Jack on Thatch

To illustrate the benefits of thatch Jack used to tell the story of two men who each bought two bonhams at Bantry Fair.  One had a thatched outhouse where the bonhams thrived weeks ahead of those housed by his friend in an outhouse covered with galvanise.

This is consistent with the account related by Claudia Kinmonth  in her history of Irish furniture in essence the hens kept indoors with the family during the winter and kept laying eggs but those of the gentry kept outside did not.

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Jack Dukrlow:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gnw2LsIbV0Wxk2bGjzCPq9sH9rCCQOrYTh5c0bG7vf0/edit

Those mentioned in the Paddy O’Keeffe, Bantry business man and historian commissioned an engineering survey in 1957. The Germans were reinterred I think in 1959. It is a beautiful graveyard with very humble stones laid flat.  See enclosed. The true horror of war is shown in the numerous stones to a German Soldier or  2 or 3 or 4 names unknown.  Quite a few from WW1.   We are so lucky in Europe not to have had a major conflict since 1959.
Even though it was opened in 1959 already  some of the stones are difficult to make  out due to erosion.
By the way Colum Hourihane tells me that POK did photograph the air crash debris and I assume the photos are in the Cork Archive.
Yes indeed- he labelled them and they were part of his war bundle!
Colum

German Military Abbey Bantry.

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Luftwaffe Air Crashes

1941 5th, FW200C-3 0042/F8+AH.  1/K.G40 5 killed 1 prisoner of war.  Crashed into Cashelane Hill, Dunbeacon, Durrus, 850ft. in dense fog at 08.00 after being shot at by anti aircraft fire from S.S. Major C.  Miss Shanahan Dunbeacon, rescued awarded by German Government.  In the singer Seán Ó Sea’s autobiography he recounts one of the German aircraft being on display in Bantry House where the LDF were based.

1942, 3rd. March Ju88D-1 1429/CN+DU Wekusta 2-4 killed.  Crashed into Mount Gabriel.   Bantry businessman Paddy O’Keeffe (Principal G.W. Biggs and Co.) and historian took photographs immediately after.  Pat

Yes indeed- he labelled them and they were part of his war bundle!

Colum

1943, 23rd. July, Ju88D-1 430030 Wekusta 2-4 killed

Crashed at Dursey at 07.25.

Luftwaffe High Command’s weather reconnaissance Staffe 2

Hans Auschner at controls wearing his Iron Cross.  He had lost both legs and the plane was adapted for hand control; Bruno Noth, a civilian meteorological observer from Hamburg; Johannes Kushidlo, airman; Gerhard Dummler (19) radio operator the youngest man to die in an aerial crash in Ireland.

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Glencree, Co. Wicklow, German Military Cemetery:

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107 Year Old Irish Farmer Reflects on Change, 1965

From a Baker/Williamson Durrus descendant in Canada:

Michael Fitzpatrick moved from Clare to a farm near Maynooth as part of the Land Commission scheme in 1940 where he has lived ever since.

Now aged 107 Michael Fitzpatrick has experienced many changes in the world of farming. The biggest change that has taken place is the introduction of machinery and specifically the combine harvester.

Michael Fitzpatrick also remembers seeing an eviction taking place in Bodyke County Clare in June 1887. He recalls the event as being “very cruel” with women and children thrown out of their homes. 

This episode of ‘Newsbeat’ was broadcast on 7 January 1965. The reporter is Jim Norton.

I have just spent a rainy morning with tea, reading accounts of the evictions, which were referenced by the. 
How would one ever forget. 
The accounts – below-were written by a gr grandson of Major Edward J O’Shaughnessy, another witness. ( I note his family immigrated in 1847  The Major  was born in Montreal  the next year, and ‘skedaddled’ to New York State in 1865 when he was about 17, after some Fenian action. The Canada / USA border was crisscrossed a good deal in those days. My family members are found in both countries in similar locations. In some places, it is a matter of  crossing  the  St Laurence River. Or even crossing a farm field. 
 Although the four articles are similar, there are differences in them- ie. quality of the images reproduced. They are chilling accounts. The first article footnotes ( .22)  that the estates were broken up and  sold in 1903. “After years of negotiation Captain Vandeleur sold off his entire estate to his former tenants and others under the authority of the Wyndham Act of 1903.”

An American Witness to the Vandeleur Estate Evictions by Ed O’Shaughnessy

Clare County Library is grateful to Ed O’Shaughnessy for donating this article which was first published in The Other Clare, Vol. 44 (2020) pp. 79-85. All four of these articles, listed below, have  similarities: I found the imagery clearer in the first.    https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/intro.htm1). https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/vandeleur_witness.htm 2). https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/photographing_evictions_vandeleur.htm 3). https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/vandeleur_evictions.htm

4). https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/vandeleur_officials.htm
——-A little more:

A Clare person

When I was a child people were still talking about the Bodyke evictions, but not the Kilrush ones. Quite surprised that very sound well-built houses were demolished. Also I never knew that people from Clare were given land up the country. I thought it was just people from the congested districts on the coast.  Says how much I don’t know. Very interesting material.  

