12 May 2013
667
667
R. Linda:
Me mam has got the genealogy bug she has. She's decided to research me father's branch of the family since she knows all about her own. Of course, she does. Anyway, she knew their family history from me Da's time and up to his Da, me Grandda. She got stuck on me Da's great grandfather, who be me Grandda's father. Now she started this adventure a year ago and she has made wonderful progress and she's even found me Da has more distant cousins, uncles and aunts than he knew he had as she dug further into the O'Sullivan genealogy. Is he impressed with this, no not at all. He figures if she wants to knock herself out over all the new relatives that's wonderful for her, but he could care less. The relatives he has are enough, thank you very much, he does not need to meet "long lost cousin Daineal or Auntie Aoife or any of them." That is what he said. Yes, he did.
And, me Grandda is of the same mind. He want's "Nuthin' ta do wit da O'Sullivans, dammit!"
Well, turns out that the O'Sullivan we thought was me Grandfather is not at all the right man, but he is an O'Sullivan. Now Mam kept this under her hat until she had some proof something was amiss. You know the records were burnt in Dublin Castle eons ago, so now there be only church records at best.
Me Mam, finding one record that seems survived somewhere, gave the name of a man named James. But the last name wasn't O'Sullivan and it listed this man as me Grandda's biological father! Not only that but Grandda's brother as well. How could that be, they couldn't have two fathers both named James! One an O'Sullivan the other . . . well. And add to this the startling discovery of another brother! Had to be wrong she thought.
This new great-grandfather James was a whole lot of a mystery. Actually, we had no idea of him and the little Mam did know wasn't good. She suspected at first that the branch of O'Sullivan me Da and Grandda belonged to were not the "good" branch but the "black sheep" branch of O'Sullivans. And now it comes to light the name isn't even correct. We aren't O'Sullivans at all but . . . we are O's but not with Sullivan after it, we are something entirely different! I certainly didn't have a clue, though I might have been suspicious because me own sissy is a bit of a black sheep as ye know, and 'Trouble' be her middle name, as ye also know.
So this be how we came to know we aren't O'Sullivans. There was me Ma recently, busy on her computer when me Dad's Da comes shuffling in for his cuppa mid-morning tea. Mam was confused at all this "misinformation" she found online so she figured, good the old man's here, might as well ask him before he keels over and dies. So she said to him the question that was vexing her about a family connection she just couldn't quite nail down concerning James O'Sullivan. Looking up from his tea, his grizzled unshaven jaw trembling he looks at her and says, "THAT'S because we are no O'Sullivans!"
This gave her pause. WHAT? So she thought because he be hard of hearing to ask again and this time he pounded his fist on the table rattling the teacup on the saucer and repeated the same sentence to her startled self.
"Wot ye mean we aren't O'Sullivans?" She demanded.
"BECAUSE WOMAN WE AREN'T!" Himself shouted back at her obviously a loss of patience taking him over with the bloody woman. That I be sure was in his mind.
Never one to be put off, she pursued the subject and of course, this was disturbing his mid-morning teatime of zoning out. Frustrated with her, he told her his father wasn't James O'Sullivan he was James O'Connor!
Now hold on because Mam's maiden name IS O'Connor. Was he getting confused with her family? He be of ancient age and memory. Sometimes his memory was gone with the wind, others it was as sharp as a tack.
"How's dat possible?" She was pushing it she was. "Who on heaven's little acre is James O'Connor?"
He heaved a sigh and mumbled then he said pronouncing each word distinctly so she'd get it the first time, "BECAUSE . . . ME . . . FATHAH . . . WAS . . . A . . . DRUNKARD . . . A . . . SCOUNDREL . . . AND . . . AN . . . O'CONNOR . . . AND . . . A . . . DESPICABLE . . . HUMAN . . . BEING!"
Well, that gave her a bone to chew and she did. It was way more information than she expected, but it still didn't make any sense. She had that poor old man almost tied to the kitchen table for near on FOUR HOURS as she interrogated his old wrinkled arse about James O'Connor AKA James O'Sullivan. Was he or was he not one and the same? I tell ya when the woman gets going she gets going!
So here be what she wrangled out of grandda. Seems grandda's father's father was effected big time by the Irish famine. In turn, he drank a lot and neglected his own kiddos because he wasn't in his right mind most of the time AND there were twelve kiddos to neglect! The wife (me great-great granny) did mending and sewing and whatever she could to keep the family from being put in a workhouse, or worse being put in the long, long waiting line to be shipped off to Canada or the States.
