FAMILY HISTORY
Here is a summary of the family history we've discovered on this trip (I'll try and keep it clear). My paternal grandparents' names were James O'Brien and Mary Coyne. Our research today focused on my paternal grandmother's lineage, particularly her mother's lineage. Mary Coyne's (my grandmother's) parents were Thomas Coyne and Nora King. As mentioned above, our research focused on Nora King's lineage (my paternal grandmother's mother).
The King Side
Nora King, whose real name was Honor King, was born to Peter King and Mary Ward in 1880. Peter King and Mary Ward were married on October 25, 1868 in Innishnee, a remote island west of Galway City in County Galway with one church that belonged to the Roundstone Parish. He was a 23-year-old farmer (born 1845); she was 20 (born between 1848 and 1851). His father's name was Martin King; her father's name was James Ward. After their marriage, they apparently moved about 1 mile across the choppy Atlantic Ocean to a remote, rocky landscape known as Letterard, which was part of the Carna Parish.
Nora King was one of Peter and Mary's 8 or 9 children. (1) Michael King was born in 1871. (2) Mary King was born in Letterard on March 18, 1873. (3) Anne King was baptized in Letterard in 1875. (4) Martin King was baptized in Letterard on September 30, 1877. (5) Honor ("Nora") King was born in Letterard on March 1, 1880 and was baptized 20 days later in Carna Parish. (6) Margaret King was born around 1882. (7) Festus King was born around 1885. (8) Colman King was born May 14, 1888 in Letterard and was baptized June 6, 1888, also in Carna Parish. A "Peter King" was mentioned to us by a relative back home as a possible ninth sibling, but the Galway genealogy center did not turn up any records of him.
(1) Michael King was a fisherman and lived at home, taking care of the homestead after his father's (Peter King's) death on April 25, 1895 at age 49 in Letterard (died of natural causes).
(2) Mary King was the oldest King to immigrate to the U.S. She worked as a nurse in Maine; she later married a Dr. Batchelder and lived in Boston, but did not have children.
(3) Anne King married Michael Mongan on August 10, 1895; he was 24, she was 17 - they were both "servants" with farmer fathers. They had two children: Mark Mongan, born April 18, 1897 and Martin Mongan, born November 9, 1899; both born in Rossduff.
(4) Martin King leased farm land from the Law Life Assurance Co. in Letterard, a remote, rocky area across the inlet from Innishnee.
(5) Nora King immigrated to the U.S., probably sometime before 1901. She married Thomas Kyne - spelled "Coyne" upon arrival to the U.S. - who may have immigrated on the same ship as Nora's brother Festus.
(6) We know very little about Margaret King as yet, but the 1911 census lists Mary King's household as including her children Margaret and Michael, and two grandchildren: John Conneely (born ~1903) and Catherine Conneely (born ~1899). Since Michael did not have children, it is conceivable that Margaret King married a Mr. Conneely and these were her children.
(7) Festus King immigrated to the U.S. in May 1908 and died in 1974. He had at least five children: Peter (born 1915), Mary (Plumb) (born 1914), Helen (born 1917), Edward (born 1920) and Martin (born 1921). Festus' son Peter had a daughter named Margie who married John O'Malley (they had three daughter's, who would be Festus' great-grandaughters - Mary, Katty and Judy).
(8) We know very little about Colman King.
The Kyne/Coyne Side
We are still in the process of learning more about Thomas Coyne, but we found out that his family name was probably Kyne before coming to the U.S. - and he was from Spiddel, another coastal town of County Galway about 20 miles east of Letterand/Innishnee/Carna. We left Brian Rabbitt at the Genealogy Center to the research and will return tomorrow to pick up what he found (for a fee, of course).
OUR EXPLORATION
Armed with an incredible amount of information, we set out for the road - determined to find someone or something. Our route took us through the beautiful Connemarra National Park, a rolling landscape of mist-covered mountains, dense spans of spruce trees, martian islands of limestone bedrock and boulders, and an endless flow of streams into rivers into lakes and marshes. On the side of the road we saw two badgers - the gruff guardians of the harsh Connemarra landscape - who were on the losing end of a run-in with the unforgiving traffic of the Irish countryside.
