The Second Act In The Irish Visit

 Monday, April 24

I drove north and east from Connor Pass and continued further and thru the Town of Tralee and then followed Highway N67 north thru Listowel and on to Tarbert. I recall staying in this town well over a decade ago.  I had thought of taking the ferry from Tarbert to cross the Shannon to County Clare.    So why drive all the way to Limerick and cross the Shannon there?  Well, how about €23?  That's what it costs to take the ferry 1.5 kilometers from one shore to the other.  Silly.  So while I've used this ferry years ago for a couple pounds or euro, taking a car is way too expensive.  And since I have plenty of time, I decided to just drive up to Limerick and drive across the bridge and make head north to the town of Corofin.

Drive from Dingle to Corofin

So I headed east on Highway N69.  I've followed this route several times on bike tours.  Usually I would fly into Shannon Airport near Limerick and then would head towards Tarbert, Tralee and ultimately Dingle.  But now I'm driving my little Renault and going the opposite direction  

I stopped at what had been a wayside parking area overlooking the Shannon River, west of the town of Foynes.  I noticed that there were permanent barricades closing the wayside and so parked on the apron outside the area.  Time for a break to stretch my legs and look at the Shannon.  While there, I ended up talking to a local.  Bill was going for a walk as well. In Crutches.  A Brit from Birmingham who has lived here in Foynes for over 40 years.  We had a good conversation.  Why is the wayside closed to cars?   Travellers (Tinkers) were often encamping here for long periods of time, Bill said.  So the local council decided to shut it down and put up barricades  I remember seeing Traveller encampments during my first visit to Ireland 23 years ago.  But they seemed to have mostly gone away.  Apparently, not completely.  

Bill at the Old Wayside Rest (now closed)

Some people confuse the Travellers with the Gypsies. But the Gypsies originated from Persia whereas the Travellers are genetically Irish and Catholic.  The two groups shared some superficial modes of life such as the itinerant traveling life.  But the Travellers are a Whole Different Kettle of Fish compared to the Gypsies.  There are thousands of Irish Travellers who emigrated to the USA but they don't do the nomadic travel.

Traveller Encampment in the 1960s

After saying goodbye to Bill, I continued east thru Foynes and then rounded the bend at Limerick and on north thru Ennis and on to the Town of Corofin.  At Corofin is the County Clare Heritage and Genealogical Centre which is where I thought I might visit for information.

The Other Side of an Irish Family

My surname is O'Rourke and as written earlier, our 'modern' origins from the 1700s and before was  St. Mullins in Carlow.  Where were my great grandmother O'Rourke's people from?  She was born Theresa Crotty in Chicago in the 1860s, her parents were Michael and Johanna.  Only lately did we find indications from the work of previous genealogist that the Crotty's were from The Town of Cross in County Clare, not too far from the end of the peninsula.  

The Crotty's were supposed to have emigrated to the USA in the early 1850s.  In the 1860 Federal Census Micheal was listed as a "Master Carpenter" (he worked in the Bridgeport Shipyard in Chicago) and he and Johanna had two children at that point.  A few years after that, my great grandmother was born along with several other siblings.  And then Michael died at age 41 (unknown cause) and Johanna was widowed with 5 children.  Within a year she remarried a gentleman with the last name O'Brien, and they had two more children. She lived until 1890.

Theresa, born in 1865, had lost her father at an early age (2?).  Ultimately, she married my grandfather 

Theresa (Crotty) O'Rourke With My 
Grandfather Glenn (left) and Older Brother George

Theresa and my great grandfather, James Martin O'Rourke wed and produced two boys. James was worked as the manager of a large hotel in Chicago.  Then, one day, he disappeared, having run off with "May Gallagher".  Never to be seen again. 

This disappearance of great grandfather O'Rourke was the reason for our family's 'Amnesia" regarding our origins.  No oral histories of any detail to be passed on to the sons. Few details other than that my grandfather had been born in eastern Wisconsin near Lake Michigan and that he was an orphan at an early age.   

