Monday 14th
July SKERRIES - TULLAMORE
- BALLYCOMMON -
DAINGEAN
Robyn
writes: We’ve had a great day out, pursuing family history in Offaly County. Jo
didn’t do too badly with the jet lag – she woke up in the wee small hours, got
up and had an early breakfast, then went back to bed and slept until about
9.30! Once she’d dragged herself down and had a second breakfast (and we’d had
morning tea), we decided to head out to Offaly and check out the family history
sites there. As it turns out, both Lex and Jo have ancestors from Daingean, a
little town in Offaly.
It had rained
during the night, and was still very overcast when we woke up, but then cleared
to a beautiful morning here. However, the forecast warned us that rain was on
the way, so we took rain jackets with us and crossed our fingers!
Offaly is about an hour and a half drive to the west of us, so we set off (sure enough, the rain arrived about half way there) and had to go through a toll plaza on the way – it cost us 3.5 Euros, and luckily we could pay with a card, as we still don’t have any money! We arrived in Tullamore about one o’clock. We were all hungry, so went straight to the Bridge House Hotel by the Tullamore River there. It’s the third time Lex and I have been there – we had lunch there with Cait and Cassie in 2006, then Lex and I stayed there in 2014. It certainly didn’t fail us today; we had a lovely lunch there in the warm and dry. Fortified by that, we popped into the nearby shopping centre. We saw the Offaly History Group shop there, but it was closed, so we navigated to their main centre next to the canal so Lex and Jo could both have a look at it. By this time the rain had stopped – really, we were very lucky today with the weather and not massively inconvenienced.
After this, our next stop was Ballycommon, a tiny settlement to the east of Tullamore, where Jo’s great-grandmother came from. The church there is beautifully kept by volunteers, and so is the graveyard. We were looking around for names from her family tree, when we found a Cuskelly family grave there! (Terry Cuskelly d.1964 aged 58, his wife Kathleen died 2011 aged 99 and baby Michael died 1948) Not surprising really as it is only 6 miles to Daingean from there.
Anyway, Jo
hit family history gold! A bloke called Sean came over from the house next to
the church to ask who we were looking for. He proved to be a veritable goldmine
of information, and led Jo to the gravesites of her Campbell great-great-grandparents
and their daughter, and took us into the church and showed her the font where
her great-grandmother was christened. She was able to take photos of the
information in his records book, and was even shown where her great-grandmother’s
first husband was buried. She was widowed just before she left for Australia,
and met and married Jo’s great-grandfather there. Then he told us where to find
‘Campbell’s bridge’ nearby, next to the canal, which we did. Apparently, the
remains of the Campbell’s house are also nearby, but we couldn’t find them. All
in all, a very good family history day, anyway! We also had a lovely walk along
the grand canal in the process.
From here, we travelled the few miles to Daingean, the Cuskelly family home as well as more of Jo’s Campbells and Moores. We went and looked at the Grand Canal there, then headed out to Killaderry Cemetery, the old burial ground, where Lex and I have been before. It is a vastly different proposition to Ballycommon, and the graves are all very old and mostly unreadable. We did see the grave of Pat Cuskelly, who died in the 1920s. By this stage, the rain was coming down at regular intervals and it was getting cold, so we didn’t linger! (I tend to lose my enthusiasm for old graveyards when it starts to rain.)
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