James CAREY, Lost in Oz - but not forgotten And if you come, when all the flowers are dying And I am dead, as dead I well may be You'll come and find the place where I am lying And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me. A gravestone in the RC parish cemetery in Dunloy, County Antrim, N. Ireland bears an inscription which begins Erected by John CAREY in memory of his beloved mother Margaret CAREY who died in 1903 and his father Richard CAREY who died 1908 aged 81 years. It ends with also his uncle, James CAREY, who died in Australia in 1889, aged 72 years. As Richard CAREY was my maternal great grandfather I enquired about his brother. No documentation remained about James CAREY so the date he sailed on (and with whom) the ship which carried him there and from whence, its port and date of arrival, what he worked at or where and the site of his grave, are all unrecorded. Oral history recollects James as arriving and living in Melbourne as a bachelor and, before he died, willing his property to his relatives at Glenbuck Townland, Rasharkin Civil Parish, County Antrim. Eventually, subsequent to probate, some £800 pounds was allegedly transferred to Ireland (around £60,000 - $Au 143,241.76 in 2005 terms) and distributed among his nephews and nieces. This injection of funds (and possibly previous sums) allowed the family, back home, to invest in businesses and farms and laid the foundation of their subsequent prosperity. One of his nephews, John Carey used his share to buy a farm in Gortgole (Rasharkin) about 1912, and his niece Ellen, (my grandmother), used her portion to purchase a leather workshop and two shops in Ballymena (Co. Antrim). Several family descendants are millionaires, some several times over and one is a Papal Knight of the Order of St. Gregory. Many others have succeeded in commerce and the professions and some have scaled the heights of academia. At least 7 entered and served in the priesthood throughout their lives at home and abroad. Their genealogy can be viewed by typing Postman Bill into the Google search engine. Death certificate requests to the various Australian states (except Tasmania) and a search of the Oz probate records by Genfindit did not yield any positive information. Efforts by various kind Aussie E-list members were to no avail. James left an impoverished Ireland for Australia in the desperate times of the1846-1850 potato famine. His subsequent lonely efforts down under fueled the progress of those he left behind and they represent a disproportionately large contribution by an individual to the prosperity of his relatives. A number of Carey descendants are now living in Australia. These and any visitors from back home would like to visit Jamess last resting-place. They could kneel there among the microlaena grass under the Eucalyptus trees and intone an Ave for the repose of his soul. And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be If you'll not fail to tell me that you love me I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me. Liam "A bird in the bush is worth two in the cat