The Ballycastle Blog: Irish Genealogy and More

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

Saving the year’s supply of turf, (we never called it peat), was a family exercise extending over several months each year. Soon after St. Patrick’s Day my father would arrange to have the turf cut. At this stage a sod of turf is about 16 inches long and 4-5 inches square, and black sodden mass 80% water. Our bog was a fairly shallow blanket bog (about 5 feet deep), so we got only three tops ( three vertical rows). Two of the tops were thrown in two parallel vertical heaps on the bank and one in the bog hole. The next process involved “spreading the turf” where the sodden turf sods were spread out in a single layer to dry. This was very messy and heavy work and at the end of the day you and your clothes were covered in black muck. With my father and brothers working, it took 4 or 5 days to complete.

After about three weeks the top layer was dry while the bottom was still very wet. The turf was then “wreckled” that is the sods were stood on their ends in groups of 10-12 . I enjoyed this part of the process as you could be creative and develop your own “signature” wreckle. After about a month, the turf was dry and ready to be moved from the bog to the side of the road, though the time it took to get to this stage could be seriously delayed by bad weather.

The first ass cart I remember working on (assisting with the filling and emptying) had metal shod wooden wheels, but shortly after that my father replaced the axle and wheels with a car axle and rubber car wheels, which was regarded as a major technological advance. One part of our bog could not be reached by cart, so the turf was removed by ass and pardogs (wickerwork panniers). I was put in charge of this part of the operation at age ten. Two years later, I was put in charge of the ass and car and my younger brothers inherited the ass and pardogs. We had to move 140-150 cart loads a distance of 30 to 300 yards to the side of the road. This took place in June and took us about three weeks to complete. The weather seemed better then, as I recall hot sunny days working with the turf. In the next bog were three boys about our own age. As our carts passed each other, both groups were greeted with a fusillade of clods (small pieces of turf up to about 3 inches long). After a warm day in the bog we were covered in turf dust which stuck to your sweat and the way we had to clean up was to go for a refreshing swim in a large rock pool where the water was significantly warmer than the sea.

Our bog was three quarters a mile from our house, and, as you could put much more turf in the cart, we had about 70-80 cart loads to get home. I hated it as it seemed to take forever. We could get maybe 5 or 6 carts home in a day. Things seemed to cause delay. The ass might tire and fail, and would need the next day off. We had one ass that would work away happily for three or four days and then would just stop and would not move any farther. You just had to un-harness him and leave the cart there until he had his day off.. On the sharp stones the wheels regularly punctured and occasionally a wheel seized. On one occasion I was walking ahead of the ass when the reins were jerked out of my hand. When I turned and looked back, the cart was on its side in a deep ditch and the poor old ass was on his back with his legs up in the drain.

My children have very good memories of bringing home the turf for their grandfather. We were living in England at the time and during our summer holiday a brother would borrow a tractor and trailer, and with a team of from 10-15 children the job was completed in one day. My children thought it great to ride with their cousins in the trailer to the bog and to run home barefoot through the bog. My brothers went with the tractor while I stayed with my father to build the stack. The children were completely banned from throwing clods (my daughter had lost half a front tooth from a direct hit from a cousin). At the end of the day my brothers and I would start throwing clods at each other and the children were allowed to have a bog fight with us which they all remember. They were fascinated at the way we caught the in-coming clods and threw them back.

What I have described is the process of saving turf in North Mayo in the era of the ass and cart. With different types of bog the process was somewhat different.

Readers are welcomed to share their bog and turf stories with us.

See more Irish family history articles and Irish genealogy lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time. The following was written in response to a comment on an earlier blog post of July 22, 2008.

A visitor has made a welcome comment as to what evidence I have regarding St. Bridget’s status. There is no direct evidence, but there are two bits of deductive evidence which I consider compelling.