Fortunately, May Gallagher had a bad conscience and wrote her will to leave everything to the two boys, Glenn and George. So, after she died in the 1940s, the boys were located by an estate attorney in order to settle the estate.  It turned out that James Martin O'Rourke had changed his name to "Harris" and had a successful career in the retail business and was a management consultant based out of New York! He retired in the early 1920s and moved to Detroit area to be near May's family.  When May died the boys inherited a significant chunk of money and their father's billfold!  Below are a couple items from it:

How to Change Your Name!
(and Disappear...)

Department Store Retailing Consultant

In 1929 My Grandfather Bought a New Packard Motor Car!

The telling item in the billfold contents was the folded article about changing one's name and identity.  This was before social security numbers and other items to trace with.  You could essentially disappear in plain sight.  I've wondered how many years he carried this with him.  Like May's bad conscience, abandoning his wife and two boys may have weighed on him...  Who knows?

Anyway, this inquiry was intertwined with the loss of two men  Anna's father by premature death at age 41 and James O'Rourke's abandonment of his family when the boys were young.  Only lately, have we been able to reconstruct much of what happened and the origins of our people.  

Now, I am working on Theresa's grandparents.  

The Clare County Heritage and Genealogy Centre

I pulled in to the village of Corofin and found the County Genealogy Center.  The door was locked but there was an intercom button and I pressed it and a voice came on.  The center is locked up but the workers work upstairs amongst the county history records.  The lady who answered the intercom came down and opened the door and we stood at a counter and talked. Her name was Antoinette. The center's genealogists only meet inquiring visitors by appointment! Oh! I responded.  Would I like to set an appointment?  The cost for the initial appointment is €70.  Really?  I hesitated and considered. Then I thought, I can avoid a ferry ride.  But this opportunity to have a face-to-face discussion with a local expert on the area's families would be an opportunity to go into depth  and so I said yes.  Antoinette could see me tomorrow at 11:00 AM.  Alright.

I asked about Hostels.  There's one just down the street.  So I got in the car and made my way thru the narrow main street of Corofin and found the Corofin Village Hostel

Corofin Village Hostel

I met the owner, Jude, who told me that he no longer rented out individual dorm room bunks and only takes groups (he had a group of French Students coming for the next couple days) but if I had a tent, I could camp for €15.  That was fine with me and I paid him for the night. He showed me the dedicated camping kitchen, toilets, shower and lounge area and then left me to setting up my tent in the camping area.

Walking 200 steps back to the little main street, I beheld two touring bikes!  Fantastic. I had not see but one or two bike tourers on this trip and I was pleased to know that there are still others besides me doing this.  They were a French couple, Chantal and Jean Pierre Gambini and I could tell by the subtle details of their bicycle setups that they were seasoned and competent long distance adventure cyclists.  Around 60 years of age, they were on a trip that was taking them thru Ireland and England.  Their blog (in French but can be converted to English on Chrome OS) is at Gambicyclettes  Jean Pierre worked for the national train system for many years and now retired. Chantal was an elementary school teacher.  I chatted with Jean Pierre for some time. His name sounds more Italian. Yes, his father was Italian but his mother French and he grew up in France. So all that's Italian is the name!  I told him about my Irish name, O'Rourke, but I being only 25% Irish!

One thing that had caught my eye was that their bikes had 26" wheels. This is a subtle difference most non-bicycle tourists may not catch. The wheels are different from more standard sizes such as 700 cm wheels but 26" wheels are smaller and generally more robust and able to handle heavy loads on rough surfaces or gravel.  Also, it is easier to find replacement 26" tires and tubes at town hardware stores when there are no bicycle shops within many miles distance.

The Gambini's set up camp on the other side of the hedge from my tent. They had a large attractive tent with a rain fly that reached down to the ground, perfect for if they needed to shelter during extended periods of foul weather. 

