We left Cong this morning and set off to explore County Mayo, where Will’s paternal Irish ancestors originated. I’ve done a little genealogy on Will’s behalf, and we had his DNA tested before this trip. As with all humans, you receive 50% of your DNA from each parent. Of the DNA from his dad, half of it is Irish, and the region correlates with what we know from the genealogy – County Mayo.
Will’s most recent O’Malley ancestor to be born in Ireland was his great-grandfather, Thomas O’Malley. Thomas’ parents were Catherine and John. Thomas was born in 1871 and came to Cleveland in 1892, possibly followed two years later by his parents.
The very well-known Irish potato famine, also known as the Great Hunger, technically ended in 1852. What is less known is that an economic depression throughout the 1870s, continuing into the 1880s lowered agricultural prices and coincided with poor harvests. Starvation and hunger again persisted. The Land League formed in County Mayo by angry, hungry farmers in 1879. A leader of the group was Father John O’Malley. (Now that I know this, I will research to see if Will is related to him somehow as a distant uncle.)
Father O’Malley is best known now as the person who originated the term “boycotting.” He organized a protest against a land agent, whose name was Captain Charles Boycott. After years of often violent protests and agitation, the land issue was resolved by the end of the 19th century, allowing tenants to be full owners of their land. But this didn’t happen before Thomas O’Malley left for a better life in America.
I can only imagine how horrible the circumstances to make you leave the home of your ancestors for hundreds of years, where all of your family and friends are, and a land as beautiful as County Mayo. It’s quite humbling, and also quite enraging. The economic and social policies of Britain toward Ireland in the 1800s directly caused this disaster. None of the other countries that suffered the same potato blight at the same time had the same devastating consequences. I’ll leave that for another post someday.
Two things we noticed in County Mayo: low population and the striking, mountainous landscape.
The population numbers haven’t recovered from the famines and economic hardships of the 19th century, when more than a million people died and another million left. As Rick Steves points out in his travel book, this area was once populated with farm families who were poor but surviving. While the farms, towns and homes we saw on the way are no longer destitute, they were definitely not well populated.
The landscape was simultaneously gorgeous and stark. We saw a rainbow, but we could tell that it could be difficult to be a tenant farmer in such a place.
During our drive, Will decided he wanted to walk in a peat bog. Peat is decomposed organic material that can be cut, dried and used for fuel. Here he is, getting his feet wet:
The towns along the way were quite friendly, like Leenane, where we stopped at a cafe and gift shop.
We arrived at Westport in time for lunch and ate at JJ O’Malley’s pub.
Here is a 360-degree view of Westport’s charming town center.
We walked around town for a bit, passing Matt Molloy’s, a pub co-owned by one of The Chieftains and known for trad music.
On to Newport. We know that Thomas O’Malley was baptized in Newport, and his mother was baptized in Roskeen-Burrishoole, which is a remote area just past Newport. So we stopped at a few places we felt that Will’s ancestors would have walked. It was very cool to think of it that way.
Driving back through Newport, we saw this pub:
This is the Gaelic name for the famous pirate, Grace O’Malley. I’m convinced, with no proof (yet), that we are related.
After this, we put the pedal to the metal and drove down to our final hotel in Ireland, the Dromoland Castle. It was amazing!
We saw some people being escorted to dinner with Scottish bagpipes, which seemed kind of incongruent. Maybe they were Scottish.
After a delicious dinner at one of the Dromoland restaurants, we enjoyed cocktails with a guitar player in the background. I tried an Irish whisky made specifically for Dromoland. Here is where we had our cocktails:
Tomorrow will be a long day of travel, as we have to get up super early to catch our flight from Shannon to Lisbon, with a plane change in Heathrow.
Ireland has been fantastic, but we are both looking forward to the drier, warmer climate of Lisbon!
Travel Buddies 
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