What direct evidence we have comes from the Lives of the Saints and these were written a hundred or more years after the death of the Saint by a successor with a view to strengthen the particular institutions claim to primacy. Copies exist many hundreds of years old with some fragments going back to the eighth century. They are, however, regarded as not very reliable and as being full of exaggeration and dubious miracles. In St. Bridget’s life we are told that she was a head-strong independent young princess in conflict with her father when she met St. Patrick and was converted from paganism.

Another powerful Celtic woman was Queen Maebh (Maeve) of Connaught. She personally assessed the prowess of one hundred princes before deciding to marry Ailill and then went to war with Ulster because Ailill had a better bull than she had. The story of that war is told in the Táin. In pagan Celtic Ireland it was impossible for a princess to reach adulthood and still be a virgin.

One of the series of legends we have are the Imramha. They are a series of curragh voyages of adventure and they are a bit like a James Bond film in that they follow a formula. Among others they usually visit the Island of Apples (apples were a symbol of abundance in Celtic times), the Island of Fire, the Island of Ice and the Island of Women. The Island of Women was considered to be full of magic and mystery. In the Voyage of Bran the women did not want the men to return so when they tried to row away after a year the women threw magic ropes that stuck to the curragh and hauled them back. One time a crew member grabbed the rope before it touched the curragh and with his sword Bran chopped off the crew member’s hand and so they escaped. However, when they got home a hundred years had passed and as soon as they stepped ashore they became very old men.

In another story there were three women for every man and the men found the women’s demands so exhausting that they went on strike. The strike was settled when it was agreed that the men would be allowed to hunt for one day a week. In another there were seven women to every man and with his crew half dead the skipper went back on his own to get a second crew to relive the pressure on his first crew. St Brendan the Navigator’s voyages are in this tradition and he visits the Island of Fire and the Island of Ice but unfortunately missed the Island of Women.

I have tried to imagine the monks in their freezing scriptoriums solemnly writing down the sexual antics contained in the oral legends.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a community which had the last echoes of a Gaelic past and the cult of St. Bridget. Her cult had absorbed much of the Celtic goddess Bríd the fertility goddess, mother earth the mother goddess. I was genuinely taken aback when I walked into the church in Portugal and saw St. Bridget the Virgin because I had an image of St. Bridget as a mother figure and giving a mother’s protection to Ireland.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

The following was contributed by Shay Healy, an Irish relative in Dublin, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

There is a dire need for the government to appoint an independent taxidermist to take the Celtic Tiger, stuff it and put it in the skip at the back of Leinster House. We can make no progress as a country as long as we keep referring to our Celtic history, which has been thoroughly exposed as bogus by gardener-turned-anthropologist, Diarmuid Gavin, in his TV documentary series, Blood of The Irish.

Diarmuid used DNA evidence to confound what we have been believing about ourselves, all these years. He breathlessly told us that fifty-five thousand years ago, the ancestors of the first Irishman, began their journey from the Rift Valley in Kenya,

His findings were so obvious, that he scarcely needed the DNA to prove his thesis. Don’t we all know that any attempt by Irishmen to cohere into a group, always begins with the “rift”…or as it is better known in Ireland, the “split.”

As our ancestors traveled from the Rift Valley, all the way across Europe till they reached the Basque Country of Northern Spain, there wasn’t as much as a single Celt to be seen, not to mention bodhrans or banjos. And there was no such thing as “the craic.”

Our forebears remained in the Basque Country until about 10,000 years ago, when they finally moved on to Ireland, having realized that a good slick advertising campaign about “the mist that do be on the bog” and “friendly Irish staff to greet you,” could yield a handsome turnover of tourists.

But this shocking disclosure that we are descended from the Basques, means that all the Celtic baloney we’ve been peddling recklessly, all this time, is a big, fat lie, worthy of a banker.

