Good morning from Albuquerque...
Yes indeed, my grandfather and his brother said the Bulmans were officers in Cromwell's army and were given land in Cork. They were ,for a while, part of the Anglo-Irish upper class in Ireland, but since all the Bulmans in my family were staunch Irish Catholics for generations, they obviously assimilated into local Cork society.
When I was in Dublin years ago, I found in the Geneology office information on the Bulmans in Cork (the only county in Ireland where the name appeared for 200+ years), beginning with a Captain Richard Bulman who married a Catherine Phelan in the 1700's. I have just moved and my notes from that registry are currently in storage, but as soon as my husband and I settle into our new house in August, I can share the rest of the Bulman information I gleaned from there.
My grandfather grew up on a farm in Mitchellstown,Co.Cork - apparently
his father's oldest sister controlled the family purse strings and when he decided to marry a Maguire girl whom his sister thought beneath him, he was cut off financially. This set the stage for emigration to the States around 1920 for my grandfather where he married my grandmother from Belfast. My dad, David Bulman, was born in NYC in 1924 and fougnt in WWII. My sisters and I were all born and raised in New York City but are now scattered across the USA, Eileen in Florida, Patricia in California, and me in New Mexico.
Did you know there is a pub in Kinsale,Co.Cork, called The Bulman? About 200 hundred years ago an English boat crashed into the rocks outside Kinsale harbour and this boat was called the Bulman... many other boats crashed into the rocks there and a marker (bouy) was put down which the locals called the Bulman Bouy after the Bulman crash. The pub was named for the boat and bouy. My cousin has visited the pub -
http://www.thebulman.com/I am very interested in your thoughts on the "North East" origins of the family based on the Cromwell connection. Hesilrigg is a new name to me - is it Anglo-Saxon? My English history is a bit fuzzy, I'm afraid - if the North East was parliamentarian, does that mean they were pro-Cromwell, anti-monarchy?
I remember my grandfather saying in his soft Cork brogue, "that Cromwell was a dirty bastard - it's a shame that our ancestors were with him!"
Anyway, that's about all that I have for now. Thanks for your very good information and I look forward to exchanging more.
Joan