General Chat

Goodness Bridget, what a story. I am waiting impatiently for the next part.

William Farady was my father who was much loved by me and my younger sister.

William left Finglas , just north of Dublin in late 1945, having had several unexpected events in his life. He was 35 when he arrived with several other "Mad Irish" as they were called, all persuaded by Wimpy the builders who paid very good money to these men to demolish the most dangerous buildings in the UK following WW2.

William was born on the 12th October 1912 at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin. He was registered on the same day with the names of both parents,
who then disappeared for ever. The same day he was christened in the Catholic Church and then his parents handed him to the Godmother who
took him home with her.
There after he was known as Thomas Keegan. So Thomas went to school at the Catholic Church School and I have a very precious photo of him and his
school friends.
Life continued and more adopted children arrived over tne years. Thomas
met a young lady and they became engaged. By then he was both a Market
Gardener and a gardener at the local Parks


He was saving for the wedding when he had an argument with one of his brothers. This lad was the only natural child of the people who had taken on many children were parents couldnot care for them.
In his frenzy the lad shouted out " you are not a Keegan your parents gave you away"!!! My heart aches for them both even now and I met this man and his wife several times.
Shocked to the core, he spoke go his "mother" and asked for the details of his real parentage. She would only say , " I promised never to tell and I never will." she even told him this when she was dying.

Part two soon as OH wants a coffee
,!

Bridget

Florence,
I have really enjoyed reading your thread in fact I read it twice. It all sounds so romantic. What work do you do and what is the number of people who live on the Island??

In a few moments I shall start the story of my father leaving Southern Ireland.

Bridget in Spain
:-)

That was really interesting Florence thank you. What a lovely story too about how you met your husband and got your house. As you say it does sound as if it was meant to be.

evening everyone, although it is rather late. had a few problems with this computer and also did my first full day in new school job. so dinner and dishes etc were a bit later than usual!

however i said i would carry on with some more stories of where i live and how i came to be here.
when my friends retired, they bought a cottage up here partly because it was so cheap compared to the south east of england.although 900 miles away was quite a bit drastic to move to. anyway i arrived one wet and windy march in 1991 and later that day i met what was going to be my future husband although i didnt know it at the time.

when we married in 1993 and i settled into my new life, something happened that was quite extraordinary. my friends due to family circumstances had to move back south and asked us to make an offer on their house. the same house that my oh and i met in 1991. we duly made that offer, they accepted and 18 years on we are still living in the house where we first met all them years ago.

my friends said that even if i had never come to visit them, they were going to leave me the house in their will as they had no family of their own. so even if this had happened i still would have been drawn to this island and no doubt one way or another would still have met and married my oh.
so i think it was fate that brought us together in a strange way.

this house had no central heating except for 3 storage heaters and an aga stove. i had to learn very quickly how to put the stove on and keep it going as when it went out,our hot water supply went with it!

you could burn anything really and it was good for putting paper rubbish and cartons etc rather than clogging up the bin. but the main source of fuel apart from coal was peat.

for those of you who dont know what this is i will explain. peat is cut every year and then stored as fuel during the winter months. every year in mar/apr 2 people go to your banks and as one cuts the peat, the other person would throw it out from the bank in rows of 4 deep, so it resembles something of a draughts board. the special cutting tool is called a peat iron and it is hard work and back breaking i can tell you. once cut it is left for several weeks of
good, dry weather. the peat is cut into foot squares and about 3 inches thick. when wet they are heavy to lift but once dried on one side, they can then be lifted to let the underside dry out. once completely dry, they are gathered into piles and transferred into a trailer and taken home by tractor.

to keep the peats dry, they are made into a special stack at the back or side of your house. the stack is made in such a way, that even when it rains, the peat apart from the top ones will remain dry.

many people here today are going back to cutting peat for the open fire or agas as the price of oil has gone up so much. in recent years this tradition had dwindled as it is hard work and time comsuming. but this year more and more are going back to cutting. we have now finished with the peats and have put some into bags to store in the shed. its still warm enough not to put the open fire on yet, but when we do it is lovely and cosy and strangley i miss it in the summer, but not lifting the ashes every morning.

well have to get some sleep, up at 6.30am now everyday and not so much free time as i had before.

will look in again in a day or 2 with another story.
good nite everybody
florence
in the hebrides

Hello all,
I hadn't looked in on this thread for a few days so I noticed quite a lot of new posts have been added in that time. I've just brought myself up to date and read them, it is great to learn all about everyone and where they live.

Have to say this last 24 hrs I've been a bit of telly addict with all that's going on in Tripoli :-0 and am relieved that we don't live there!!
Things here in Cairo are a lot more calm these days, though we did have some (smaller scale) demonstrations over the weekend ref: the Egypt/Israel border incident last Thursday. I've heard nothing about that today though, since Libya seems to be hogging the limelight :-)

K
(from a hot and dusty 39C Cairo!!) :-(

Hi Lindsey.
Happy to oblige, but when are we supposed to do any family history research.
We need more contributors please.
Come on folks.

I'm really enjoying your thread ladies, more please :-D

I will be posting this after noon

Bridget in Spain

Sorry folks, I just couldn't concentrate on writing today...I think itbess the heat .
However in my head I have the draft of what I am going to write. Not telling any more info until then.!!

So good night and I hope that we have more posts tomorrow.