Thankfully, fate has not deserted us entirely. In a twist as corny as a country song, it may be that our saviour in this hour of national crisis is none other than pure, sweet, mother-loving, ever-smiling, “howya Josie,” twinkle-eyed Daniel O’Donnell,

According to Diarmuid’s research, Daniel, is descended from the great Irish chieftain, Niall of the Nine Hostages, the man who allegedly kidnapped St. Patrick and brought him to Ireland. If we dump the “Celtic Tiger” tag as quickly as possible and revert to St. Patrick’s as our national saint and the shamrock as our tourist emblem, Daniel can rescue our Irish pride during the transition, by being able to remember the first name of every American tourist who comes to Ireland this year.

And there’s more good news. Bernard Lagat, the Kenyan athletics hero who declared for the United States, last week won the famous Wanamaker Indoor Mile, in New York, for the seventh time and in doing so he equalled the record of our own Eamonn Coghlan, who in his heyday on the American indoor circuit, was known as The Chairman of The Boards.

Lagat was slightly bemused that Eamonn, who traveled to New York for the race, could be so gracious in giving him benediction to equal his record.

“He wanted me to win today. That means a lot. It’s unbelievable, because normally you don’t want someone to take your record.”

While Daniel is busy shaking hands at airports, ferry ports and train stations, what is to stop us sending Eamonn Coghlan to Kenya under the guise of a FAS scheme, to lure future Lagats to declare for Ireland. As long as two or three executives from Fas accompany him, to ensure he wasn’t padding out his expenses, it would be money well spent.

And there’s more good news. Spanish international soccer player, Xabi Alonso was born in Tolosa, in the Spanish Basque country and Didier Deschamps, the French international, was born in Bayonne, which is part of the French Basque country. A smidgin of saliva is all it would take now to establish a player’s Basque-Irishness and a few sturdy Basque players might spare Giovanni Trappatoni the awkwardness he has created for himself by his macho Italiano refusal to pick Andy Reid.

But by far the best news to emerge from Diarmuid’s detective work, is the disclosure of the existence of a cave in The Burren, which provides us with evidence that the first Irish settlers, our Basque ancestors, survived by living in caves. It may not be this year, but the way things are shaping up, by this time next year, we could all be living in caves.

And if you do find yourself living in a cave, in light of this new evidence about our ancestry, make sure there are two ways out of your cave, in case of emergencies. You know what they say about putting all your Basques in one exit.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

American Presidential elections always start a search for the village in Ireland where an ancestor came from. The year before he was assassinated President Kennedy visited the farm in Wexford that an ancestor had left about 1850. the farm was still in the Kennedy family.

Later still records were found of a Reagan ancestor who had left Ballyporeen in Co. Tipperary. President Reagan made a visit while he was in office. (Poreen in Hiberno-English means a tiny potato so Ballyporeen means Town of tiny spuds which is code for Hungry Town).

A lovely row is developing between Moneygall and Shinrone in Co. Ofally both claiming ancestors of President Obama. As I understand the story so far, and I have not followed it that closely, it started when the local Church of Ireland vicar in Moneygall was contacted from Salt Lake City to see if he had a baptismal certificate for Falmouth Kearney President Obama’s great-great-great-grandfather. The vicar was only too delighted to confirm and indeed has gone to the inauguration with a 7th cousin of the President. It seems that Falmouth Kearney, aged 19, went to the United States in 1850 and over the years his whole family moved there.

When they followed up the research they found that Falmouth’s father was the local shoemaker, was originally from Shinrone, married Mary Healy from Moneygall and had settled in his wife’s home place. Back came Shinrone with the graves of all Falmouth Kearney’s ancestors.

Moneygall, of course, have all his Healy ancestors and the cousins to the 7th degree are all Healys.

If anything interesting develops in the row I will keep you informed.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

Throughout the centuries, some Irish family surnames proliferate in specific geographic regions and counties in Ireland – Murphy in Cork, O’Sullivan in Kerry, Sweeney in Mayo, Healy in Sligo, Power in Waterford, etc. etc.

Knowing the Irish family surname location patterns throughout Ireland helps you isolate regions of the country where a particular Irish ancestor’s origins may be found. Additionally, combining the ancestor’s parents’ surnames, the father’s surname and the mother’s maiden name, may pinpoint a specific civil parish and townland where those two surnames were dominant in past centuries and still are today.

