Sunday 22 October 2017

Roots and Dust

I've been researching my Irish roots lately.  They go back mainly to Dublin, Co. Cork and Co. Kilkenny, but also include other parts of Ireland.  It's been fascinating looking through my great-grandmother's scrap book in detail, searching for clues about what everyone was doing as they progressed through Tipperary, Waterford and so on. The book is huge and contains some lovely cards like this, in gold and green.  


Many of my ancestors are military, too, (and some are both Irish AND military.) In search of their service records, I visited the National Archives in Kew last week.  I'd never been there before and I liked it very much.  It's a huge building, and very pleasant and relaxed inside.


There were some curious artworks around the place. Here's part of a community art project called "Here Be Monsters." It's based on the Archive's historical map collection and comprises several lovely mosaic globes based on the archive's historic map collection. You'll see there are mermaids, fish and other objects which people once thought lived in unexplored parts of the world.  


They made a very good impression but on closer examination I was fairly baffled by some of them. I suppose this could be a sea slug of some kind?
                                                                          

The building's interior is decorated with stained glass and inlaid marble - and I wasn't quite sure what all of those decorations represented either. Any ideas?


So some mysterious art work - maybe I'll find out more information next time I go. The archive contains so much amazing stuff that I could easily spend another day there.

 My ancestors' involvement in various battles and wars abroad were a history lesson in themselves, and included several events I'd never heard of, such as the Fenian raids in Canada during the 1860s. Much of it was colonial service, and some of it very much at the  expense of the local people.  
 It is sad, but opportunities for most people were few, and those who joined the army probably preferred it to staying at home labouring in all weathers for a pittance or starving to death in the Irish famine. 

There's a nice cafe and small but excellent bookstore, mostly selling books that help you understand the past. I could have spent a fortune there but in the end, I narrowed it down to just one book - Raymond Postgate's "Verdict of Twelve,"  one of a series of reprinted vintage crime classics.  

The book goes easy on gory details (which suits me) and the unusual plot centres on the jury in a murder trial, and how the jury comes to its decision.   This by itself could be a bit dull, but Postgate has woven a baffling mystery into the jury's views and deliberations, and I literally had no idea what was going to happen until the very last page.   


It raised all sorts of questions about group psychology, and I thought it was so clever I wanted to buy another crime novel by Postgate. I found to my disappointment that he didn't stick with crime writing, and instead, went on to found The Good Food Guide, 

His son, Oliver Postgate went into television, though, and invented .... yes -  dear old Bagpuss.  Apologies to those of you who don't know it, but I always loved the introduction to this BBC children's programme. Today's TV seems a lot faster moving, though.  The programme would be half over before you've met all the characters each week, but perhaps children like that slowness and repetition. 


The weather's been weird. Have you been having odd weather? So many people have. I've just heard from someone in Hiroshima who's expecting a large and unseasonal typoon.  Here in the UK there was an amazing red sun and a weird orange twilight which descended while Hurricane Ophelia was devastating Ireland last week. The orange colour was apparently due to the winds having picked up a great deal of fine red sand.  


  Bizarre, isn't it? It felt a bit apocalyptic. 

Next day, I thought all would be back to normal, and went out for a walk on Hampstead Heath. But at about midday, a strange gloom descended once more. No orange tint this time, but don't you think this photo has a strange atmosphere? It isn't photoshopped.  

The time was about 1.30 PM, yet the ground was almost dark, and the rays spreading out from the sun did little to brighten the scene.  I guess sand was the culprit there, too. 


I've been breathing in fine dust from my next door neighbour's house repairs, too. Her workmen have been drilling out the mortar for 2 days and they don't seem to have the faintest idea of how to sheet the site off to stop gales of dust blowing all over us.  It creeps into the house even with the doors and windows closed so there's grit everywhere. 

I've raised it with the men and my neighbour, and they try to help, but nothing seems to work. I've had a cough for a few days, but perhaps I also picked up a bug. Anyway, feels like it's on the mend. I daresay my ancestors put up with much worse in the Crimean War!


