless horizontal strata of limestone and shale rising some 370 > > feet — all in all resembling a huge layer cake cut in jagged > > slices. Meanwhile, to my left, the lush meadows of Mayo's interior > > had given way to an empty, khaki-colored expanse of bog. > > Called blanket bog for good reason, these boglands cover hundreds > > of soggy, unfarm able square miles in northwest Mayo, which helps > > explain why the region is Ireland's least populous. With its high > > sloping, treeless hills, this desolate landscape resembled a desert > > — one made of sodden soil instead of sand. > > But something glistened in the distance. Ceide means flat-topped > > hill in Gaelic (and, trickily, is pronounced "Cajun" without the > > "n"), and as I approached this vast hill, a glint of angled glass > > reflected in the sun, like a prism catching light. This was the > > Ceide Fields Interpretive Center, a sparkling glass-and-stone > > pyramid at the hill's coastal base. As if on cue, the changeable > > sky, which had undulated between blue and pewter, displayed a > > rainbow arching over the pyramid to the Atlantic Ocean. > > Rising some 60 feet high, the Interpretive Center won Ireland's > > Building of the Year Award when it opened in 1993. It is a handsome > > three-leveled edifice, the bottom third sided with bog turf, so > > that the building appears to have sprouted naturally from the > > ground. Gray-green limestone slabs, the same stone found in Ceide > > Cliffs, front the middle section. And the towering apex is composed > > of glass walls supported by stainless-steel beams. Designed by Mary > > McKenna at Ireland's Office of Public Works, these architectural > > elements are at once harmonious with the environment and in > > striking contrast to it. > > The pyramid's loftlike, oak-and-sandstone interior is just as > > stylish. The main floor houses crisp exhibitions on the archaeology > > and botany of Ceide Fields; a sleek, 75-seat theater screening a > > short documentary on the region; and a pleasant cafe, serving > > soups, sandwiches and pastries. The statuesque centerpiece is a > > 15-foot section of copper-colored 4,500-year-old Scotch pine > > retrieved from a nearby bog. A second-story gallery contains > > exhibitions on local geology, while the glassed-in third floor > > consists entirely of a platform for viewing the fields, cliffs and > > ocean. > > The center provides a much-needed window onto the landscape's > > often enigmatic patterns of ruins — and a much-needed shelter from > > northwest Mayo's frequent rainstorms. But since an hourlong tour of > > the excavations was about to begin, I put off exploring it, eager > > to get outside into the sunlight that now streamed through the > > glass apex. > > The tour guide, Dredagh O'Connor, a doctoral student at the > > University of Edinburgh and a native of Ballycastle, ushered our > > small group out the back entrance and up a wooden staircase > > ascending Ceide hill. Gravel pathways snaked through the grassy > > boglands, which, up close, reveal purple heathers and sprays of > > spotted yellow orchids. The tour follows one such pathway around > > the boundary of a five-acre field once inhabited by a Neolithic > > family. As she led us across olive green moors stretching south to > > the horizon, Ms. O'Connor explained the extent of what we were > > looking at. > > Ceide Fields encompasses hundreds of individual, interlinked Stone > > Age farms once inhabited by as many as 1,000 people. These > > homesteads were surprisingly well organized. Sets of parallel field > > walls, over a mile long, run inland from the coast. Perpendicular > > dividing walls crisscross these longer walls into neat, rectangular > > plots of anywhere from 5 to 17 acres. Each plot provided just > > enough room to sustain an extended family of cattle herders and > > wheat farmers. > > While some sandstone walls have been excavated, most remain buried > > in a secondary, subterranean landscape. To find these underground > > walls, archaeologists have borrowed the traditional method of local > > farmers to dig for trees buried beneath the bog: long iron probes > > are thrust into the bog; if they strike something hard, a > > whitewashed bamboo rod is inserted into the probe's hollow center > > and left as a marker indicating the existence of a wall or a tree. > > Thus much of what visitors see at Ceide Fields are these bamboo > > poles delineating the ancient field wall system — which somewhat > > resemble an enormous game of connect-the-dots. And the center and > > tour help connect these dots with intriguing evidence about > > prehistoric life. > > Our first stop was at an ancient animal pen, a small oval > > enclosure attached to an excavated field wall. The Neolithic > > settlers of Ceide arrived in longboats — probably from France or > > Scotland — and introduced to Ireland livestock like cattle and > > sheep. This meant they would have spun wool for fabrics — so that > > their fashion sense might have looked revolutionary indeed to > > Ireland's indigenous Mesolithic people, nomadic fisherman and > > hunters who probably swathed themselves in animal skins. > > As the sky grew overcast, we hiked another 30 yards to the remains > > of the 5,500-year-old Behy house, the base of a round hut measuring > > 20 feet in diameter. Ms. O'Connor told us that the Behy house was > > abandoned before the Egyptian pyramids were even built. The simple > > structure yielded key domestic implements like shouldered pottery, > > leaf-shaped arrowheads, a stone ax and, most important, a stone > > plow blade, models and drawings of which can be seen in the