From Guernsey to home

Well I intended to blog while I was away and that started well but, as always I got caught up and decided that Facebook was easier while on the move.

So, to give a taste of the six weeks away I will summarise: Jersey was interesting, beautiful in its way but very different to Guernsey and quite expensive. After all, it is a tax haven and lots of bankers, accountants and lawyers abound. We stayed at a great hotel, the Greenhills Country Hotel and I would have liked to relax there for a longer stay.

Madness Monday - Londonderry Lunatic Asylum

After writing about the Magdalene Asylums last Monday I started to think about other types of asylums in Ireland, particularly those for people deemed 'mad'. I will focus on the development of an asylum in County Derry, as this is where the Connor family lived.

There was scant specific legislative provision for the mentally ill in Ireland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and while various pieces of legislation in the 1700s established a network of workhouses and houses of industry for the destitute poor, many individuals with mental illness spent significant periods in workhouses which were inadequate and inappropriate for their needs as there was no dedicated asylum accommodation.  

Prior to the 1830s, mental health care in Derry, as in the rest of Ireland and in most of the Western World, was ad hoc at best, unkind and cruel at worst. In Derry, a city growing in population and commercial importance, the early part of the 19th century saw patients with any form of mental illness housed at the city's infirmary - in twelve cells in a shed on the hospital grounds or, in the absence of any other suitable accommodation, in the cells at Lifford Gaol.

Old Derry Asylum

But, in the early part of the century, a new wave of social reformers were campaigning for change and compassion and, in 1821, Parliament passed a law allowing for the foundation of a network of district asylums. These institutions would be, according to reformer John Leslie Foster," the only mode of effectual relief... for the reception of the insane."

From Derry to New South Wales -part 3 - why did they leave

For this third part of From Derry to New South Wales I thought I would further explore why they left Ireland in 1838 before 'the famine'.

Previously, I wrote about the Poor Law Act of 1834 as an attempt to address the widespread poverty and hunger in Ireland and I will attempt to put some context around what was life was like in the pre-famine years.

Under the dry and official title of The First Report from His Majesty’s Commissioners for Inquiring into the Condition of the Poorer Classes in Ireland  (1835) comes an enormous amount of opinion, reminiscence and description of life by ordinary Irish people in the early nineteenth century. 

Ireland was the subject of innumerable investigations throughout this period, due to a large extent to the growing economic and social crisis in rural Ireland after about 1820. Grain prices declined, the textile industry collapsed outside north-east Ulster (the weavers of Ennistymon are described in the report as being completely destitute) and the population continued to grow.

Beggars, County Kerry

The result was a society of massive unemployment, tiny landholdings and large-scale poverty. This poverty struck all observers at the time, and contemporary accounts are full of descriptions of poor housing, lack of clothing and enormous numbers of beggars. In the summer months in particular, before the potato harvest, tens or even hundreds of thousands of people would take to the road temporarily.

Those Places Thursday

Thinking further about my Connor family, where they came from and where they went, I thought I would explore where they came from in Ireland.
The Hugh Connor family, my great great grandfather, came from Ballykelly, County Derry (Londonderry) in Ireland, now Northern Ireland.

For those of us who have done Irish family history research we know that there are a few things we need to know about Ireland and places.
First, the town - Ballykelly
Second, the county - Londonderry (Derry)
Third, the province - Ulster
Fourth, the townland - Ballykelly
Fifth, the barony - Keenaght
Sixth, the civil parish - Tamlaght Finlagan
Seventh, the poor law union - Newtown Limavady

From Derry to New South Wales cont'd

As I start this part of the Connor family's journey from Derry to New South Wales, some questions come to mind. Why did they leave in 1838? Why Australia and not Canada or America? What did they expect to find when they arrived in New South Wales?

So, why did they leave Ireland? 

In 1838 the British Parliament introduced the Irish Poor Law Act, closely modelled on the English Poor Law Act of 1834. This was an attempt to address the widespread poverty and hunger in Ireland. The establishment of the workhouse system of poor relief closely followed. Also, dissenting Protestants, i.e. Presbyterians and others not of the established Church were now being treated as second class subjects and debarred from civic and public life in Ulster along with the Catholics. 

Derry as an Emigration Port

From the early 1700s, in the age of the sailing ships, to the onset of the Second World War in 1939, when the last transatlantic steamer sailed from the port, Londonderry was one of the principal emigration ports in Ireland.

Derry port possessed an ideal situation. She stood at the head of a virtually land-locked Lough Foyle, 24 miles long and only 2 miles wide at its head. The Lough was sheltered from the prevailing westerly winds by the Inishowen peninsula, thus making it, in the age of sail, a harbour of refuge, accessible and safe in all weathers.

From Derry to New South Wales

My Connor ancestor came to Australia in 1838 with a Government scheme on board the Susan arriving in New South Wales on 2 February 1839. The family sailed from Derry city on 19 October 1838, from the River Foyle that comes out to the sea from Lough Foyle.

Hugh Connor with his wife Ann (nee Stewart), his sons James, Hugh & William and his daughters Elizabeth and Mary Ann. His eldest son John was also on the ship but as he was 27 years old traveled separately.

Hugh's eldest daughter Martha married John Miller in Ballykelly, County Derry in 1836 and had her first son in Ireland before departure. Martha & John and their son John left Ireland on the Parland and arrived in New South Wales in October 1838.

From Log of Logs Vol. 1 By Ian Nicholson - SUSAN, Two migrant voyages to NSW. The first by a vessel of 557 tons, under Captain Payne or Hayne, Londonderry, 19/10 - Sydney, 1/2.1838

The Ulster Covenant and Scotland

I am in the process of preparing a talk at the English/Irish SIG at GSQ, specifically about Ulster Scots and County Derry, and came across this great - free - resource on Claire Santry's - Irish Genealogy News.  Click on the link below to go to Claire's blog and get the free download.

The Ulster Covenant and Scotland: free download