50 comments:

  1. Oliver Postgate, now there's a name from my childhood that brings back happy memories. I had no idea his father was a writer (what an interesting sounding book). The photos are lovely and the National Archives looks like a wonderful place. The mosaic globe is beautiful.

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    1. I think he also did Captain Pugwash, didn't he? Not sure....

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  2. It is fascinating to delve into ones roots, and sometimes brings some big surprises.

    Hope you feel better soon, and no more weird weather!

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  3. How wonderful that you have your great-grandmother's scrap book and are able to do research on your ancestors. Roots are very important to me.

    Unfortunately most of my relatives have never had an interest in our roots - and all the older relatives whom I would have liked to question are now deceased. Thank goodness the Internet has been helpful. I have royal roots among my ancestors and also a murderer (probably more than one murderer - considering how wild my father's family was!).

    I'm not familiar with Bagpuss but I liked the video (and I like his name).

    That orange sky courtesy of Ophelia reminds me of how the sky often looked in West Texas during dust storms. Very surrealistic.
    The last photo is wonderfully dramatic!!

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    1. Thanks! I was rather awed by it but didn't know how well it would come out in a photo. So strange with the ground being so dark in the middle of the day. I have certainly had some surprises in continuing to research the ancestors.

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  4. Our weather is warm in the day and so cold at night the furnace comes on. Totally autumn.

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  5. Thanks for this informative post. I love the mosaics.

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  6. That really is an eerie effect from the dust - I wonder what our medieval ancestors would have made of that. I love the globe, and it does look like some old maps I have seen in books, the ones with mermaids and sea monsters (of course!). The archives look huge and rather serious, but what a difference a swan makes - it softens the whole effect. I love your Irish card, and share the Irish ancestry too.

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    1. The archives are actually quite friendly and relaxing. It's not my favourite period of architecture, but they have done their best with a very nice and cheap cafe, lots of areas for sitting and a pleasant bookstore.

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  7. The British Library Crime Classics are so good! Even if you won't find another Oliver Postgate novel, you will be spoiled for choice with the entire series.
    The sky in your photo truly does look weird. In a time (or country) where people knew less about the workings of our planet's atmosphere and weather, they would surely have believed this was a portent of bad things to come, or a sign of God or something like that.
    Researching your family history must be fascinating.

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    1. I remember when there was a huge comet up in the sky, must be at least 20 years ago now - think it was called Hale-Bopp. Do you remember it? It did feel very strange and somewhat alarming to see it up there every night with its long tail.

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  8. I suppose if the family were tenant farmers they would move from place to place, landlords not always being nice folks.
    Soldiers around the world saw some interesting lives and while a hard life it would be preferable to Ireland and famine.
    Never been to Kew, their website is a bit complicated in my view, but it would be fun to wander anywhere through their files in the back room!
    I don't advise getting the bug!

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    1. I know that farmers in Ireland would move to other places at some times of year. They'd grow potatoes for their own use and harvest corn for someone else, or so I am told.

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  9. I enjoyed reading this. It made me wish I had researched my family roots. I agree about the weather!!

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    1. It's so interesting researching the family - if you don't feel like doing it yourself of course you can always pay someone, but I think it comes out rather pricy.

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  10. Great photographs. The inlaid marble designs look aboriginal, perhaps from carvings and rock painting. Thank you for the tip on Postgate. Reading a good mystery is a treat.

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    1. Yes, they are somehow primitive, those designs. Hope you enjoy the book

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  11. I wonder what stories the Irish would have developed to explain that yellow sky? and many thanks for Bagpuss - it comes with lovely memories for me, too.

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    1. It would be certain to have some meaning, for sure. Maybe a fire in fairyland....

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  12. No clue what the strange floor art is all about. The book sounds like a really great one. I love when you can't figure out the mystery till the end. Strange sky! I hope you aren't getting sick and have a great week. :)

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    1. Thanks Rita, didn't get sick ... and if you read the book I hope you enjoy it too!

