The Beginning

I never had any intention of writing a book on Irish history, though I enjoyed both writing, and reading Irish history. Most of the things I had written were small pieces, bits of autobiography, essays, curriculum materials, and one sport story which was rejected by Sports Illustrated. Dwelling Place of Dragons was an accident. I had read and reread all the Irish histories in the Ipswich Library.

When my family was grown and I had some free time, I discovered that genealogy was a great hobby. So, from time to time, I tried to add bits of information about my Irish family. One item of interest was a journal written by a relative, James Harshaw. Through a set of very lucky circumstances, I was able to locate them, and then later read them. The six Diaries were written in a simple handwriting and inventive spelling by an Irish farmer during the middle of the 19th century. I knew almost at once that I had stumbled on a very important story. Somehow, it would have to be prepared in book form for the many people who would find the information intereting.

I would have been very happy to find someone to whom I could pass off this project. But somehow this task seemed to be my responsibility, one I could not ignore. With great reluctance, I began the additional research that I recognized would be needed to complete the story of James Harshaw and his time.

Years passed before I finished. Finally, I had the material for a different kind of history, and two more major characters. Through the writings of James Harshaw, his nephew John Martin, and John's friend George Henderson, readers can follow the history of Ireland as it unfolded rather than having to look back at it from our very different perspectives and agendas of today. The years from 1830 to 1849 which are covered in this book were difficult years full of anger, confrontation, sorrow and death. Small wonder then that many of our Irish relatives left then to come to sanctuaries in Amercia, Canada, and Australia.

I will introduce James, John, and George in my next posts.

Memorial Day 2007

I never even knew his name though he lived just around the corner from my home. He was never a real man with a name and personality to me though I saw him often. Many times as I passed his house on my way to school, I would see him sitting on his porch in the sun. He was always wrapped in blankets. And he was always coughing.

The children in the neighborhood were afraid of him. We believed that he had TB, the only explanation that made sense to our childish minds. Therefore he was a danger to us, and I avoided him.

Year after year he sat on the porch, never speaking, his coughing more frequent and deeper.

One morning as I walked to school, some of my friends were waiting at the school crossing with exciting news. The man from the porch had shot himself to death at the edge of a little creek just a few feet away. I wasn't sure that I wanted to go to there, but allowed myself to be pulled toward the death scene. Sure enough, there was a new blood stain on the pavement just next to the brook.

In the days that followed, the true story of my dead neighbor emerged. He hadn't suffered from TB at all. He had been gassed in World War I. Though many years had passed between the time he had been so severely damaged in the war and the moment when he escaped from his torment, he was as surely killed in the war as his comrades who died on the battlefields of France.

I was greatly ashamed of myself for my actions. Though I was a very shy child, I knew I could have stopped to wish him a "good morning," or perhaps have walked up to the porch to comment on the sunny weather. I have no idea whether or not he would have responded, but I have always known I should have tried. It was only later that I began to wonder why the adults in the neighborhood hadn't told the children about his sacrifice, and encouraged the new generation to properly honor a fallen hero.

Perhaps I'm the only one now who remembers my unknown soldier. He always appears in my thoughts when issues of war and peace are discussed anywhere. I wonder what he might have become, would he have married and had children of his own? There is no way to answer these questions. But his life and death are explained in my favorite comment on war, whose author I do not know. But it defines the tragedy of all wars in a way no other words could do. "It tears the fabric of the future."

Finding Family Places 1

Ireland is filled with wonderful scenic and historical sites to visit. But when I made my first trip to Ireland, all I wanted to find was the place that my Irish great grandfather Michael Harshaw came from.

I was already luckier that many descendants of the Irish Diaspora. My grandfather had recorded some important facts about his father's life in Ireland. The most critical of these was the name of the place and the county which young Michael left on his solitary trip to America.

Most maps of Ireland were not sufficiently detailed to point me where I needed to go. However, I found that Ordnance Survey maps filled in the gaps. Survey map number 9 pinpointed the exact place my grandfather mentioned, Loughgilly in County Armagh. These map contain enormously helpful detail. In addition to place names, they show the locations of the smallest roads, dots to indicate building locations, and crosses to indicate churches. Anyone searching for family locations in Ireland should bring at least one of them along.

My husband and I arrived in the area of Loughgilly without any difficulty using a combination of the Ordnance map and a regular road map. That is the point at which we ran into trouble. We couldn't find Loughgilly. We traveled around the lovely back roads of Ireland taking pictures of any site that might prove important later on. But Loughgilly seemed to have disappeared. The only place bearing the proper name was an old Church of Ireland Church.

Frustrated, we stopped at the lovely village of Mount Morris to ask directions. A fairly unhelpful store clerk pointed us to a small road we had already traveled. We knew there was nothing useful there. Without any other option, we drove on toward Belfast. I was most frustrated and disappointed. I had waited so long to visit Ireland, and had no idea when or if I would be able to come back.

More careful research before I left would have avoided this frustration and disappointment. Only after my trip was just a memory, I discovered that a successful search for place in Ireland required the name of the correct townland. Loughgilly was the name of a Parish. If I was to find the exact location of the Harshaw family holdings, I needed to know the townland name.

That essential piece of information is often hard to find. Nothing in any family papers mentioned the correct townland. I seemed to have hit a wall without a door. But Michael had worked to pay for the rest of his family to come to America. They represented other people with the same information Michael had failed to record. Fortunately, an obituary for Michael's brother Andrew provided the needed information. The Harshaw family had lived in the townland of Ballydogherty, Parish of Loughgilly. On my most recent visit, I took the photo of the sign marking the road where the Harshaws lived. I had found one family place.

Families

As a child, I always felt deprived. I could see that friends and neighbors had large families that gathered together for special events and holidays. But my own family was very small. I had one set of parents, one sister, older and smarter than I. Far away and infrequently part of my life, I had one living grandfather, 3 aunts, 3 uncles, and 5 cousins.

There was little I could do about this sad situation, but I vowed that when I grew up, I would create my own large family. Thanks to a very understanding husband, I was able to accomplish this, adding a new set of parents, grandparents, 2 more Aunts, and finally 6 children. I was content.

However, my understanding of what a family was changed drastically when I watched the important TV program "Roots." Only then, did I come to understand that I had a long family history buried away somewhere, and that I might be able to discover who my ancestors were. At the time, I was too busy to conduct such a search, but I knew that I would when I could.

Thanks to some information left to me by my mother, I was able to trace my family further back in time than most people interested in family history. Though almost all of my family came from Ireland at one time or another, I was able to locate where they had come from, and even find some living relatives.

For many recreational genealogists, this would be enough information. But I had always enjoyed history, and stopping with just names, dates and location seemed too limiting. I needed to find out how they lived, and what events of history shaped their lives, and sent them away from Ireland.

It was this passion for history that led me to undertake an intensive study of Irish history during the critical events of the 19th century. The final result of this study has resulted in a recently published history of Ulster during this time period. Those who read Dwelling Place of Dragons will understand how valiant their ancestors were, and how desperate times drove them to leave Ireland for new opportunities in other lands. This book is available at Amazon.com

March31, 2007