Thursday, 31st July                        CASHEL

Robyn writes: We had a big day in pursuit of family history today, with some amazing results! Full details for other family history-oriented rellies will be revealed in a separate blog....

We were up around 8 - slept in as it was very overcast and very good weather for sleeping. Our room here is so blissfully quiet and comfy, it's amazing we woke then! We had a lovely breakfast down in the dining room - the ubiquitous cooked Irish breakfast (I had a boiled egg, Lex had sausages and tomatoes) then some lovely fresh fruit and yoghurt. We had a nice chat to our landlady who was quite amazed at how Australians live (airconditioning, flyscreens, other weird innovations)!

She'd told us yesterday about the library at Thurles (pronounced 'Turless') as a great family history resource, so we decided to head there first, with not much expectation of any luck, to tell the truth - family research in Ireland is notoriously difficult. We found a park in Thurles and the library without too much trouble, and headed upstairs to the research rooms where we met young John O'Gorman. Well! The lad is a research powerhouse! He started on my Downey ancestors and before too long had found my g-g-grandfather AND his father's land, including the year it was handed over, how big the property was, buildings that were on it and how big they were! He then whisked into Lex's Ballysheedy Hogan ancestors, determined that in fact they were from BallysheedA (which is sometimes called Ballysheedy by the locals) and found his g-g-g-grandfather's records as well. We were left stunned, gratefully gave them a 20 Euro donation and staggered out some two or three hours later.

Library in Thurles

The cathedral in Thurles. A stunning building in a style we've never seen before - couldn't decide where it came from!

We saw this ruined tower in a hayfield just outside of Cashel.

We had a lovely lunch at Quigley's cafe in Thurles then set out to see our ancestral homes. My Downey ancestors come from Cloughleigh, or Cloghleigh, a little area called a townland (except there's no town there!) to the south-east of Golden in Tipperary. Dad's grandmother Mary Agnes Downey was born here circa 1867. We drove to the area to look around - it's a very pretty farming area now with quite a few houses along the road. No sign of any old houses of course, but when you look at some of the fields you get an idea of sizes perhaps - Michael Downey had around 15 acres and a lot of the fields would be around that size. We visited Golden again and checked out the graveyards of both churches there but no Downey graves at all.

Cloughleigh, near Golden - home of the Downeys

Famine memorial at the Anacarty church

Then we went on to Ballysheeda, a townland near the little town of Anacarty, not far away, where Lex's great-great grandfather Matthew Hogan was born. Again there was nothing old to see except the size of the fields and the odd stone/turf wall. There is an old very ruined bit of a castle, too. The area is quite high up in the foothill of one of the mountain ranges and is forested these days. We checked out the cemetery at Anacarty and did find a 1993 Hogan grave from BallysheedY so the family obviously still call it that!

From there, we drove back to Cashel and spent some time on our computers busily trying to find out more (and in my case, get my head around Griffith's Valuations!) Finally around 7 we realised we'd better go eat, so we walked into town (about 7 minutes stroll) and decided to eat at The Oasis Mediterranean in one of the pubs. We had a lovely meal there - Lex had seafood chowder and Pasta Arriabata and is still groaning occasionally, and I had a Chicken Caesar salad followed by the most excellent tiramisu. Yum! Then we walked (staggered) home to continue hunting down ancestors on the internet. It's now nearly 10 and is finally dark! Don't know if we will find out any more but while we are in the area, it's all systems go...

Peat stacked in the fields. It's left to dry, and then moved in big trucks. It's amazingly light and very strong - hard to break