visitor > > center. Along with animal husbandry, the Ceide settlers brought > > with them another giant leap forward for mankind from continental > > Europe — cultivation of grains. > > This portrait of an orderly agrarian society undercuts most > > previous theories about human life during the Neolithic era. > > Farming was thought to be a much more haphazard affair, because at > > other Neolithic sites, vestiges of original, systematic plans of > > settlement have been destroyed or rearranged — for example, the > > stone walls dismantled and used for new walls. But Ceide Fields is > > unique for being so perfectly intact — and looking about as > > methodically laid out as any modern suburban subdivision. > > More extraordinary still is that Ceide Fields has no defensive > > walls. Since the people lived in a dispersed, unfortified > > community, they apparently did not fear attacks, either by local or > > foreign invaders. So much for visions of warring Stone Age > > barbarians: this group, anyway, seems to have lived peaceful, > > rather idyllic lives. > > As we headed back to the center, an Atlantic squall swept through, > > ripping against the sturdy golf umbrellas Ms. O'Connor had quickly > > run to fetch for the group. She shouted apologies for the storm > > above the winds, but also pointed out that if it hadn't been for > > the rain, the bogs would never have grown — and Ceide's artifacts > > probably wouldn't have survived. > > A bog is 90 percent water, its soil so saturated that when the > > grasses and heathers that grow on its surface die, they don't fully > > decay but accumulate in layers. At least 175 days of rain a year > > are required for this to happen; North Mayo gets an average of 225 > > days. > > But Ceide's residents may have played a key role in the bog's > > devastating growth. To provide fuel, timber and space, they > > clear-cut the primeval oak and pine forests, thereby directly > > exposing the soil to persistent rainfall. > > A climate change more than 5,000 years ago — when the temperature > > abruptly dropped five degrees, causing more rain — may have also > > been to blame, Either way, the people of Ceide probably moved no > > farther than to neighboring settlements at Ballycastle. > > Soaked through, our tour group retreated to the center to grab > > warming cups of coffee and explore the exhibitions. The most > > impressive diorama is a scale model of the Ballyglass house, > > excavated on private land on the eastern border of Ceide Fields, > > about three miles from the center. The foundation of the house was > > discovered beneath a megalithic tomb typical of the region: a cairn > > with two galleries contained cremated human remains, and opened > > onto a circular standing stone courtyard. > > But the Ballyglass house struck me as a more poignant glimpse of > > prehistory. About 40 feet long and 20 feet wide, it had a large > > central room, two small chambers, a high- pitched ceiling and an > > indoor hearth, and was probably roofed with thatch. It is, in other > > words, strikingly similar to the traditional thatched cottages so > > common in contemporary rural Ireland. > > I climbed spiral stairs to the viewing platform in the apex, where > > rain thrashed against the glass walls, and gazed at the windswept > > fields outside. Seamus Heaney called this "a landscape fossilized." > > And it was both eerie and comforting to imagine that the familiar > > Irish countryside of today — with its neat, rectangular cottages, > > low stone walls partitioning green pastures, and places of worship > > — might not have looked so very different in the Stone Age. > > > > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/08/travel/CEIDE.html?ex=995556453&ei=1& > > en=e4c9534bb4647410 > > > > > > > > ============================== > > Create a FREE family website at MyFamily.com! > > http://www.myfamily.com/banner.asp?ID=RWLIST2 > > > > ============================== > Search over 1 Billion names at Ancestry.com! > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/rwlist1.asp

----- Original Message ----- From: "Mary George" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2001 7:36 AM Subject: [MAYO] Mass graves in Mayo 1845+ > During the famine years there were mass graves at the following sites: > > Ballycastle, > Belmullet > Ballina > Newport > Castlebar > Swinford > Westport > Louisborough > Claremorris > Ballinrobe > > Information found in the archive of the Famine List at Rootsweb. > > Mary G > > > ============================== > Search over 1 Billion names at Ancestry.com! > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/rwlist1.asp >

Connaught Journal Printed and Published in Lower Cross-street by Barthw. O'FLAHERTY Galway, Ireland Thursday, March 26, 1840 Volume 89 Price 5D GALWAY ASSIZES. Libel Moore v. Walker This was an action for a libel upon the character of the plaintiff George H Moore, Esq., of Moor Hall, in the county of Mayo, published in the Castlebar Telegraph in the shape of a letter subscribed with the defendant's name. The defendant is a barrister of the Connaught Circuit and in the course of last year became involved in the settlement of an affair of honour between the plaintiff and Mr. Joseph Myles M'Donnell, of Doo Castle. The matter unfortunately did not termintate to the satisfaction of the parties, and in a letter addressed to the editor of the Castlebar Telegraph the defendant made use of words calculated, as was alleged, to injure the reputation and wound the feelings of the plaintiff. After a lengthy investigation, the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff, with six pence damages.

