Ireland and Edinburgh 2024: Emoh Ruo

Iragh is a townland in the Roman Catholic parish of O’Callaghans Mills, in County Clare (of course). The village of O’Callaghans Mills straddled the road from Killaloe to Ennis, but the road is not straight due to mountains. It is relatively small, and we stopped there yesterday. The village has changed since 2008 - there are more new houses, but there are all the old ones, and I did not see the pub which in 2008 was next to even-then disused petrol station.

This signpost in O’Callaghans Mills shows the distances to both big towns, like Ennis and Limerick City, as well smaller regional towns of Tulla and Broadford.

There was no-where to eat in O’Callaghans Mills, so on our way to the Killaloe Bridge we had a late lunch at Broadford. Quiche all round, the longest microwave in history, but it was very nice after all that.

Part of the 120km walking track, the East Clare Way, shows the townland of Iragh just north-east of the village.

Some of the unattended buildings in Iragh.

The McGuiness family in Iragh:

The first record of a McGuiness was James Magennis who was enrolled on the Voters List for County Clare in 1816. His tenancy was 40 shillings a year, and there were about 7,000 men. The majority were Roman Catholic, and when called to vote would do so in open view of their landlords, who generally determined who would be the candidates. Such lists were drawn up after Ireland joined Great Britain in 1801 to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and as such men of property were eligible to vote in the country’s Parliamentry Elections. Voting took place in the market square of Ennis.

Turners painting of Ennis market place about 1820.

James may have been there (if still alive) to vote in a crucial political shift in the history of Ireland. Lawyer Daniel O’Connell born in County Cork, encouraged enough of the Catholic majority to vote for him in a by-election for the Parliamentry seat of Clare. He was the first Roman Catholic elected to the British Parliament, although he was unable to sit due to the existing Penal Laws which overall aimed to deny power and authority to any one of that religion.

Once elected, he was able to advocate for repeal of these laws, thus bring in the Emancipation Act of 1829. Catholics could now build churches, educate their children, create registers of their religious actions such as baptisms, marriages and burials - records much loved by genealogists. In consequence to prevent another Catholic getting into Parliament the property criteria for eligibility to vote was raised from 40 shillings to ten pounds. The vast majority of tenant farmers were now disenfranchised, and no McGuiness stayed on the voter lists. County Clare is extremely lucky that a paper record of the register was found amongst a Bishop’s papers. It was not kept for many other Counties.

The other McGuiness man who may have voted in Daniel O’Connell was Patrick McGuiness of Feakle. His land was also valued at the minimum 40 shillings annual rent. I have traced Patrick’s family a few generations before I lose them. But one of his daughters, Catherine, married James Pepper who ran the Peppers Bar since 1810 in Feakle. When we visited it, I met Gary Pepper, still running the show and to be succeeded by his son Joseph - making it a continuous family business of 214 years!!

If his line goes back to Catherine McGuiness and James Pepper, then he is a distant relative of mine. It was enough to get his email details, but I also know where he works. See my future post ‘On the Pepper Trail’. The building has been repainted when the new double glazed windows went in.

Back to James McGuiness in Iragh. In the 1820s he is noted on the Tithe Aplottment Books, being a register of how much money he needs to pay TO THE RIVAL CHURCH OF IRELAND - when his religion is virtually unlawful, or at best ‘penalised’. Anyway this record does say he had meadows ‘across the road’, and there is only one road. There are only seven farms on the Tithe books, and James has the most ‘first grade land’.

In the 1820s, James has at least three adult sons. One is married in 1821 and will go on to have ten children, including nine boys. Later in the 1820s, son Daniel will marry Mary Tuohy and they will have the first of six children, James named after his grandfather. Another son, John, will marry and have his boys in the 1830s. All told there are many mouths to feed through the famines of the 1820s in county Clare, and into the strife of the 1830s.

Daniel and Mary will emigrate as ‘Bounty Emigrants in 1841, taking their two eldest children, but leaving at least three behind. Then the famine hits. His eldest brother James, of the ten children, will emigrate to South Africa for three years leaving in 1849, and reach Australia in 1853. I can not find their brother John and his family. All ten children survived the famine and the voyage.

Images of greener times:

The following images are scenes my McGuiness families would have seen, all green visions snapped on the eastern side of O’Callaghans Mills, where the townland of Iragh began. Somewhere along that road is the McGuiness farm.

An uncommon sight this tunnel