Just found out my wife's Connolly ancestors leased houses from Alex Lambert in the shadow of his Brookhill Flour mill about 2 miles west of Claremorris around the time of the famine.
They are the houses occupied in Griffiths in 1854 by Thomas & Michael Connolly, farmers. They are leased from Lambert who leases the entire townland and about four others in the area from Lord Oranmore.
The houses are on the western edge of Leedaun townland, adjacent to that of Brookhill which is entirely Lambert’s house and estate and the local village of the same name.
The only other building in Leedaun is adjacent to Connolly’s houses and right on the border of Leedaun and Brookhill townlands, also on the edge of the village. This is Brookhill Flour Mill owned by Lambert.
Presumably, Lambert used his 4 or 5 townlands to grow corn for his mill. Maybe the Connollys themselves had an income from Lambert by growing corn themselves rather than depending on potatoes. Probably the Connollys (and the rest of the village) supplemented their income by working at the mill and on Lambert’s crops.
Maybe Mr Lambert was one of the good guys during the famine and would have seen to it that his workers and tenants had food to eat, or perhaps they were in a position to steal enough to exist.
Whatever way it worked out, the existence of that flour mill and the Connollys’ proximity and relationship with the owner, whatever it was, has to be the answer to how they were able to stay in Mayo and live through the 1840’s and 50’s.
Does anyone know the story here or anything relating to that time in Brookhill?
Is there anything left now?
peter
