Story of tribal boy with Sligo links on RTÉ
THIS Saturday’s Documentary on One radio programme on RTÉ has a Sligo connection. It’s called The Prospector’s Son and features local author, Rosemarie Gilchrist.
She unravels the story of her cousin, Cyril Barton, who was orphaned at the age of 8 in South Africa in the 1800s.
It’s said that the boy was taken in by a tribe, until he was found by a man who traced his family back to Ireland.
In the documentary, Rosemarie goes in search of what actually happened.
Cyril was born in South Africa in 1875 to Irish parents, Florence and Folliott Barton.
Cyril’s mother, née Florence Lyons Montgomery, came from an Anglo- Irish family who were landlords in Killargue, County Leitrim.
She married Folliott Barton from Pettigo, County Fermanagh, who also came from a landed family.
Cyril’s parents lived in Tullaghan, Sligo and his father had a mining enterprise there in the 1870s before he and his wife emigrated to South Africa.
Folliott, an engineer, set up a large scale mining enterprise in Belbulbin, Co Sligo. However, things didn’t go to plan and the enterprise ended five years into a twenty- one year lease. He was then declared bankrupt, and a hurried escape to South Africa followed in search of better prospects.
The programme hears from Gerry Foley, a retired engineer from Sligo, who gives more insight into the story.
As a child in South Africa, Rosemarie’s grandmother told her a story about an orphaned Irish boy, lost in Africa, who grew up in the bush, cared for by a local tribe until he was found by a man who then traced his family back to Ireland.
Florence was a graphic letter writer, and her letters written to her family back in Ireland have survived, and document the birth of Cyril in Grahamstown in June 1875, along with the trials and tribulations of Florence, Folliott and Cyril and their travels through South Africa via ox- wagon.
It was a day- by- day existence where they constantly struggled to make ends meet, and longed to return to Ireland.
After a number of years the letters stop. Rosemarie’s grandmother’s story has always fascinated her, and years later she came across some old family documents from Ireland which give an account of what happened next to Cyril and his parents.
The documentary learns that Florence died of malarial fever. After her death, eight- year- old Cyril and his father then moved onto the gold fields of the Northern Province. En route, Folliott had his possessions and wagon stolen, and was killed. The maid travelling with them grabbed the young boy, Cyril, and took him to her tribe in the mountains. According to the family account, nothing more was heard of Cyril for many years although all enquiries were made as to what had become of him. Years afterwards, his grandmother, Mrs Barton, had a South African newspaper sent to her in which was an account of a white child having been found by a hunter in a wild tribal area far up country. She at once got into communication with the hunter and eventually Cyril was brought home to his father’s people in Ireland.
In Documentary on One: The Prospector’s Son, Rosemarie and documentary maker, Sarah Blake, go in search of Cyril’s story – a trail that moves from Fermanagh, Leitrim and Sligo, to the remote Highveld of the Mpumalanga region of South Africa, and back to Dublin. The programme will be aired on Saturday at 2pm on RTÉ Radio One and available for podcast/ download from Friday on the Documentary on One website. www. rte. ie/ doconone.