Me great grandda James, father of me own gran also named James, son of Daniel, (the drunkard and good for nothing as his wife called him), grew up believing the drink was a manly beverage and so became a connoisseur and maker of Poitin (pronounced Pah-cheen) also known as potato whiskey. He had found potatoes somewhere and produced a fine rot-gut of a drink that he sold for a price making him enough money, he left the family for Liverpool and got a job there as a carriage man, a railroad worker, a labourer, actually any menial job that an uneducated Irishmen could hold until he was fired for not showing up or being drunk.
Finding Liverpool not to his liking and tired of being referred to as a Mick, he got on the ferry back to Ireland where he picked up more odd jobs in Belfast. There he met Moire McConnell, a lovely woman of 17 and married her pregnant self before her father did him bodily harm. With Moire he had three boyos the middle one being me grandda James Jr, also called Jamie, O'Connors all.
Well, James let the drink take him over and one-day Moire became sick with fever. She died three days later leaving him with the three boyos. James, not being an upstanding citizen and father decided to go south and he told his friends he was going to join the IRA and such, to fight for Irish this and Irish that, and he up and left his kiddos with Moire's only surviving parent! Yes, he did. No support, no goodbye, just up and left and no one heard from again. The rumours Mam dug up were he drank himself to death tending bar someplace in Country Cork. But that was not known for certain, it was from a snatch of story she found in an O'Connor family tree.
Meanwhile, Grandda McConnell was suing James O'Connor for child support and abandonment of said children. All this was too much for old man McConnell. Frustrated out of his wits, the old man received guardianship of the three boyos. Doing the best he could, being the only parent they had (his wife having passed long ago), he struggled to make ends meet. Finally, they were to become wards of the town because the old man just couldn't raise them by himself. The eldest of the three boyos, one Donnel (who we did not know existed) left his schooling and worked as a delivery boy to help his gran and being 16 he was on his own as it were. The other two, mischief makers of the first-rate, found other things to occupy them and schooling wasn't one of them. Fearing being taken to an orphanage and mad as hornets over their lot, they came up with a way to get even with their grandda.
What happened was Jamie (me grandda), and his younger brother Ignatius, decided to set fire to their grandfather McConnell's house. Yes, they did! They near razed it to the ground while the old man was at work. They were bored, they were angry young boyos, and so when it was found out who did the firing of the homestead, the youngest boyo one Iggy took off to Dublin at the age of 10. Jamie was hauled into what was the equivalent of juvie court. There the judge took a liking to his feisty self. Young Jamie spoke up and said he didn't want to live with Granda McConnell, he would rather be set on his own. To which old man McConnell shouted, "IF that be wot ye want it be fine wit me!" Well, he was a mere 13 years and there was no way THAT was about to happen. The judge thought for a bit and said, "Mr. McConnell ye could put him up for adoption ye could."
That was NOT what young Jamie had in mind, but the old man more than liked the idea. One had run off, one was responsible and THIS ONE, Jamie Jr. was a handful. Why not take the magistrate up on it? So he did. This brought a slew of cursing from young Jamie like you wouldn't believe, something he's still good at. That only made the old man madder and he demanded the papers be drawn up IMMEDIATELY. To make a messy story short, the magistrate was amused by Jamie's spunk and being childless he adopted the boyo outright. His wife, well she wasn't so sure when she met young James that he was not going to be a problem. And he was! True to form, he realised almost immediately at setting foot in the fine house that was to be his new home, that there were costly articles of decoration that could be sold for a price making himself a wealthy young boyo.
As with Uncle Iggy, thievery and drink ran in the family. And no matter how privileged young Jamie then was, he craved to live on the edge. Yes, he did.
He was given legally the name James O'Sullivan, but around the new town he was known as "Slippery Fingers Jamo." It took three months for Mrs. O'Sullivan to figure out where her fine silver and plate were going off to. And in the home of a magistrate! That takes balls it does. Well, in time James straightened out, he was a bit bitter about his grandfather and his real father, but he did all right under the O'Sullivan guidance and married me grandmother and they had me father, who knew nothing of this.
This information took a week to sink in Mam's head. She was not sure how me Da would react and knowing him as she did, she held off and made sure she got all the documents she needed to back the name change up. She also wanted to make sure his branch of O'Connor wasn't her branch. Did this give her pause? You betcha!