>From the NY Times A Pompeii in Slow Motion By MEGAN HARLAN N the boggy coastal moors of County Mayo in northwest Ireland lies one of the largest Stone Age sites in the world — though it might not seem obvious at first glance. It isn't that Ceide Fields, a sprawling Neolithic community of farms, houses and tombs, has been destroyed or dismantled in the 5,500 years since it was built. In fact, much of the ancient, enclosed settlement has been perfectly preserved, thanks to the bog that began to encroach some five millenniums ago and slowly enveloped every structure. The site's lead archaeologist, Seamus Caulfield, of University College, Dublin, has likened this phenomenon to "a slow-motion Pompeii." While the bog's sudden and inexorable expansion forced Ceide Fields' residents to move away, it also kept a good number of the buildings and objects they used safely submerged beneath what is today a seven-foot layer of marshy earth. The Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney evoked the discovery of North Mayo's buried archaeological treasures in his 1975 poem "Belderg": "When he stripped off blanket bog/ the soft-piled centuries/ fell open . . ." Heaney wrote the poem after an inspiring visit with the local schoolteacher Patrick Caulfield, the father of the archaeologist Seamus Caulfield. In the 1930's the elder Caulfield realized that his neighbors, while cutting and drying bog turf into peat (Ireland's traditional fuel), were hitting deep-lying, patterned walls of stones. He rightly surmised that these walls had to be many thousands of years old, since it would have taken that long for such thick bog to accumulate. Though only a fraction of the site's five square miles has been thoroughly excavated since work began in 1969, the entire area is open to visitors, and from March through November archaeologists and doctoral students lead tours of numerous fascinating finds. For those of us harboring latent fantasies of a career in archaeology — and I'll cheerfully admit, I do — Ceide Fields is a bewitching place, full of tantalizing clues about humanity's prehistoric past. On the morning last August when I drove the 20 miles northwest to Ceide Fields from my hotel in Ballina, a bustling city in the heart of County Mayo, I passed through the Moy River Valley, with its quintessentially Irish countryside of peridot green pastures dotted with cottages and churches, and, farther on, the variegated Victorian storefronts of tiny Ballycastle town. But as I headed west along Mayo's North Coast Road, the landscape suddenly grew dramatic. The road runs for about five miles alongside the spectacularly serrated Ceide Cliffs, with their countless horizontal strata of limestone and shale rising some 370 feet — all in all resembling a huge layer cake cut in jagged slices. Meanwhile, to my left, the lush meadows of Mayo's interior had given way to an empty, khaki-colored expanse of bog. Called blanket bog for good reason, these boglands cover hundreds of soggy, unfarm able square miles in northwest Mayo, which helps explain why the region is Ireland's least populous. With its high sloping, treeless hills, this desolate landscape resembled a desert — one made of sodden soil instead of sand. But something glistened in the distance. Ceide means flat-topped hill in Gaelic (and, trickily, is pronounced "Cajun" without the "n"), and as I approached this vast hill, a glint of angled glass reflected in the sun, like a prism catching light. This was the Ceide Fields Interpretive Center, a sparkling glass-and-stone pyramid at the hill's coastal base. As if on cue, the changeable sky, which had undulated between blue and pewter, displayed a rainbow arching over the pyramid to the Atlantic Ocean. Rising some 60 feet high, the Interpretive Center won Ireland's Building of the Year Award when it opened in 1993. It is a handsome three-leveled edifice, the bottom third sided with bog turf, so that the building appears to have sprouted naturally from the ground. Gray-green limestone slabs, the same stone found in Ceide Cliffs, front the middle section. And the towering apex is composed of glass walls supported by stainless-steel beams. Designed by Mary McKenna at Ireland's Office of Public Works, these architectural elements are at once harmonious with the environment and in striking contrast to it. The pyramid's loftlike, oak-and-sandstone interior is just as stylish. The main floor houses crisp exhibitions on the archaeology and botany of Ceide Fields; a sleek, 75-seat theater screening a short documentary on the region; and a pleasant cafe, serving soups, sandwiches and pastries. The statuesque centerpiece is a 15-foot section of copper-colored 4,500-year-old Scotch pine