Travel 13 ― My Irish Village

I have always known of my Irish ancestry.  How could I not know with the family name of McCann (Clan of Anna).  But for many years, it was possible to only know that my family had links to the city of Liverpool in England, just a short trip across the Irish Sea from Ireland.  In the past, that was it — no records showing an obvious connection with Ireland, until earlier this year, when ancestry.com found additional records showing that my great-grandfather (x4) was born in 1781 in a little village called Baltinglass, in County Wicklow (62 km SE of Dublin).

Thus, this was a good reason to make my first visit to Ireland, via Reflavik (Iceland) to Dublin.  In the past there was a local railway which, unfortunately, was got rid of, and the station building still remains today as a political statement for tourists.  Now, a comfortable coach winds its way through main roads that seem like country lanes, in a little more than one hour.

(Click to enlarge)

The next day, I awoke very early, enjoyed a good Irish breakfast, and boarded the coach to my destination.  Upon arrival, I found my way to Saint Joseph’s Church, a 15-minute walk from the bus stop (The bus, actually, couldn't drive into the village).  Walking through the entire village centre, I met a total of about five friendly nodding villagers.

“Good morning”, I would say.  “How are you?”

“Very grand”, she said.  “What are you looking for?’

“The church”, I replied.

“Is it the Protestant one you need?” she asked. (I was obviously from away).

“No”, I said, “The Catholic one”.

“Oh, that’s Saint Joseph’s”, she said.  “T’is a grand church”.

“Thank you”, I said, realizing that simply everything is ‘grand’ in Ireland.

Walking through the village, I had an interesting feeling that I had been there before.  The church seemed quite large, probably the largest building in the village … no doubt it would be described as ‘grand’.

The priest was away (But not in another country), but the church secretary was available and, now, I was to get some bad news.  The church records went back to about 1850 — 70 years after my great-grandfather was born — built upon the ruins of an earlier church.  It was noted that there are Stone Age ruins in the area.  I was advised to visit the cemetery as it contains graves older than the present church but, unfortunately, such graves were in a state of ruin and unreadable.  I met an old cemetery caretaker who told me that he remembered the McCann family who owned a hardware shop in the village … but they left about 50 years ago without any trace.  Questions at the local inn confirmed their presence there too.  Today, I guess that they would just be very distant cousins.

It was time to have lunch at the restaurant where I was persuaded to try a Guinness (One sip was enough and the bar girl agreed with me) and, then, I walked to the the other side of the village to look at a tourist attraction, the ruins of the old Cistercian Baltinglass Abbey that dates back to 1150.  It was destroyed by King Henry VIII’s campaign against the churches in 1536.  Incidentally, one can walk from one far side of the village to the other side in about 30 minutes, which was useful when the last coach back to Dublin is at 3:00 pm (Outside the village).  I had a grand day.