Ron, For a fairly detailed description of life around the Pomeroy area, you could read the Ordnance Survey memoirs. Have you looked at those? Cavanakeeran is in the parish of Pomeroy so you need the memoir for that particular parish.
These were compiled in the 1830s on the instructions of the Duke of Wellington (then Prime Minister) primarily for taxation purposes. So a bit like the Doomsday Book. They were compiled parish by parish, and describe the inhabitants, their occupations, pastimes, habits, they analyse the various different denominations by number, and report on health, schooling, seasonal migration patterns as well as permanent migration patterns. And so on. Some are more detailed than others but a typical parish contains about 20 to 30 pages of information and some drawings. They are well worth reading if you want to get a feel for life there at that time. (It’s probably the most detailed contemporaneous summary that exists from that period). Some name plenty of the inhabitants and there’s sometimes lists of people who migrated permanently in the previous year or so, and also of those who were seasonal migrants. Many labourers went to Scotland or England to work for part of the year. Scottish and English farmers often couldn’t get sufficient labour on their farms at harvest or planting time, and so Irish seasonal workers came over. It was very cheap to get there. According to one of the guides in the Ulster American Folk Park, in the mid 1800s, the ferry fare to Scotland was typically 6d (six pence) and a labourer could expect to earn £3 to £4 in a season. The OS memoirs are not on-line anywhere. At least I have never seen them on-line. The OS memoirs were published in book form by the UHF in the early 1990s. They still have copies in stock, including hopefully this parish. If you e-mail them, I am sure they’ll happily sell you a copy, and mail it to you. The price (excluding postage) is usually between £7.50 and £10 depending on whether it’s an original or a reprinted copy. Each volume contains 3 or 4 parishes, so you’ll likely get some adjacent ones as well as Pomeroy. The UHF also compiled an index book of every person named in all of the OS memoirs anywhere in Ulster. So, for example, you can use it to look up any entries for folk named McKee. (if you have access to a copy, obviously!). Link to the UHF website: https://www.ancestryireland.com For your, and anyone else’s benefit, if you are visiting PRONI there’s copies of all the OS memoirs plus the surname index book on the shelves in the room with the microfilm readers. Omagh Public Library has a local studies section, and I should think they’ll have copies of the volumes covering the county. And they will have a photocopier so you can copy them, usually for 30p per A3 page. Ulster is fairly lucky. As with many a Government project, the authorities lost interest in it, and so they didn’t cover all of Ireland. However most of Ulster was covered before the project was halted. On the general subject of life in Ireland in the mid 1800s, I came across an interesting book which you might enjoy. “Ireland’s Welcome to the stranger” by Asenath Nicholson.” She describes it as “an excursion through Ireland in 1844 and 1845 for the purpose of personally investigating the condition of the poor.” It was first published in 1847 but republished in 2017 by Books Ulster. About 450pp. ISBN 9781910375624. Nicholson was a US citizen from Vermont who ran a boarding house in New York, where she encountered many poor Irish immigrants. Their plight interested her so much that she decided to travel to Ireland to assess the situation herself. She was teetotal, vegetarian, anti-slavery, a feminist in outlook and extremely pious. An evangelical protestant, she went about distributing pamphlets and books and had a propensity for impromptu hymn singing which led many Irish people to conclude she was “crack’d,” which amused her greatly. She writes well. Occasionally verbose for our shorter attention spans, she was clearly an intelligent lady with an eye for detail and accuracy. She visited every county in Ireland with the sole exception of Cavan. And since she was in the country for well over a year she must have got a good feel for it. Her account starts with a couple of deaths on her voyage over from New York, with the bodies being despatched over the ship’s side the same day. In Ireland she had letters of introduction to educated families who were aghast at her plans to spend time amongst the poor. She noted a snobbery in wealthier and better educated people in Ireland (of both English and Irish origins) who tended to look down their noses at the poor. She repeatedly was reminded of the way folk in the US treated slaves at that same time. A theme she returns to regularly throughout the book. She speculates that people the world over oppress their inferiors. After a while she stopped using her letters of introduction and instead made her own accommodation arrangements, often staying in lodging houses and with poor folk in their cabins. She found clean cabins and filthy ones, and some cabins with the family pig and other animals sharing the accommodation. The poverty shocked her. And when she took a coach somewhere, upwards of 200 beggars would surround it hoping for a halfpenny or two. Moving stuff. To give a sense of what she covers, she travelled across the country by canal barge, visited a prison, a workhouse; she was astonished to find that folk in Ireland drank as she had somehow been under the impression that Ireland was tee-total! She described finding a woman sleeping in bed with the family pig, she