Emerald Isle Roots

Ireland's traditional provinces
and counties
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One hundred years after the death of his sister Libbie, the particulars of William Graham's Irish roots again became known to his descendants. Thanks to the internet, his shrouded past was revealed.

County Down - Click for more detail

William Graham was born in County Down, part of Ireland's former Ulster Province.  Today it is one of the six Ulster counties that became Northern Ireland, and remained a part of the United Kingdom. County Down is bound on the east and south by the Irish Sea and the City of Belfast lies on its northern border.

William's parents farmed land leased in the Townland of Carnew in Garvaghy Parish. This land was near Dromara, a few miles east of Banbridge and north of the Mourne Mountains that overlook the seashore. They were of Presbyterian Protestant religious heritage, descendants of Scot settlers brought over by the English as part of their suppression of the rebellious Roman Catholic Irish. 

Place and Date of Birth

 

Location of Graham leaseholds and Dromara Church

Key events in William Graham's family life in Ireland were recorded at the First Dromara Presbyterian Church located at the corner of the Banbridge and Church Roads less than 2 miles fron Dromara proper.

The map to the left gives a sense of the geographic relationships within the ancestral neighborhood. The church was about 4.5 miles from the farmlands in Carnew Townland that James Graham leased from Andrew Cowan. At that distance, a walking horse should get them to church in an hour, half that at a trot.

At the beginning of 1833, the marriage of James Graham, son of the widow Graham, with Jane Shaw was documented in the church records. The wedding took place in John Shaw's home in Enagh, officiated by the Dromara Presbyterian minister William Craig and witnessed by Jane's father and Henry Sprat of Aughanaskeagh. The date was January 17, 1833. The bride may have been with child, the marriage thus not occuring in the minister's manse, as was the tradition.

Dromara Church Minister's Manse

The church records indicate the married couple had three children, the first being William. Church documents list a second child John Graham born January 17, 1836.  Baptized March 16, 1836. The third child Betty Jane was born May 1, 1838. Baptized May 25, 1838.

Regarding William, church records are puzzling. The current church minister's comments are in brackets. The records say: "First Child [Exact wording]  Born September 1833 [No day is recorded which adds to your theory]. Child baptized 12th October 1833 NO CHRISTIAN NAME RECORDED [This is most unusual.]"

William Graham in a post Civil War document said his birthday was on August 18. Given the reality that people, although they often change their year of birth, rarely change the month and day, William Graham's actual birthday was probably August 18, 1833 - seven months after his parent's marriage.

Carnew Farm

 

Down countryside in Carnew area.

The most common crops farmed in this area of Ireland were flax and potatoes. The former grown in alternate years. Linen was produced from the flax.

The specific location of the Graham farm was determined by a number of pieces of evidence. First we have the church records, where James Graham lists a Carnew address in the marriage record and birth records for all his children. The townland location and boundary are shown in the maps above and below.

Location of the Graham leaseholds in Carnew
recorded in the Griffith's Valuation.

No Irish census survives from the 19th Century. The Tithe Applotment Books and Griffith's Valuation are the best sources for the previous location of Irish families. The former cover the years 1823 to 1838 and lists the head of household occupying the land recorded. Griffith's Valuation covers the years 1848 through 1864. Griffith's goes into much greater detail regarding lessee/lessor, the annual rental value of the property and its exact location on a map.

Current aerial view of Carnew Townland

The leasehold map above shows the location of the Graham leaseholds. The current aerial view is shown to the right. Note how the shape of most of the fields is unchanged over the intervening 170 years. Clicking on the images will enable the reader to zoom in on the land parcels.      

During the events recorded in the church documents (marriage of James and Jane and the births of the three children), the Tithe Applotment Books would be the source to consult. For 1834, James Graham and William  Graham are listed as heads of household in Carnew Townland.  (the 'William' named here I believe was James' father, his name still on the lease occupied by his widow. James' son William was only one year old in 1834.) In the same year, John Shaw is listed as a head of household in Enagh

In the Griffith's Valuation, the assumed same James and William Graham as named above are listed as occupiers of land in Carnew. John Shaw is no longer listed as a resident of Enagh. The pertinent page from the Griffith's Valuation is found below.