Van de Lour Estate, Kilrush:

http://landedestates.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/estate-show.jsp?id=1856

Inbox

As part of National Heritage Week 2021 (Saturday 14th – Sunday 22nd August), Bantry Historical & Archaeological Society are welcoming heritage newcomers to learn more about our Abbey Mapping Project by attending an online presentation over Zoom this coming Thursday, August 19th at 8PM.This project aims to document, map, geotag and photograph all the gravestones in the Abbey Graveyard, Bantry. We have engaged Eachtra, a Kinsale-based archaeological partnership, to prepare a project management plan to tackle this ambitious survey, beginning with the oldest part of the graveyard, dating from the 1700s.This project has received funding under the County Cork Heritage Grant Scheme 2021, supported by Cork County Council and the Heritage Council.Topic: Bantry Historical & Archaeological Society – Abbey Mapping Project TalkTime: Aug 19, 2021 08:00 PM DublinJoin Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/86589246348…Meeting ID: 865 8924 6348 Passcode: 245078

For full report:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d1yh33qgRFGlN6sbXaswpBud0aSqap1PiFl1WxhKQY8/edit

Also included as it is o the sae,page is a report of horse sale in Skibbereen. One of the purchasers is the Bantry Tourism Development Syndicate managed by George Vickery. The Vickery family were pioneers in tourism development in Thomas Vickery establishing Vickery’s Hotel and a coaching establishment with the Prince of Wales Route from Bantry to Killarney via Glengariff.

1843-1954 West Cork Agricultural Societies and Shows

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yoNjmDNQKT_pk3nvlCsT72YWYoDENcs–uaJxh2ber8/edit

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1895, The Parliamentary Representation of West Cork.  Unopposed Return of  James Gilhooley, M.P., at Bantry Courthouse.

What is of interest is the assentors of West Cork’s Nationalist in 1895.  Strong representation of the Catholic Clergy.

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`Further Information will be added shortly

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Cattle Dealers, Clonakilty, 1911 all have Irish, staying in Catherine O’Donovan’s Hotel.

Census night was probably the night befofre Clonakilty Fair.

In 1901 and 1911 quite a number of West Cork Protestants in particular the older members are bilingual. This is the case even for substantial farmers. In their case many of their labourers may have come from the far west more comfortable speaking in Irish than in English. Even when they spoke in English they were talking Irish but through the medium of the English language.

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Interesting that the present day O’Donovan Hotel has its signage in irish:

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Had Not seen entries for  dancing before maybe an early intimation of Riverdance.

One of those who features is the Rev. Cyril Du Cros and his wife.  He died 1965 aged 84, a graduate of TCD, Rector of Dunmanway early 1950s.  The name looks Huguenot, his father was a physician born in Co. Clare.

From a Canadian Durrus descendant:

“These agricultural records catch information like: farm names and addresses, products being grown, hand crafts, home skills and their value to daily living. 

How I wish I could slip into the crowd, see the prize-winning turnips and brown soda bread, maybe pick up a heritage knit pair of socks if there were any for sale.  

History is fed by the little details- these agricultural show booklets  capture home, farm, and community life for 170 years. 

It made me realize how many skills that were put on display actually allowed my ancestors to survive. 

They had to leave their homeland  for Canada, America, Australia and whatever places they could go. Refugees from the times of famine, disease, political upheavals brought few possessions with them. 

But those who could make, and grow, and cook, and spin the kinds of things on display at shows had an arsenal of skills to keep them alive. To allow them to flourish.  

I used to think that some of the early shanties and shelters must have been pretty bleak. And many of them were for a time. But immigrants who could fashion and grow these types of goods from a bit of land and some shared resources could also grow  sustainable communities. No wonder the snapshots early censuses give reflect huge transformations in such a few decades. Ten years from shanty to farmhouse, crops livestock. Another decade and the children are  families living on a nearby plot of land. 

I was sure that my Irish ancestors were farming people when I first started researching. 

All I had on paper were some names, dates and “ from Skibbereen” The last dozen years have produced data, and also enough neighbouring connections to provide evidences of just where some of them came from, despite their being limited paper documentation in the Irish archives.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fHBFL3zWnG5aEwjHusxwFDQfhydun6byh_yWWSMYZsU/edit

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For some reason my computer is saving screenshots in reverse order so patience is needed

Walter McGrath was an associate of the great Colm Creedon the chronicler of Cork’s railways

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The Iron Road to West Cork

1940 Local Security and Parish Committees, Adrigole, Ballinspittle, Ballinadee, Bandon, Dunmanway, Durrus and Kilcrohane, Rathmore (Co. Kerry), Dunmanway, Timoleague, Muintir-na-Tire

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZCLt0ng371E9jCHCmueEB8zEeqI_S-lVN3Vs5Kp4KP4/edit

A collection of newspaper extracts showing rationing, shortages, and coping during the Emergency.

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Éamon de Valera was probably correct when he said no one died of starvation in Ireland during the was unlike many part of Europe.