In search of lost relatives

Friday 3 June

First thing drove to  Tralee, Co Kerry to check out archives there, for M's search for lost relatives. We were directed to the County Library, the family history section & bingo, straight away found the record of the marriage of Margaret Fitzmaurice & Michael Sullivan in 1856, parish recorded as Moyvane, which was one of the parishes narrowed down yesterday in Ennis. We also found lists of children baptised but parents seemed to be mixed up somehow.  We drove to Moyvane, really backtracking the way we had come & found the priest, what an experience, (least said soonest mended)  What I referred to earlier with transcription errors seems to have happened here as we found a baptism record for Margaret Fitzmaurice & the transcription had different parent’s names to the original – when we were allowed to see it – priest not exactly willing, now I understand that he is the custodian of the records but really! Anyway off the original entry of the marriage, got townlands of ……. which priest told us was about 5 ks down a certain road. Drove out that way & M determined to find an old house (any old house would do) about 5 ks down the road & take a photo of it. We stopped at little old house & the chap came out & talk about the luck of the Irish, it turned out that he had purchased the house from a Fitzmaurice! He directed us to the house of Gabriel F about 2 ks away & what a result for M, G not home but his wife was & was very welcoming & felt sure that  M was a relative, invited us in & cups of tea & got out the family history which had been done by the US branch of the Fitzmaurice family.

G came home & lovely chap, he is a published poet & was the local headmaster prior to retirement. We arranged to come back the next day & he would take us to the old family homestead which had been in the F family until just recently.

Kerry countryside more like English country & we took the ferry from Tarbet to Killimer & drove to Kilrush & found a B&B. Kilrush I understand was (along with Limerick) stepoff point for ferries from Ireland to Liverpool to board immigrant ships for Australia. Most unusually for an old Irish town, Kilrush has some very wide streets.

Tarbet ferry, Killimer in the distance

Wide main street of Kilrush Co Clare

Kilrush harbor

Had tea in Crottys pub  and we were having a little giggle about a portrait of a woman hanging on the wall who M thought looked like Mrs Doubtfire, turned out she was Mrs Crotty , the matriarch of the Crotty family & wellknown local musician & our giggles were a considered quite irreverent. Meal v good though, roast duck breast & veg , I said to M where’s the mash, & when I lifted the duck breast skin, there it was,  making the breast look very plump! Bit of a cheat.

Mrs Crotty

Plump duck breast for tea at Crottys pub