Let us know the geographic regions of Ireland where you found your Irish ancestors’ family names and post them here.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

As a child growing up in 1940’s rural Ireland Christmas was a time of excitement and wonderment. During Advent the adults were required to fast but this did not affect us children. The Christmas season really started the Sunday before Christmas and one of the first manifestations of Christmas was a visit to the local shop with an ass and cart to purchase paraffin, flour, candles and other provisions for the Christmas period. My grandfather killed the goose and turkey and plucking, which took place in an outhouse took about an hour and a half. (When my grandfather became too infirm to kill the fowl I took over his duties as my father was too squeamish for the task and I performed those duties for the family for about 10 – 12 years).

Christmas Eve was a day of abstinence (no meat) but my mother believed in the Celtic day which starts at night-fall and so we had a special meal after dark to commence the Christmas festivities. After the war tinned fruit became available and a big treat at that Christmas Eve meal was tinned pineapple, to this day my favourite fruit. A huge excitement was caused by lighting the candles as two candles were lit in every window in the house and to look around the village and to see candles in every window except those houses that had a bereavement during the year. (Someone who was a bit tight- fisted would be described as “He only lit candles in his front windows”).

We were lucky and unusual in that Santy came to our house with a toy, a book, an orange (a huge treat after the war) and a garment knitted by my mother or grandmother.

Christmas Day we walked to Mass fasting and while I was an altar-boy a big treat was the shilling we got from the parish priest after Mass. (We were terrified of upsetting him and he did not know how to deal with children but in hindsight he was a most compassionate and caring man. When I got involved in local history I found out that as a young priest he had campaigned vigorously to improve the material lot of his impoverished parishioners).

We had Christmas dinner in my grandparents’ house next door. My grandmother cooked the turkey and my mother the goose in large ovens by an open turf fire. Glowing coals had to be constantly replaced on top and under the oven and the duties of keeping the fire blazing and providing a supply of hot coals was assigned to one of the children. How they managed to get them as perfectly as I remember is a wonder to me as even with an electric oven I still struggle to get the goose right.

On St. Stephens Day we dressed up as mummers (also known as wren-boys or straw-boys) and went round the village singing and dancing in each house. A neighbour made the classical straw-hats for us and in most houses we got a few pennies and some sweets or cake.

The candles in the windows were again lit on New Year’s Eve and we had the Scottish custom of first-footing where it was considered lucky if the first person through the door was dark and carried a sod of turf for the fire. All children old enough blackened their faces with polish or soot and came as an excited group all together. Ours was a tee-total house so there was no whiskey as is usually involved.

The candles were lit for the last time on the eve of “Little Christmas” the 6th January. It is known in Irish as “Nollaig na mBan” . “The Women’s Christmas” and on that day my mother and grandmother did no cooking.

I still put two candles in a window (I am tight-fisted) after dark on Christmas Eve to welcome the Baby Jesus. Join me.

Guibhim Beannachtaí na Nollag agus Ath-Bhliain faoi shéan agus faoi mhaise oraibh uilig

(I wish for the Blessings of Christmas and that Next Year will be content and successful for everyone).

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

Irish Surnames

The definitive book on Irish surnames is

Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall
Irish Names and Surnames
By Rev. Patrick Woulfe
Published by M. H. Gill and Son, Dublin, 1923.

A facsimile copy appears to have been published in America in 2007 as it is available on Abebooks.com for about $50 though I have not seen it on sale in Ireland yet. It is written in English and the Irish words used and explained in it are in the old spelling and not the standardized spelling introduced in the 1950’s, ( e. g. Gaedheal [old] instead of Gael [new]). This contribution is largely based on Fr. Woulfe’s book.