Me Mam told me father she and his father had something to tell him, just a week ago. He was thinking the old man had contracted some terrible disease but they assured him that was not it. It was that he really is not a true O'Sullivan, no he's an O'Connor.
"Ye're letting all this family tree stuff gooe to yer head," he said.
"Yer an O'Connor James I knoe dis ta be true." His old man said with emphasis.
"What?" Me Da asked like the two had lost their minds. Of course, he was thinking Mam had got all mixed up because SHE was the O'Connor.
"Yeah be glad I talked yer Ma outta naming ya Conor." Me Grandda said, "That was her first choice. She didn't know da story an I wasn't sure once YOU knew da story ye'd wan' ta change da name back and den we'd have Conor O'Connor." Grandfather said.
My Da said nothing, just sat thinking the old man was more senile than he had first thought. He was completely in the dark.
"Dis can't be true. Yer tellin' me that we are no O'Sully's we be O'Connors? Are ye tellin' me I married a relation of ours?" Me Da asked getting somewhat angry.
"Noo, she's anotha branch entirely." His father said. Then the entire story was laid before me Da.
"Rioght," Da said nodding. "Ya named me after that misfit of a James O'Connor. Tanks fer dat, Da." He said not smiling. "So let me get dis stroight, all dese years and all dese relatives I taught I had are not me relations by blood, but by name?"
"Dats da jist of it," me Grandda said nodding. "I taught at da time ta name ya aftah dat 'despicable human bein' caus I wus named aftah em'. Now yer gittin' it."
"Oh, I got it all rioght. So now," he said to me Mam, "YOU are telling me I have all these O'Connor relatives that I really am related to, running around Ireland. AND all the O'Sullivan's I've know since birth are no blood relations, none!"
"I be tellin' ya dat, yes," said she, "an' dey ain't me relative O'Connors. Just sos ye knoe."
"I got it." He said with a hint of anger. He got up shaking his head and waved them both away as he went out the door. He took himself to his local to ponder all this new information that the person he thought he was, he really isn't. He took himself home with the express wish that Mam NOT plan a family reunion of O'Connors. No that was the last thing he wanted.
All these years he had been a proud O'Sullivan to find out he was anything but. He did ask if the rest of the O'Sullivans knew about this, and the answer was, "Sum do, sum don't." Not much of a boost to the old ego is it?
Me Da be in denial me Mam tells me. He wants no ties to that "despicable human being" one James O'Connor who left his children to become an IRA man.
Well, not exactly. Mam's research yielded another blow, not only for me da but me Grandda as well. Seems that "despicable human being," did NOT join the IRA, that was all bluster on his part, instead he married a Caity Desmond (within a month of his leaving Belfast), and they had two girls. But Caity's life with James was not good either. She worked in a shoe factory while he didn't work at all. She gave him an allowance which he would promptly drink away. She'd hit him over the head with a frying pan if she came home to find him passed out. That didn't pound any more sense into him, unfortunately, and he died of alcoholism leaving her to raise her girls on her own. So now we find me Grandda has two sisters he didn't know he had, and they in turn had husbands and children and me Da has more cousins. Well, Mam got in touch with one of Grandda's new half-sisters who is still alive (seems longevity runs in the O'Connor family) and she wants to meet her half-brother, me Grandda. Only he doesn't want to meet her!
When me Da heard this he was questioning the why for of it. He wants nothing to do with the O'Connors. I had heard the name O'Connor before in me childhood. Me Uncle Iggy (you remember him, the drunkard of Dublin?) had said he was an O'Connor, but that confused me because he goes by the name O'Sullivan. Come to find out he reunited with his brother sometime later and decided to adopt the O'Sullivan name. I also thought Uncle Iggy was the older brother of me grandda only to find out he was the youngest and there is an older one I did not know of. Where he is no one knows . . . yet. But add to this me own Mam is an O'Connor!
I think that's what has me Da so upset. He was wondering how close a relationship they actually had despite his own Da's reassurances there is no connection! It was soon and quickly reasoned by an extensive search that Mam wasted no time on, that her side of the O'Connor family and me Da's are no ways related. She is related to the O'Brien clan on her side and on his to the Kane clan. Two distinct lines. "Thank sweet Jaysus for dat!" she declared. Be a hell of a thing if they were of the same line. Though would explain why me sister is the way she be. I know, my bad.
Gabe
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