Our first, and most productive stop, was the island of Innishnee. Innishnee is one of the harshest places in all of Ireland. It's landscape is like that of a foreign planet - rocky and dark with lumps of brown grass and bogs of peat surrounding. Only one narrow road leads to Innishnee - it first takes you over the Atlantic Ocean on a short bridge, and then winds you around stoney pastures scarred and fortified with ancient rock walls as fences. The road is only wide enough for one car to pass - even though it carries traffic in both directions. Ruinous houses dot the landscape - sepulchers of times gone by, de-roofed by years of exposure to the bitter breeze of the salty ocean air and crashing waves against the rocky coast. Moss and vines have taken over the window sills and doorways of these former dwellings. Occasionally a sheep will be eating roadside grass as you come around a bend, or a cow will be gazing confusingly in your directions as you come over a hill - both a testament t to those remaining few who still eek out a living on this two-mile long island.
We came to a fork in the road and went to the right. It led to more of the same - stoney nothingness, rugged winds and sea waves all around. We turned around where it dead ended and took the other side of the fork. It led us to another part of the island, partially hidden from our prior position by the rolling landscape. Up one hill - then down another - and up a second hill our rental car devotedly puttered on. Then, beside a stone gate we noticed a relatively new sign for a cemetery. We made a spot to pull over so that another car could pass by, then ventured inside. The cemetery was ancient and covered in clumps of grass and boggy ferns. Jagged stones, weathered by rain and wind, marked decades-old graves - nearly all of which were illegible. One side of one structure remained atop the hill in the cemetery - likely the old church of Innishnee where my great-great grandparents, Peter King and Mary Ward were married on October 25, 1868. As we turned to leave, a wiry terrier bounded up the hill towards us with a bark - his owner, John Barrett - a short, strong man of about 60 whose years living on Innishnee shone upon his monstrous hands, which were of a perpetual peat color, and weathered face. We told him who we were; he told us who he was - himself the son of a "Ward" woman. A friendly chat ensued - with his faithful dog scampered up our knees in search of a petting - in which John told us that the old structure in cemetery was in fact the church, and that nobody had been buried in the cemetery since 1998 - and that was an anomaly. Who is buried where is not known, but John directed us to Michael King's residence, just down the road (whose mother had recently died after living nearly 100 years). (Mr. Barrett also told us that Chris Dodd, the U.S. Senator from Connecticut and former Democratic Presidential Candidate had recently built a home just opposite his property - one of several new homes popping up along the island for those who truly want to get away from civilization).
We went 500 yards back up the road to Mr. King's house - unsure if we would be coming face-to-face with a distance relative of the branch who did not immigrate - perhaps he would be our key to a wealth of information that could never be found in a database. But we never got the chance - nobody answered his door and John O'Donnell, another Innishnee-ite who came by on bicycle with a square bale of hay on his back - told us that his car was gone, and therefore Mr. King was probably not around. After some haggling for a plastic water bottle, Mr. O'Donnell - not quite the representative for Innishnee that Mr. Barrett was - said he'd deliver a note from us to Mr. King. Perhaps we'll hear from him after all...
We then pressed on - a quick drive through Roundstone (initially delayed by a failed piece of equipment blocking the only road out of Innishnee), then onward to Carna. Roundstone was a lovely little coastal town, right across the bay from Innishnee - although our relatives likely never lived here, Roundstone was their Parish center.
Carna was bit more remote - still typified by an unearthly landscape of stone and grass as far as the eye can see. We did a brief drive-through, then stepped into the church (although it had clearly been built since our relatives were baptized). We snapped a couple of pictures of some fallen stone homes, unsure if they perhaps formerly housed one of our ancestors.
Since it was getting dark, we planned to not drive through Letterard (we had heard that nobody lived there anyway), but a wrong turn and some subsequent make-shift directions from our computer-guided GPS system soon made us realize that we had just driven through Letterard anyway - without even noticing - perhaps the eery, ghost-like hand of our ancestors pulled us back for one brief tour through the landscape of their birth.
We had to get back before dark (the only thing more dangerous than driving on the narrow Irish roadways in the rain is driving on the narrow Irish roadways in the rain when it's dark) so we could not stop in Spiddel - but we did drive through. A quick trip into Galway for dinner at The Galleon capped off an amazing day. When we woke up this morning, we knew little more than names and dates - a few hours later we were standing in the cryptic courtyard of the church cemetery at the same lattitude and longitude that our ancestors were wed.
Photos
Below is a photo of me standing next to the church on the barren island of Innishnee where my great-great grandparents (Peter King and Mary Ward) were married in 1868. Their daughter, Honor ("Nora") King married Thomas Kyne (Coyne), who were the parents of my grandmother (my dad's mother) Mary Coyne.
Map
I've marked Roundstone, Carna, Innishnee and Letterand on the map below. It is an interactive map, so you can zoom in or out or open it in a new window.
View Larger Map
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