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  13. I've both Scottish and Irish on my maternal and paternal sides. More Scottish than Irish on my maternal side, but I'm second generation Irish on my paternal side. My father's parents emigrated to Australia in the early 1900s from the town of Armagh in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. They settled in Rockhampton, a town in central Queensland.

    And once settled in their new country, town and life, their six children were born thereafter; one of whom was mine and my now late older brother's father.

    Another interesting post, Jenny...with great photos to match. :)

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    1. Thank you Lee. I passed the Ulster family history society and they have folks there who are keen to help you track down ancestors. Only problem is you have to be in Belfast to access it but just thought I'd mention it :) :) I imagine that your ancestors appreciated the weather in Qld after the near constant cloud and rain of Northern Ireland.

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  14. The mosaic globe was so interesting. - those 2 sky shot were wonderful.

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    1. The sky was truly fascinating to me that day.

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  15. Oh Jenny, I wish I could come sit with you and have a cuppa tea and we could talk about family searches. I'm doing it now too and coming up with all sorts of fascinating things but I really love the memorabilia you found in the scrapbook. It's beautiful. I finally found the baptism info for my second great grandmother, which was in London in the 18-somethings. I need to go plug dates into my family tree big time now. The project keeping me most occupied is pulling together a book about our family going back to those who came over from Switzerland, Germany and England. Finding a Wood or a Grainger in England is like trying to find a needle in a haystack!

    The library/archives are beautiful. Yes, I would love to see that!

    Now, about Bagpuss -- I loved that clip so much and it's a wonderful idea for stories to tell Carson, our Baby Grand, when he gets old enough to understand. I liked the visuals, too. Are you familiar with Mister Rogers' Neighborhood? It was a show here for decades that moved at a very slow pace and targeted to smaller children and dealt with kindness and sharing and the Land of Make Believe. Slow can be good. They speed up so quickly.

    The sky is stunning -- both, actually, the religious-sky and the orange one. I need to check on my friends in Hiroshima. We've had so many weather things -- fires and hurricanes and earthquakes in this world this year. Mother Nature is NOT amused!

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    1. A couple of people have mentioned Mr Rogers' Neighborhood, but we haven't seen it here. Teletubbies moves very slowly -you can see I am quite an expert on these shows :) I think there are quite a few leaps of faith in most family trees, although I always try to find two sources and am very careful about dates and locations matching or seeming credible. Do you agree it's fascinating how many new snippets of history can be discovered in this way?

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  16. We have volcanic ash at the moment...not too bad out here in the sticks, but it gave the capital a grey, sulphur smelling haze when Leo had an appoinment there...to check his lung function!

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    1. Wouldn't have appreciated the added joy of a sulphur smell I must say...

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  17. Dear Jenny - The scrap book of your great-grand-mother must be priceless treasure to you and your family. On seeing “Verdict of Twelve”, I thought it is the English title of the American “Twelve Angry Men. ” But I was wrong, the two are different. I only reacted to “court trial” and “twelve.” BTW, You really needed wearing a fine surgical mask to protect you from fine dusts. In my neighborhood, the place of repairment or repainting is always covered in blue sheets. Weather here is definitely weird. I experienced early autumn, high summer, and cold rainy season in October. In addition to the last week typhoon (thank you for your concern) another is coming upcoming weekend. What will be the next?

    Lycoris radiate (higan-bana, spider lily, or cluster amaryllis) edges rice paddies not only aesthetic reason but also practical reason. They are used to keep pests, rats, and moles away because the bulbs are poisonous. They are also seen in graveyards for the same reason.

    Yoko

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    1. It is a good idea to plant a row of poisonous bulbs around other plants you wish to keep. We have a lot of squirrels here who dig the bulbs up and eat them, and I've been considering putting chilli pepper around them. Surgical masks are not commonly sold in the stores, like they are in Japan but I did think of this. My local pharmacies didn't have any, though. The dust has now settled I am glad to say, the building work has just finished, and the workmen have been told to come and clean up outside our house.