Page from Griffith's Valuation Regarding the Grahams

Motives for Emigration

The farmland in this part of Ireland is quite fertile and farmed extensively even today. So why would the James Graham family leave more than 60 acres of rich land to travel to parts unknown? Vacating the farm may not have been voluntary. Life was hard for an Irish tenant farmer in the middle of the 19th Century. Here are some possible reasons the family emigrated.

Mandatory Tithes - Involuntary tithes were imposed to fund the Church of Ireland of which the family was not a member. The James Graham family was Presbyterian. Tithes were payable directly to the Protestant minister, but collection was often difficult. All landholders had to pay tithe, and the majority of these were impoverished tenants already faced with heavy rents payable to their landlord. From 1838 on, the tithe was amalgamated with the land-rent and collected by landlords, who then passed on the church's share. This had the effect of removing the trouble of collection from ministers and also of making payment more likely, given that non-payment of dues to the landlord could lead to eviction. Resentment against tithes festered more so after 1838.

Evictions - Absentee landlords were common in Ireland and for many landlord's the main interest was income rather than the conditions of their tenants. Many landlords realized that they could get a higher income by turning their properties to pasture than to continue with the old practice of collecting rents from tenant farmers. Eviction was the most common way of getting rid of unwanted tenants.

The landlords often raised rents to the point that the tenant could not afford to pay them. The landlord then had the tenant evicted for non-payment of rent. There were no appeals and no mercy shown. 

Great Famine - Between 1845-1850 the population of Ireland fell from around eight million to about five million. As many as one million died from hunger and disease. The Famine began in 1845 and was caused by a blight which attacked and destroyed the potato crop, the main staple of Ireland's peasantry. The potatoes rotted in the fields, leaving millions with nothing to eat and unable to pay their yearly rents to the landlords.

In 1846, a member of the Society of Friends wrote: "It is evident that some landlords, forgetful of the claims of humanity and regardless of the Public Welfare, are availing themselves of the present calamity to effect a wholesale clearance of their estates."

 

Evicting tenants and destroying home in the process
- The Graphic March 10, 1888 -

Mass Evictions - Mass evictions will forever be associated with the Great Famine between 1849 and 1854. Around half a million people were evicted.

Under a law of 1847 no tenant holding more than a quarter acre of land was eligible for public assistance. To become eligible, the tenant had to surrender his holding to his landlord. Some tenants sent their children to the workhouse as orphans so they could keep their land and still have their children fed.

Other tenants surrendered their land, but tried to remain living in the house. Landlords would not tolerate it. Estate-clearing landlords and agents used physical force to bring about the destruction of homes. Many others who sought entrance to the workhouses were required to return to their homes and uproot or level them. Others had their houses burned while they were away in the workhouse.

According to a Short History of Dromara, in 1857 a survey describes the streets of Dromara as dirty, and its cabins in a wretched condition. It gives figures for emigration - many were awakening to the possibilities of making better lives for themselves and their families in the "New World" - twenty five families a year were going overseas.

Sea Passage

We may not be certain why the Graham family left Ireland, but we know how they crossed the Atlantic Ocean. The entire family took passage on the clipper ship Roscius. The ship arrived in New York City on September 18, 1850 with all five family members having survived the long sea voyage. A part of the passenger list provided on landing, with the 'Grahams' highlighted, is shown below.

Passenger list from the Rosius arriving in New York City on Sept 18, 1850

The perils of searching for ancestors using only their full names is clearly documented by the passenger list shown above. James was noted by the abbreviation 'Jas' and William by 'Wm'. The ages given coincide with those dates found on the Dromara Church birth records.

Beside the immediate family, a servant named Mary Graham was also a passenger on the voyage. Other than having the same last name, we don't know if she was related to the family.

Some two million Irish were forced to emigrate during the Great Famine. Many died on the crowded 'coffin ships' which took the reluctant emigrants across the Atlantic for a new life and a new start in America.

We don't know if the Roscius would fall within the definition of a 'coffin ship', but perhaps this would help explain the fate of Jane and John Graham. Although they reached New York City with the rest of the family, they did not long survive the landing, disappearing from the records after 1850. Ten years later, the New York Times reported that the ship Roscius sank upon St. George's Shoal off the New England coast.