Bridget, who is sweltering in Spain :-D

Looks like summer has finally arrived here in Menorca.
Normally it would be really hot from mid June, but this year has only been around 24-27c.
For the last couple of days it´s been 34c+ & is forecast to stay like this until Monday.
No problem getting the washing dry then.
Marion

Berona, thanks for your latest entry which I enjoyed reading.
The change of name was not intended to make entries shorter or more succinct but rather to attract more people to join us.
I really learnt a lot from your previous descriptions, and whilst your last entry is excellent and very informative, the first entries were spellbinding, so please write in the style you prefer.
You set me off wondering if the next generation or even the generation after that ever thought of coming back to the UK?

I am going to do a little research about the places that my ancestors and some who are still living. I have one cousin who went with his wife as a missionary, so going to talk to him about that. Later today I shall start writing about why my father left Ireland.
I have members of my ford family, my blood line, who emigrated to Australia and I think America, so plenty to keep me occupied!!
Now going to have a cup of tea, instead of my usual coffee, and may be back later today.

Bridget

Since you have changed the title of the thread, it has made me look at the situation from a different angle. I also feel that I can condense the remainder of their stories in answering ‘why’.

My OH was a young, single man at loose ends and wanted to get away for a while. As said before, he had no intention of remaining, but was free to return home at any time after two years, whenever it suited him. He had still not decided to return home after six years of working in a good job and making friends, when he met me and decided to stay permanently. One of his young sisters went home because her husband wanted to return. She had missed her Mum but had been here long enough to be able to cope with that. The younger sister was so in love and enjoying life, she would have gone to the moon, if her OH wanted it. How this affected her family back home never entered her young head.

Their married brother and sister both had families and had decided to emigrate because they felt they could better themselves here – and they had big brother to guide them. Both husbands were tradesmen and had no problem getting work. OH helped out using his house for their temporary accommodation until they settled – before he sold the house and went on living with his friends until we married. His brother had high hopes of life in a new country, but his wife was so homesick, she hated the place. They had a new baby and she wanted to be back with her family, so they returned before the two years were finished. (Years later, when they had six children, they wanted to emigrate again, but their children were against it, so it didn’t happen). The married sister and her husband settled very easily and reared their family of three boys. They had a few years in New Zealand and loved being there, but their sons preferred Australia, so they came back and ended their days here.

In summing up, I would say that “why” people decide to live in another country and how they settle has a lot to do with circumstances – both what they are at the time of making the move – and what happens soon after they settle. It also depends on who or what they are leaving behind and how that can be addressed.

Florence, thank you for joining us and I could picture your description so really looking forward to the next episode

Bridget in Spain

good evening everybody from a bright and sunny hebridean island. i came here in 1993 after marrying a local man. i met him by chance as i was visiting some friends of mine who decided to buy a cottage when they retired. i came up here for a holiday and met future hubby.

we only spent 6 weeks together in 2 years and then in jul1993 got married in kent where i was living. we then drove 900 miles and here i am.

what i loved more than anything from the first time i came , was the wonderful fresh air and wide open spaces. no claustrophobic skyscrapers to spoil the view.beaches that are clean and deserted, so no grappling for somewhere to sunbathe!

people here actually have the time to stop and talk to you in the village shop or on the pavement in town. sometimes for 1/2 hour and while you are chatting, someone else will stop and join in. sometimes there may be 6 or 7 of you having a blether and a laugh. it really is very civilised compared to mainland life.

most of the houses where we stay(near the tip of the island-lewis) are all detached bungalows. we sometimes drive round to a neighbour if its very wild or wet. so you have space between you and a huge garden or croft.

i settled into island life quite well. my oh family took care of me showing me around and getting to know the neighbours etc as my oh was then a fisherman and away all week at sea. he only came home fri eve and was away midnight on sunday.

i got a job in a local bank as that was my profession then and was there for 2 years before child no 1 came along followed by no 2, 2 years later.

i guess at times i felt like a single mum with oh away and no family of my own. but you adapt and its quite amazing how you settle down. i have been here 18 years last month and strangely enough when new people move into the village, i refer to them as the incomers and quite forget that i am still an incomer really but am accepted now as a local.

i will sign off tonight as i do have a few stories and things that happen here and nowhere else which will make interesting reading another night.

im glad bridget you told me about this thread and have found everybody elses stories very interesting too, so keep them coming.

back another day soon
florence
in the hebrides :-)

Nudge :-)

Ann, how would I manage without you.

I think we should have some new people join us now! I must say that I am delighted with the progress so far.

I am going to write about Ireland as I have some items that my father told me about. I also have relatives who lived on the Isle of White so might give that try.
Not exciting places but my father lived in the times of the Black & Tans, so learnt quite a lot.
Hope it will not offend but be seen as a Childs view of such atrocities on both sides.

Jet and Joe my lovely dogs have hardly left my side this week, I am sure that they new something was wrong

Bridget in Spain

Still in euphoria re the progress of my darling granddaughter. I feel washed out as my mum used to say!

Bridget click on your first post you will see edit. click edit and you can edit the title.

Please would someone remind me how I change the name of the thread. I am so tired from several nights of very little sleepi just cannot recall how to do this.
Thank you

Bridget in Spain where today is very very hot but there is a slight wind

Berona, I didn't know there was a skiing season is Australia. You live and learn. What a great informative thread.