retrieved from a nearby bog. A second-story gallery contains exhibitions on local geology, while the glassed-in third floor consists entirely of a platform for viewing the fields, cliffs and ocean. The center provides a much-needed window onto the landscape's often enigmatic patterns of ruins — and a much-needed shelter from northwest Mayo's frequent rainstorms. But since an hourlong tour of the excavations was about to begin, I put off exploring it, eager to get outside into the sunlight that now streamed through the glass apex. The tour guide, Dredagh O'Connor, a doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh and a native of Ballycastle, ushered our small group out the back entrance and up a wooden staircase ascending Ceide hill. Gravel pathways snaked through the grassy boglands, which, up close, reveal purple heathers and sprays of spotted yellow orchids. The tour follows one such pathway around the boundary of a five-acre field once inhabited by a Neolithic family. As she led us across olive green moors stretching south to the horizon, Ms. O'Connor explained the extent of what we were looking at. Ceide Fields encompasses hundreds of individual, interlinked Stone Age farms once inhabited by as many as 1,000 people. These homesteads were surprisingly well organized. Sets of parallel field walls, over a mile long, run inland from the coast. Perpendicular dividing walls crisscross these longer walls into neat, rectangular plots of anywhere from 5 to 17 acres. Each plot provided just enough room to sustain an extended family of cattle herders and wheat farmers. While some sandstone walls have been excavated, most remain buried in a secondary, subterranean landscape. To find these underground walls, archaeologists have borrowed the traditional method of local farmers to dig for trees buried beneath the bog: long iron probes are thrust into the bog; if they strike something hard, a whitewashed bamboo rod is inserted into the probe's hollow center and left as a marker indicating the existence of a wall or a tree. Thus much of what visitors see at Ceide Fields are these bamboo poles delineating the ancient field wall system — which somewhat resemble an enormous game of connect-the-dots. And the center and tour help connect these dots with intriguing evidence about prehistoric life. Our first stop was at an ancient animal pen, a small oval enclosure attached to an excavated field wall. The Neolithic settlers of Ceide arrived in longboats — probably from France or Scotland — and introduced to Ireland livestock like cattle and sheep. This meant they would have spun wool for fabrics — so that their fashion sense might have looked revolutionary indeed to Ireland's indigenous Mesolithic people, nomadic fisherman and hunters who probably swathed themselves in animal skins. As the sky grew overcast, we hiked another 30 yards to the remains of the 5,500-year-old Behy house, the base of a round hut measuring 20 feet in diameter. Ms. O'Connor told us that the Behy house was abandoned before the Egyptian pyramids were even built. The simple structure yielded key domestic implements like shouldered pottery, leaf-shaped arrowheads, a stone ax and, most important, a stone plow blade, models and drawings of which can be seen in the visitor center. Along with animal husbandry, the Ceide settlers brought with them another giant leap forward for mankind from continental Europe — cultivation of grains. This portrait of an orderly agrarian society undercuts most previous theories about human life during the Neolithic era. Farming was thought to be a much more haphazard affair, because at other Neolithic sites, vestiges of original, systematic plans of settlement have been destroyed or rearranged — for example, the stone walls dismantled and used for new walls. But Ceide Fields is unique for being so perfectly intact — and looking about as methodically laid out as any modern suburban subdivision. More extraordinary still is that Ceide Fields has no defensive walls. Since the people lived in a dispersed, unfortified community, they apparently did not fear attacks, either by local or foreign invaders. So much for visions of warring Stone Age barbarians: this group, anyway, seems to have lived peaceful, rather idyllic lives. As we headed back to the center, an Atlantic squall swept through, ripping against the sturdy golf umbrellas Ms. O'Connor had quickly run to fetch for the group. She shouted apologies for the storm above the winds, but also pointed out that if it hadn't been for the rain, the bogs would never have grown — and Ceide's artifacts probably wouldn't have survived. A bog is 90 percent water, its soil so saturated that when the grasses and heathers that