The patrician classes in Ancient Rome used surnames (inherited family names) but the practice died out after the fall of the Roman Empire. Surnames began to come into use in much of Europe from 1000 to 1400 and most Irish surnames evolved in this period though new ones continued to be created up until the fall of Gaelic Ireland at Kinsale in 1601. Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, who was killed in the decisive battle with the Vikings at Clontarf in 1014, did not use a surname and neither did his sons. However his grandsons adopted the surname Ó Briain (O’Brien) and Fr. Woulfe maintains that all O’Briens are descended from Brian Boru. O means “descended from” and Mac means ”son of”.

Almost as soon as they were created there was pressure to provide Anglicized forms. In 1467 an ordinance required all Irishmen living within the Pale (Counties Dublin, Kildare, Meath and Louth) to adopt English surnames e. g. a colour or trade etc. though 100 years later the ordinance seems to have had little effect.

The main Anglicisation of Irish names occurred 1550-1650 and these attempted to render phonetically in English the Irish surname. The spellings varied substantially and it was between 1750 and 1850 that the current “standard” spellings were established. Many dropped the “O” and ”Mac” and some moved away from an approximate phonetic version. Fr. Woulfe describes the different categories as follows:
1 Phonetically
2 Translation
3 Attraction
4 Assimilation
5 Substitution

1. Phonetically

Fr. Woulfe gives a number of examples. I will retain his spelling and also attempt an approximate phonetic version of the Irish name. “Ó” is pronounced “Oh” and “Mac” is pronounced “Mock”

Ó Néill (Nail) O’Neill
Ó Briain (Breen) O’Brien
Ó hEilighe (Hay-lee) Healy
Ó Ceallacháin (Cal-a-hawn) O’Callaghan
Mac Cárthaigh (Caw-ree) Mc Carthy
Mac Searraigh (Shar-ee) McSharry
Mac an Bhreithimh (un Vreh-iv) Brehony.

In a footnote Fr. Woulfe says:-
“It may be remarked that the anglicised form was in most instances originally much nearer the Irish pronunciation than at present, owing partly to a change in the sound of the English letters, and partly to the corruption of the Irish forms. Thus O’Brien and O’Neill were originally pronounced O’Breen and O’Nail.”
Vowel sounds in English in particular have changed since Elizabethan times and “sea”, for instance, was pronounced “say”. Consequently Healy would have been pronounced as Hay-ly, much closer to the original Irish pronunciation. The great majority of Irish surnames are in this category

2. Translation

Some families Anglicised their surnames by translating ( or as Fr. Woulfe testily observes mistranslating) the root word in their Irish names.
In this section I give a translation of the root word in the Irish surname

Ó Bruic (badger) Badger
Ó Bruacháin (miser) but Bruach (bank) Banks
Ó Cadhain (barnacle goose) Barnacle
Ó Coinín (rabbit) Rabbitte
Ó Maoilbheannachta (Servant of the blessing) Blessing
Ó Marcaigh (horseman) Ryder
Ó Bhradáin (salmon) Salmon or Fisher
Mac an tSaoir (craftsman also free) Carpenter or Freeman
Mac Conraoi ( king’s hound) King
Ó Draighneáin (blackthorn) Thornton
Ó Gaoithín (little wind) Wyndham

Different family groupings got different surnames from the same Irish surname

Mac an Bhreithimh (judge) Brehony phonetically
Judge by translation
Mac Searraigh (foal) McSharry phonetically
Foley by translation

3. Attraction

Fr. Woulfe states that some name that were uncommon in some districts were attracted to a more common (or prestigious?) name

Anglicised Attracted to
Ó Bláthmhaic (Blaw-vic) Blawwick,Blowick Blake
Ó Braoin (Brain) O’Breen O’Brien
Ó Duibhdhíorma (Div-yeer-ma) O’Dughierma McDermott
Ó Maoil Sheachainn (Meal Hock-lynn) O’Melaghlin McLoughlin
Ó Duibhir (Div-ers) Divers de Vere.