commented on the fitness and strength of the people. For example, when staying with a family, a teenage girl was despatched to borrow a wooden bed for her, which she carried on her back into the house without any effort at all. There’s a moving description of a young girl saying farewell to her friends and family as she set off to America. (Lots of howling). She noted that no matter how poor a family was, barefoot and wearing rags, there was always money for tobacco. Though many landlords treated their tenants scandalously there were others who treated them very well and whose tenants praised them. (A third of all Irish landlords then were native Irish, and so some of the exploitation was being done by native Irish to their own countrymen. Not all the bad landlords were English and not all the good ones were Irish). She mentions the music of the time. She explains that the harp had fallen out of favour at that period and folk preferred pipes and the flute. She noted folk planting potatoes and they had a musician present to play to them whilst they worked. Just as we might have an I-pod playing today whilst we work. And so on. The one disappointment for folk with ancestors from Tyrone is that though she visited the county, her impressions are not included. It appears from the foreword that she may have intended producing a second volume covering her time in Ulster but sadly that never materialized. So this concentrates on her time in what is today the Republic of Ireland. However it’s an excellent read, and a good primary source of information on life in Ireland in the mid 1840s. Elwyn On 22/06/2019, Ron McCoy via CoTyroneList <cotyronelist@cotyroneireland.com> wrote: > Hi Elwyn > > Thank you for the wealth of information these are the images of Irish > life I wanted to know. John McKee as you have heard me say was living in > Cavanakeeran when the Applotment records find him but later in Canada in > 1841-2 census. Moving his family in 1838. He appears to be well > established in Tyrone on the outskirts of a new town called Pomeroy. In > the Canadian Census he is referring to himself as a farmer he is around > 70 years old when he and I believe many people from his Presbyterian > congregation pack up and move to Canada. The information you highlight > for me deepens and broadens the picture of what their life was like. Can > you think of any way this added information would help find our more > about John McKee, Rev. David Evans or the settlers who set out from > Cavanakeeran for Canada? Thank you for this great letter and all the > details, a wonderful breadth of knowledge goes into this. > > Cheers > > Ron McCoy > > On 2019-06-21 11:23 a.m., elwyn soutter via CoTyroneList wrote: >> Ron, >> >> Ireland has always been a largely agricultural county. Land was the >> biggest source of employment in the 1830s and it still is today. The >> country has almost no natural resources eg coal, iron ore, valuable >> minerals, oil etc and save for linen mills and ship building in >> Belfast, the industrial revolution largely passed it by. And that was >> one of the many factors that led to mass emigration from Ireland in >> the 1800s. There had been a population explosion (up from 3 million in >> 1741 to 8 million in 1841) and there were no jobs for most of those >> people. And that’s before we consider the impact of the famine, >> insecure tenure and lack of spare land. So whilst farming may be a >> lowly occupation elsewhere, it was up near the top of the chain in >> Ireland. Of course the size of the farm mattered too. There were a >> lot of subsistence level cottiers and small farmers, with a few acres, >> but there were some quite wealthy farmers too. If you go to the Ulster >> American Folk Park near Omagh you can see various categories of farm. >> The Campbell Household’s farm (originally near Plumbridge but now in >> the Park) was a very wealthy farm, and they had hundreds of acres: >> >> https://www.nmni.com/our-museums/ulster-american-folk-park/Things-to-see/Campbell-House.aspx >> >> Then you had smaller ones like the Mellon farm (of the Mellon Bank >> family). They had 23 acres: >> >> https://www.nmni.com/our-museums/ulster-american-folk-park/Things-to-see/Mellon-Homestead.aspx >> >> And there were much poorer ones than that. >> >> But most farmers were much better off than the average >> labourer/weaver, especially in many of the Ulster Counties where a lot >> of the land was better than in many other parts of Ireland, and you >> could get a tolerable living from a surprisingly small piece of land. >> >> Farmers in Ireland were usually above labourers and servants in the >> social class. Indeed they usually employed them. If you look at the >> average farm on Griffiths Valuation, you’ll see that many had anywhere >> between 1 and sometimes as many as 10 labourers cottages scattered >> around the farm. The farm and farmhouse is usually shown as plot a, >> and the cottages are b, c, d etc, with the farmer as landlord. Those >> labourers normally rented from the immediate farmer (and not from his >> landlord) and either paid their rent in cash or by an agreed number of >> days work a year on the farm, or sometimes a mix of the two. Have a >> look at the 1831 census for Co. Londonderry and you’ll also see how >> many servants there were, and that gives you an idea of how many farms >> had servants. >> >> It’s difficult to quantify how wealthy farmers were in simple money >> terms because a lot was a barter economy. There were some things money >> was needed for eg a ticket to America but a major part ran on barter. >> So there may not have been much money