Although on this trip I'm driving a car, usually I am on my touring bicycle traveling and exploring.  This is the exception.  This is partially because I am recovering from shoulder surgery.  

I was much impressed by Gambini's. In my idealized world, I would not have been a solo bicycle tourist and would rather have loved to share rides with a strong and amiable companion.  So, although this has not worked out for me personally, I am always happy to see wonderful couples such as these, sharing adventures together.  God Bless!

The Gambini's Bicycles

And Their Excellent Tent!

My Tent Without the Rainfly

Tuesday, April 25

The next morning I made my breakfast and then dawdled at the Hostel. I watched my French fellow campers head out.  They were going to a nearby town to pick up a shift cable.  Chantal's front shifter had broken and they didn't have a spare.  

Afterwards, I drove over to the Heritage Centre and met with Antoinette.  She wanted me to first fill out a questionnaire with anything I knew about Theresa's parents.  The father, Micheal was a Crotty and mother Johanna's maiden name was "Norton". Both were from the little town of Cross.  I was able to give approximate birth years and death dates in America.  Otherwise, there wasn't much.

The previous day at the Hostel, Jude had asked about my family origins and I had said the last names were Crotty and Norton.  He responded that there were plenty of Crottys in the Cross and Killrush but there are absolutely no Nortons.  Antoinette confirmed this, saying that as she looked at the little I had given her, she thought it was most likely that the name had actually been Naughton.  The people might have been illiterate Gaelic speakers and the name was Anglicized when they entered the USA either by themselves or the immigration authorities.  Norton is not an unusual version outside the area...

Antoinette read some notes I had brought with and then went away and did a bit of further digging in the archives and came back again with the marriage of another Crotty man to a Naughton woman from the same period of the late 1840s. She offered a tentative theory that this might indicate a case of brothers marrying sisters.  This was not unusual in those times.  Families lived in close proximity, adjacent to one another and the boys and girls often developed similar tastes. Familiarity. At least that was a tentative theory that she was going to keep an eye on.  What she wanted from me, was that I do some further investigations back in the USA when I returned there.  She suggested I look for death and marriage certificates in Chicago for both Michael and Johanne (both marriages for her) and perhaps there would be info on the their parents back in Ireland.

A Brief Reflection on the Famine in Clare

The County of Clare was especially hit hard by the Potato Famine with perhaps 50% of the population succumbing to death by starvation or diseases that killed the already weakened people.  During and after that, people were fleeing as well as being cleared from the land.  A series of maps are Here.

Clothing Distribution in Clare During the Famine

I remember visiting the site in 2001 near where the Ennistymon Poorhouse used to stand.  In a muddy pasture was a series of long, large depressions running up the hillside like a series of steps.  A forlorn spot. As I carefully made my way up the slope among grazing sheep, I paused to meditate on these depressions.  They had been trench graves where hundreds of bodies were laid and covered with earth.  After several hundred bodies and been interred in these trenches.  Then, with time, the bodies decomposed and the earth gradually collapsed in and the series of depressions were a reminder of the many hundreds of dead. Thousands in this one unmarked place.

Unmarked Potato Famine Trench Graves

During this current visit to Clare I inquired about this spot and was told that the above field is no longer accessible. Private property and the small road at the base of the hill had been closed.  North of that spot, near the main highway, is a Famine Memorial which refers to the Workhouse.

Michael Rice of Lahinch at the Workhouse Doors

Antoinette told me that she would start building a file for our family case and when I have collected more data, I can contact her with these and she will make an effort to draw baptismal, marriage and death information from the extensive indexed database.  The people in the County Historical Society have drawn nearly 3 million records from the various parish records and this can be searched against a range of names.  But the more specific the information we can give them, the more focused they can be in pulling information.

She recommended that I drive down to the Killmer landing on the north shore of the Shannon Estuary. There is where ships leaving for North America would have embarked from.  Also I should visit the burial grounds at Cross.  She also recommended that that I visit the Loop Head and Land's End.  