4. Assimilation

Irish monks writing in Latin instead of attempting to Latinise Irish personal names simply substituted an established Latin name of somewhat similar sound e g

Assimilated
Conchobhar (Kruk-u-er) Cornellius
Eoghan (Own) Eugenius
Tadhg (Tieg) Thaddaeus )

This practice spread to surnames after the middle of the 17th century and a small number of Irish surnames began to assimilate similar sounding English or French surnames

Ó Bruaidair (Brew-der) Broderick
Ó Cairealláin (Car-ill-awn) Carelton
Ó hArachtáin ((Har-act-awn) Harrington
Ó Roideacháin (Red-act-awn) . Reddington
Ó Somachain (Some-a cawn) Summerville
Mac Cathmhaoil (Koch-weel) Caulfield
Ó Lapáin (Lap-awn) de Lapp
Ó Maoláin (Meal-awn) de Moleyns
Ó Duibhdhíorma (Div-year-ma) d’Ermott

5. Substitution

Fr. Woulfe says of substitution :-
“Substitution differs from assimilation only in degree. The similarity between the Irish surname and its English equivalent is in this case much more remote; very often there is no connection whatsoever.”

Ó Clúmáin (Clew-awn) Clifford
Ó Fiannachta (Fien-act-a) Fenton
Ó Lachtnáin (Locked-nawn) Loftus
Ó Niadh (Knee) Neville
Ó Niadhóg (Knee-oge) Newcombe
Mac Conghamhna (Kun-ow-na) Caulfield

(Fr. Woulfe’s surname comes from de Bhulbh (Wolve) a Gaelicised version of the Norman French name le Wulf)

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

After travelling the whole wide world several times Riverdance had its first performance in Connaught last month. I must admit that I am a complete philistine when it comes to music and dance. (My wife gave up on me decades ago as when she puts music on I slope off into the garden or to my computer).

I had seen Riverdance on television and my daughter reminded me that that I also saw it in Dublin several years ago but as it was so near and there was a birthday about we went to see a performance in Castlebar. What struck me was how well the first act evoked our Celtic heritage. In a review, when it first started, the scene where Michael Flatley rushes out to challenge the drums was described (and I quote from memory) “…with the braggadocio and super confidant bombast of a Celtic chieftain going into battle”. The Riverdance itself struck me for the first time as echoing the “buaileadh sciath” by which the Celtic tribes challenged their enemy before battle. The literal translation is “beating the shields”. This was done in rhythm and all together and interspersed with their war cry e.g. they would all beat together three times and then shout

Ó h-Éilidhe Abú
( Oh Hey-lee Ah-boo)
Healy for ever
( This translation does not give all the nuances in Abú which also includes
Healy Invincible
Healy Never Beaten
Healy All Conquering).

Celtic warriors were usually armed with a sword, shield, helmet and two javelins and apart from a leather belt or bandolier they fought naked which gave them all sorts of opportunities to incorporate rude gestures in their “buaileadh sciath”.

The second half I found less easy to interpret. It is obviously and rightly a celebration of Irish America but what struck me mainly was that we had the music and dance of two world powers, America and Russia, and a former world colonial power, Spain, in supporting roles to our music and dance. Robert Emmet’s words on the scaffold in 1803 come to mind “When Ireland takes its place among the nations of the earth then, and only then, shall my epitaph be written”.

Even after the eleven or twelve years they have been on the road it was a superb spirited performance and we both thoroughly enjoyed the evening. They have been wonderful ambassadors for Ireland. Do the Chinese think that the Irish are a nation of good looking young people, beautifully dressed, superbly athletic and with amazing and elegant skills in their own unique music and dance.

PS
Mike described last month’s contribution as a Culinary Contribution whereas
I would describe it as a Famine Survival Dish. Since then my daughter got some nori in a Health Food shop and I have tried it out. There is no need for the Food-processor; just tear up the sheets into pieces about 2 inches by 2 inches and cook on milk for 15 minutes. Use about three sheets per person for a starter and five or six for a main course. We used to eat the dish with bread and milk.

PPS
The mind boggles. What if Michael Flatley had performed the drum dance authentically dressed as a Celtic chieftain.

