Has anyone read "FAMILY AND FARM IN PRE-FAMINE IRELAND The Parish of Killashandra" by Kevin O'Neill ?
There are extracts of this book online . The detail is astonishing and it really explains why my ancestors left in the 1820's/1830's . It looks to be a very well researched and interesting book .
What I'm wondering is , does anyone know whether the author's sources might have included names ? A researcher in the National Archives in Dublin suggested , because of the naming pattern , that my ancestors might have come from Killashandra . So far I haven't been able to trace them . This book has made me hope that some of his statistics and sources might contain names .
One of the areas I have wondered about is , if the families emigrated because of poverty , how did they afford the passage ? And this book seems to suggest that someone was recording the people who emigrated and they were stll "included" in some way in the community they left behind .
Has anyone read the whole book ?
My ancestors moved to Stockport around 1830 . Father was a "hawker of small goods" , everyone else was a weaver . I wonder whether they went to join family as the Irish community there was well established .
In 1852 there was a serious riot between the English and the Irish in the town . In a newspaper archive I found my great great grandfather , Bernard Leddy , mentioned in the report as a witness . There is also a very long and fascinating contemporary article in the Stockport newspaper .
I'm thinking of spending a couple of nights in the county next week . Can anyone suggest things to do ; places to stay and what is best to do for family research ?
Linden