in many a farmer’s bank but if >> he had a 3 lives lease and a few cows and 25 acres of barley, hay, >> flax and spuds he would have been pretty well off by the standards of >> the time. The labourer with 2 or 3 perches of land, whose only cash >> income was from a little winter home weaving, was right down the >> bottom of the social order. A hand to mouth existence at times. >> >> During the famine years it was the labourers who starved. Many farmers >> were quite well off. Indeed prices for barley and wheat rose during >> the famine years. Few farmers in Ulster suffered starvation then. >> Their potatoes were blighted but they had other resources to fall back >> on. The labourers only had a few perches and you can grow more spuds >> per acre than any other crop. Plus they are low maintenance. So they >> were ideal for a labourer with little land and a large family. Till >> the blight came of course and then they were crippled. It wasn't quite >> so bad in Ulster because many labourers had linen weaving money to >> fall back on. That's a reason why the impact of the famine was a >> little less in Ulster than in the rest of Ireland. (I don't have stats >> for Tyrone but according to Bill McAfee's website, in Ireland as a >> whole the population dropped by 20% between 1841 and 1851 but in Co. >> Antrim it only went down by 2%. I think for Ulster it was about a 5 or >> 7%% drop.I forget the exact number). >> >> If farming was well up the social order, you might wonder why farmers >> emigrated. I have touched on lack of security of tenure, and some were >> evicted (usually for non payment of rent), but a big driver was the >> normal practice of leaving the farm to the eldest son. Farms were >> sometimes subdivided, and some farmers managed to acquire two or more >> farms, which enabled them to leave a farm to more than one son, but in >> general the eldest son got the farm and the rest of the sons had to >> find their own way in the world. So they may have been farmers in >> Ireland but they didn’t have a farm of their own nor one to inherit >> and so migrated. And of course in both the US and Canada it was often >> possible to buy land outright or even acquire it for little cost with >> various land grant systems. So they were attractive pull factors for >> Irish farmers. >> >> I don’t know if this is what you wanted to know. Let me know if you >> have any other questions. >> >> >> >> Elwyn >> >> >> On 21/06/2019, Ron McCoy via CoTyroneList >> <cotyronelist@cotyroneireland.com> wrote: >>> HI Elwyn >>> >>> In your response you say ," Only wealthier folk such >>> >>> as farmers and merchants could afford a gravestone." In our modern world >>> Farmers are not considered wealthy people in North America they are down >>> the >>> cast system pretty far. Some of my family records in Tyrone or upon >>> coming >>> to Canada they list themselves as being Farmers as opposed to Labourers >>> or >>> servants or renters etc..like most of the other settlers here. Does them >>> listing themselves as Farmers mean something more then we take from it >>> today? Does it mean money or position in the 1830"s? Can you elaborate >>> on >>> that for me if it does what would that entail for them and their >>> families? >>> Cheers >>> Ron McCoy >>> >>> On 2019-06-21 8:33 a.m., elwyn soutter via CoTyroneList wrote: >>>> Darlene, >>>> >>>> You can use the Griffiths Valuation site to see where the surname >>>> Adams was found in Co Tyrone in 1860. There are 144 listed, right >>>> across the county. There were 223 Adams in the county in the 1901 >>>> census. >>>> >>>> But the problem you really face is that hardly any parishes in Tyrone >>>> have any records for the mid 1700s and so even if you knew exactly >>>> where Thomas was born, there probably isn’t a documentary record of >>>> it. >>>> >>>> With regard to burials, it very much depends on what their trade was >>>> and again what denomination. Only the Church of Ireland routinely kept >>>> burial records, so if your ancestors were another denomination it’s >>>> unlikely that there will be any church records of their burials >>>> (assuming records exist in the first place). Only wealthier folk such >>>> as farmers and merchants could afford a gravestone, and the vast >>>> majority of people were buried without one. So it’s important to try >>>> and establish what their occupation was to assess the likelihood of >>>> there being a gravestone to find. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> CoTyroneList Mailing List >>> Mailing List Email Address: CoTyroneList@cotyroneireland.com >>> Change Your Preferences: >>> http://mail.cotyroneireland.com/mailman/listinfo/cotyronelist_cotyroneireland.com >>> Mailing List Archive: https://goo.gl/mQCKrY >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> CoTyroneList Mailing List >> Mailing List Email Address: CoTyroneList@cotyroneireland.com >> Change Your Preferences: >> http://mail.cotyroneireland.com/mailman/listinfo/cotyronelist_cotyroneireland.com >> Mailing List Archive: https://goo.gl/mQCKrY > _______________________________________________ > CoTyroneList Mailing List > Mailing List Email Address: CoTyroneList@cotyroneireland.com > Change Your Preferences: > http://mail.cotyroneireland.com/mailman/listinfo/cotyronelist_cotyroneireland.com > Mailing List Archive: https://goo.gl/mQCKrY > _______________________________________________ CoTyroneList Mailing List Mailing List Email Address: CoTyroneList@cotyroneireland.com Change Your Preferences: http://mail.cotyroneireland.com/mailman/listinfo/cotyronelist_cotyroneireland.com Mailing List Archive: https://goo.gl/mQCKrY