According to Irish surname specialists, the surname “Whelan” is the 79th most common surname in Ireland. Thousands of Irish immigrants named “Whelan” came to America in the last two centuries. A large number of them saw their family name recorded “Whalen” by government immigration and census officials on government forms. Consequently, when searching for your long lost Irish ancestor “Joseph Whelan” or “Josephine Whelan”, be sure to look for “Whalen” also. Surname spelling variations occur with other Irish surnames also. To my bemusement, my global search for the surname “Whalen” for the entire country of Ireland in the Griffiths Valuation Survey (1840 – 1860) database produced zero households, and in the 1901 Irish census only 9 households.

Lesson Learned: If at first you don’t succeed in finding an ancestor with one Irish surname spelling, try a slight variation of that surname spelling to see what you might find.

Let us know what Irish surname spelling variations that you’ve encountered in your research and post them here.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.

The following was contributed by an Irish relative in County Sligo, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

Nineteenth century Ireland suffered many years of localised crop failure. The Gotta Mór (the Great Hunger) of 1845-7 is remembered mainly because the crop failure was so widespread, but also because it was accompanied by major epidemics of cholera and typhoid which devastated a weakened population.

Maritime communities fared marginally better as they had access to food from the sea. The men fished, but it was women and children who scoured the shoreline at low tide for shellfish and edible sea-weed. On rocky shores they found periwinkles in rock pools, limpets attached to rocks and crabs in crevices under rocks or under drifts of seaweed. On sandy shores they could find cockles, mussels, razor-fish and clams.

There are four types of edible seaweed. Dillisk (Rhodymenia palmate) comes from the Gaelic word “ Duileasc “ which is derived from “ duill uisce “which translates as “water leaf” and it has almost become a generic name for all edible seaweeds. It is reddish in colour and grows as a parasite on other seaweeds. It does best in sheltered bays and it can be eaten fresh or dried. You can still find it for sale occasionally usually from a van at a market or from a house with a hand written sign outside.

The most common type of edible seaweed found in exposed areas is “Creathnach” (Ulva lactuca) a kind of sea lettuce that grows profusely on the seaward side of rocks. It can be found all year round and can be eaten fresh but it is much more nutritious if it is boiled (on milk) for at least an hour. It cannot be dried.

“ Sleabhach “ ( Porphyra umbilicalis) grows on rocks from Autumn to Spring but is at its best in January – February. The fronds stick together on the rocks when they dry and can be lifted off flat rocks in large sheets and ribbons. It is boiled for at least an hour often on milk. It cannot be dried.

The fourth type of edible sea weed was “Cairrgín” ( Chondrus crispus ). It starts off red but turns green in sunlight and white when dried. It grows low down on the sea shore so it needs to be a very low tide to pick it. If it is cooked in milk for about half an hour and the fronds are removed, it sets into something like a blancmange. It was considered an excellent food for those convalescing after an illness. It can be purchased in some health food shops as Carrageen moss. The blancmange can be improved by adding a sweetened fruit such as cooked gooseberry or raspberries.

Nori used in sushi dishes is a processed form of “Sleabhach”. Apparently the Japanese farm over 600 square kilometres of the seaweed and the annual crop is worth a billion dollars. Here is a recipe to impress your Japanese friends.

Sleabhach agus Ruacháin
(Slough-uck a-guss Roo-caw-in)
Nori and Cockles

Ingredients per individual serving
3-4 oz. Nori
15 – 20 Cockles
Butter
Milk.

Cook the Nori in milk for an hour. Cook the cockles in their own juice. If the Nori sheets have not broken up put them in a food-processor for a few moments Serve with a Nori mound in the centre, pour over it a little of the cockle juice and top it with a generous blob of butter. Surround the Nori with the cockles and serve.

I have never seen Nori or the inside of a sushi restaurant, but believe it should work. The original is delicious and cockles go particularly well with “Sleabhach” though other types of shellfish were also used. Perhaps someone who tries the recipe might post his or her culinary review.

See additional Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.