Curry-Moylough

PARISH HISTORY PROJECT

The October meeting of the Curry Parish History Project on October 31, attended by 40 members and guests was held at the Yeats County Inn Curry.

Minutes of the previous meeting were read by the secretary. A talk on the Stenson family, Sandyhill was delivered by Bill Swords. Details of the family tree were prepared by Lorraine Egan, a niece of Bernie Stenson. Lorraine’s research sources were the collections at ancestry.com which gave her access to Griffiths Valuation, Census Records in Ireland and the USA, Ships passenger records Ireland USA She prepared a comprehensive family tree going back to the birth of Matthew Stenson in 1790 (Bernie’s great great grandfather) through to the birth of Alessandra (her grandniece) in August 2017. Bernie’s family tree listed seven generations.

The Coleman family of Moylough was the subject of the next talk given by Mary Coleman. Mary described how a Patrick Coleman is listed in Griffiths Valuation 1858 and today there is a Patrick Coleman in the homeplace. Mary gave a detailed history of previous generations of Colemans, who emigrated from Moylough to England and the USA including an Aunt, who was employed by a member of president Kennedy’s family. Mary related how her siblings also left Moylough to seek work elsewhere. She paid a moving tribute to her late brother Michael, who had a distinguished career as an administrator with Dublin City Council RIP the experiences of emigration/migration were related in vivid detail by Bernie Courtney. Bernie was born in England to Irish parents who had emigrated from Ireland, settled in England and raised a family there. The family moved back to Kilmovee when Bernie was in her teens. Later in life Bernie saw her own children leave Ireland to seek work abroad.

She highlighted a major difference experienced by todays emigrants and their families compared to those from the pre – Ireland West Airport days. The airport affords opportunity for emigrants to return home regularly and share major family events and reinforce their ties with their neighbours and friends. A photograph displayed of her mother’s wedding group contrasted sharply with that of a recent family wedding image including all siblings of the bride and groom.

Bernie showed an array of amazing photographs through- out her presentation, these included images of her ancestors which included some of those who had served in the military and had seen action in both World Wars. Her story highlighted a number of events which forced people to emigrate such as penal laws, famine and lack of work opportunities in rural towns and villages.

Seán Leech recalled his first experience of emigration as a young man just short of sixteen years when he left home with his father for seasonal work picking potatoes in Lincolnshire. He described in detail his journey there, the layout and style of an extensive tillage farm in Lincolnshire, basic accommodation provided (he was part of a gang of six) and how hard he found the work. His gang picked one-hundred-andthirty acres for the season and were paid £25 per acre. They left Ireland in early September and returned home for Christmas. Seán acknowledged the workload of his loving Mother, who was left behind to care for the homestead. She did all the farm work tending cattle, pigs and fowl, as well as the housework.

Our next meeting will feature talks on Railway Travels from Curry: ’ Opportunity, Sadness and Joy’. The meeting takes place at the Yeats Inn, Curry on Tuesday, November 28, at 8 p.m.

CARD GAMES

Card games continue weekly on Wednesday nights at 8.30 p.m. Joint winners on Wednesday night last were James Hyland, Alice McSorley, Martin Rogan with six games. a need for new donors. A startling statistic is that only three per cent of the population who are eligible to donate do so.