grow on its surface die, they don't fully decay but accumulate in layers. At least 175 days of rain a year are required for this to happen; North Mayo gets an average of 225 days. But Ceide's residents may have played a key role in the bog's devastating growth. To provide fuel, timber and space, they clear-cut the primeval oak and pine forests, thereby directly exposing the soil to persistent rainfall. A climate change more than 5,000 years ago — when the temperature abruptly dropped five degrees, causing more rain — may have also been to blame, Either way, the people of Ceide probably moved no farther than to neighboring settlements at Ballycastle. Soaked through, our tour group retreated to the center to grab warming cups of coffee and explore the exhibitions. The most impressive diorama is a scale model of the Ballyglass house, excavated on private land on the eastern border of Ceide Fields, about three miles from the center. The foundation of the house was discovered beneath a megalithic tomb typical of the region: a cairn with two galleries contained cremated human remains, and opened onto a circular standing stone courtyard. But the Ballyglass house struck me as a more poignant glimpse of prehistory. About 40 feet long and 20 feet wide, it had a large central room, two small chambers, a high- pitched ceiling and an indoor hearth, and was probably roofed with thatch. It is, in other words, strikingly similar to the traditional thatched cottages so common in contemporary rural Ireland. I climbed spiral stairs to the viewing platform in the apex, where rain thrashed against the glass walls, and gazed at the windswept fields outside. Seamus Heaney called this "a landscape fossilized." And it was both eerie and comforting to imagine that the familiar Irish countryside of today — with its neat, rectangular cottages, low stone walls partitioning green pastures, and places of worship — might not have looked so very different in the Stone Age. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/08/travel/CEIDE.html?ex=995556453&ei=1& en=e4c9534bb4647410

I wish to unsubscribe: MMMcLernon Bev Harren wrote: > UNSUBSCRIBE > > Beverly J. Harren > Sr. Administrative Dir. > Dept. of Chem. Eng. & Mat. Sci. > University of Minnesota > 421 Washington Ave. SE > Minneapolis, MN 55455-0132 > ph: (612) 625-4580 > fax: (612) 626-8730 > e-mail: [email protected] > > ============================== > Join the RootsWeb WorldConnect Project: > Linking the world, one GEDCOM at a time. > http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com

Dear Listers, I'm sending this to many lists, sorry if some of you get it more than once! Thanks to many helpful people on the St. John List, I recently found out the names of my g.g.grandparents. My maternal g.g.grandparents were Matthew MURRAY and Mary TONER. The Murrays were married in Ireland, were from Cork, and emigrated to New Brunswick, Canada. My paternal g.g.grandparents were James MEEHAN and Margaret SAVAGE. The Meehans were married in Ireland, were from Mayo, and emigrated to New Brunswick, Canada. If anyone has any information on this line, please let me know. The information I have is below. Thanks, Margaret Kirk [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------ James (Edward?) MEEHAN was born about 1850 in St. John, NB Catherine [Kate] MURRAY was born abt 1852 in St. John, NB. They were married in St. John County (both of Portland Parish) on 12 OCT 1869. Their children: Margaret [Maggie] b. abt 1870 NB Mary Catherine [Mame] b. abt 1872 NB Anna Theresa [Tanna] b. abt 1874 NB Callie b. abt 1875 NB John [Charles A.--Albert] b. abt 1878 Oregon Territory Sarah J.(ane) ["Alydane"] b.abt 1880 Oregon Territory James Edward b. abt 1882 Oak Point [believe near the present St. Helen's, Oregon.]

There seem to be new researchers on the lists, so I am resending this as the sites given are very useful starting points. Another excellent site with masses of information on research in Ireland and UK is GENUKI. Two sites are useful: Andrew J. Morris Genealogy has a website which includes "Irish Genealogy Answers", an 11 page doc. which gives all kinds of tips including explaining Griffiths. www.genealogy.org/~ajmorris/ For Griffiths website itself, www.ceres.dti.ne.jp/~pyms/griffith.htm which gives details of how to use Griffiths, and includes a link to a look up service, county by county, with e mail addresses of volunteers who will look up names or landholdings, 1848 to 1864. Only the property holder will be listed, but it could give you the reference to someone and the name of the property, which you can use to search a library hard copy to give more details of the holding, details of neighbouring properties etc. Mary G.