I headed out of Corofin for an afternoon drive.  First I stopped stopped at Killrush at the local TESCO and picked up some groceries for the evening meal as well as breakfast the next morning.  Then I headed down to the Killmer area where the Shannon River Ferry (from Tarbert) comes in.  I believe that Antoinette told me that 150+ years ago this was one of the spots where ships departed from that were heading for North America.  There was also the main old quays in Killrush.

There I spent some time walking along the waters edge and Killmer and contemplated the scene, looking down the Shannon toward the Atlantic Ocean.  What were the emigrants feeling as they came down to the river and leaving their homeland behind?  

The Clare Peninsula Where  My Ancestors Did Dwell

From Killmer I drove back west thru Killrush. On the way I saw Crotty's Corner, a sort of pub/restaurant and I stopped the car and hopped out and took a photo.  I found it reassuring to see the persistence of the family name. 

"Crotty's Corner" Restaurant and Pub

 Out of town and further west, I drove thru the very small village of Cross.  This is the town, but where the current Catholic Church is, is not where the parish burial yard is.  That was further west along the road a few miles.  I saw the medieval ruins the "St. John the Baptist" church and Kilballyown and the tombstones that surround the church and fill up the burial grounds. I pulled over the car to the parking apron and stepped out and passed thru the old metal gate and then started walking among the tombstones.

Kilballyowen (Cill Bhaile Eoghain) Burial Grounds
The Old St. John the Baptist Church Has Been in Ruins For Centuries

Interior of the Church Ruins

The Crotty's and Naughtons, Side-by-Side

Detail of the Crotty Tombstone

 

Within 15 minutes I had found both a Crotty and Naughton Tombstone side-by-side! This was amazing to me and confirmed to me the affinity of these two families. Even in death they were proximate to each other!  Again, I paused and contemplated this for several minutes.  Then I took photos for the record and slowly walked out of the church yard and back to the car.

A little further west on the road, I saw a lady coming out of her home and heading for the road. She was dressed in what I call "Farm Chore Clothing".  I pulled up beside her as she was walking and lowered the passenger window and tentatively introduced myself and explained my family history quest. She stopped to listen.  Did she know of any Crotty's or Naughtons?  Oh yes!  She replied. Her husband's mother's maiden name was Naughton and that the Naughtons had lived on the road to the south, paralleling the Shannon.  Again I was a bit amazed by the persistent thread of family names and the connections that these represent..  

    I reached into my billfold and pulled out a card with my name, address, email, etc. and asked Elizabeth if she could give this to her husband?  If he or his mother happened to know anything about folks that left back in the 1850's, I'd appreciate hearing from them. I was a little shy about pushing too hard, surprising people like this. My boldness generally works wonders for me but I have to be careful not to frighten people. I asked Elizabeth if they were dairy farmers.  Yes, she was on her way to the evening milking.  I mentioned in passing that I was from Wisconsin and had milked many cows over the years.  Their family milked the black & white Friesian breed.  I made another minute or so of small talk and then thanked her for her time. We waved goodbye and I was off.

    While we chatted, I made note of the family name (neither of the above) and wrote it down later. I might write a follow-up letter once I am back in the states...

Western Edge of Ireland

The next and last stop was Land's End/Loop Head.  It was a spectacular view, surrounded on three sides by the ocean.  I went for a long walk along the cliffs and admired the view and took several photos. German tourists were heading back to their bus at the parking lot east of the lighthouse and I soon had the place to myself.  As I stood on the edge of the cliffs, far to the south I could see the outline of the Dingle Peninsula.

Dingle To the Southeast

Finally, walked back to the parking lot and started the car and drove back to Corofin and the hostel. There I made dinner in the self-catering kitchen and then sat in the lounge area for a while, putting down notes.  Eventually, I headed off for my tent and went to bed.  A good and full day.