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  18. Your Raymond Postgate reference intrigued me so I popped off to Amazon with a view to acquiring it. I discovered that he did write at least one other Crime novel: Somebody at the Door (British Library Crime Classics) Paperback – 10 Oct 2017. I have never been particularly interested in my antecedents. However I now realise that that is because, on my Mother's side, my Great Uncle (who retired early after a successful career as a ships' architect) spent the last half of his life traipsing around the country's churches and mapped our ancestry back to the year dot. My brother did some checking and he reckons there was a 'leap of faith' around 1500 (if I remember correctly). I suppose it must be not knowing that makes people curious.

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    1. Yes, if you look into family trees closely you find a lot of leaps of faith more recently than 1500. I think ancestors have to be exceptionally distinguished to be recorded at all before that. I have a sort of feeling that coal miners and agricultural labourers who formed the majority of my ancestors didn't have any noble relatives lurking in the background.

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  19. Some of my grandfather's relatives were busy tunneling in the Crimea , too . Others were marching about India . But the least expected was the great-great-uncle who went to Toronto and started a dance band !

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    1. I think he might have been the one I wanted to accompany on his travels, then! :)

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  20. I always heard it was "Here Be Dragons" which I really love.
    Adore Bagpuss. I think more children's TV should be more like this. Everyone thinks fast is better but slower pace is much better for little one. They will soon be sucked up into the fast pace of life.
    Mr. Rogers Neighborhood did many of the same things over and over and helped with being kind and thoughtful. A quiet time in a day of hurry hurry.

    cheers, parsnip

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    1. I often feel quite sorry for little kids trying to figure out the whys and wherefores of everything, and they certainly DO need more time.

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  21. My Jenny has Irish roots as well, she comes from a very old Irish family that has connections with C S Lewis and the Victorian shipbuilders McIlwaine & Lewis. My own family has no Irish roots at all, we're all very firmly English.

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    1. One of my French teachers was called Miss MacIlwaine, I wonder if she was related somehow to your Jenny

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  22. How exciting that you have your great-grandmother's scrapbook!

    Agree about the weird weather. We have a yellowish-looking sky every so often that makes everything look very eerie. People always say to watch out for tornadoes when it looks like that.

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    1. It certainly felt like something abnormal was up. Nothing much did come of it though, except more leaves fell down off the trees. It is getting cold now, starting to wish I could go to Lakeland! :)

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  23. Dear Jenny, how interesting to find your own roots, to read archive documents, to know your ancestors participated in Crimean war. I don't know my ancestors after grandparents, there are no any documents because of wars, hunger, building of communism etc. You're lucky to know your own family history.
    The dust and sand in air was due to the Ophelia storm and it is undoubted dangerous for your health.

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    1. Oh, I am sorry the records for your ancestors have gone. It is such a pity when records are destroyed, and I am grateful for the thousands of people who thought it was so important to keep them and look after them, and for the good luck that ensured they were not destroyed in bombing etc.

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  24. What an interesting pursuit! Looking up your ancestors, I mean. And what an interesting place it led you to! I do sometimes think that when we criticise people' actions in history, we need to remember times were very different in the past and not many had the luxury of choice in any form. You did what you had to to survive, whether it was politically, or simply to feed a family. Very interesting post, Jenny. And yes, we had some weird skies too!

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    1. Yes, the more I study history the more I realise how careful one must be with it. It's when I discover something that is new to me but was really common in ye olden days and immediately have to re-jig all my other assumptions!

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  25. Those mysterious designs remind me of aerial views of Iron Age earthworks and Autumn leaves. Some sort of allusion, perhaps, to the cycle of the seasons and our responses to it?

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    1. It makes sense, although I imagine there has to be an allusion to keeping archives somewhere. Like you, I thought they must refer to something primitive, although they looked vaguely Native American to me. I'll let you know if I ever find out.

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  26. Sorry about the bug. Belfast looks to be quite hip. It looks much more fun than Dublin, which I consider to be one of the more un-European capitals. Dublin does not have the same old world feel. I never heard of the Fienan raids in Canada. I guess they do not teach us everything in history class.

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  27. DA MIEDO ESE COLOR ROJO!!!
    PERO LAS FOTOS HERMOSAS.
    CHAUCITO

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