Donegal genealogist solves family mystery

Seoirse Ó Dochartaigh, genealogist and author of the recently published tome 'The Great Marriage Book of Inishowen' has painstakingly solved a mystery in his own family tree.

Smiling, the talented Inishowen musician, writer and artist said his starting point had been a family tree with a hole in it.

Speaking to Donegal Live, Seoirse described his quest as “the story of many Hughs”.

He recounted: “There were Hugh's in every generation of the Ballyannon Dohertys. Ballyannon is about six kilometres to the north of Buncrana in Desertegney, known locally as 'The Parish'. But there was no Hugh ever found in my grandfather Patrick’s generation; just Patrick and his brother, 'Aul' John.

“Patrick and John's father was called Hugh, so I always presumed there had to be a son called Hugh somewhere. Did he die or emigrate or what?

“I had my eye on a Hugh Doherty, carpenter. This Hugh was living just a little to the west of Buncrana, in a place called Lisone in Ardaravan. His father was 'Hugh Doherty, farmer', as given on the marriage certificate, but it did not say where his father was from.

“All of Hugh and his wife Ena’s seven children were born in Lisone. None of this family information I had unearthed indicated any connection to Ballyannon. I just needed one little reference but none was forthcoming.”

A meeting with Kathleen McCay (née Coyle), a retired school teacher from Buncrana moved things along for Seoirse.

He said: “Kathleen told me her grandfather was Hugh Óg Doherty, Hugh and Ena’s son. I asked Kathleen if she knew anything about her grandfather and she said he had passed on little or no information about his family’s origins, apart from the Lisone connection.

“At some point Hugh and his family were living in Maginn Avenue in Buncrana. He may have passed on some other information to the family but whatever he passed on never reached Kathleen’s ears.

“So, this seemed to be a bit of a genealogical cul-de-sac for me. The Lisone Dohertys were known as 'The Fardaroos' which, apparently, comes from the Irish Feardorcha, meaning 'Dark Man'. Hugh Óg was a master carpenter. This is evidently a family full of carpenters; my father and all his brothers were carpenters). Hugh, apparently, made the doors for St Patrick's Church, Pennyburn in Derry.

“Then there was a breakthrough! But it did not come from a Doherty source; it was from a family called Lawlor in County Kildare who had an ancestry in Derry City.”

Seoirse's partner, Kathryn Daily, who does family research, found a Lawlor DNA that matched his.

It turned out, one of these Lawlors, Joe, had a direct ancestry with a William John Deane.

While Kathryn and Seoirse were trying to puzzle this one out they asked Joe if there was any connection between him and Seamus Deane, the renowned Derry author who passed away earlier this month.

Seamus Deane published his novel 'Reading in the Dark' in 1996. Set in Derry, it spanned the years from February 1945 to July 1971.

'Reading in the Dark' won the 1996 Guardian Fiction Prize and the 1996 South Bank Show Annual Award for Literature. It was a New York Times Notable Book, won the Irish Times International Fiction Prize and the Irish Literature Prize in 1997. It was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1996.

Luckily for Kathryn and Seoirse, Joe Lawlor, confirmed the Deane connection.

Seoirse said: “We then set about filling in some of the gaps in the family lines with the registered births, deaths and marriages, and, sure enough, they linked up directly with the Lisone Dohertys, and further back again to the older Hugh in Ballyannon.

“Seamus Deane’s grandmother, Mary Maggie Doherty was, we discovered, Hugh Óg’s sister!

“The plot of 'Reading in the Dark', narrated by an unnamed young boy, Seamus Deane himself, is mainly about his coming of age and historical events that partitioned Ireland. Throughout the story, the narrator grows up, becoming more mature, and obtaining more knowledge about his family that he never knew before. Even as he is surrounded by increasingly bleak events, he never loses his idiosyncratic optimistic nature.

“There are many references to Inishowen in the book. The Deane family tree has at least four or five lines of Dohertys, none of which are closely related, but maybe sometime in the distant past they were.”

According to Seoirse, the three known Derry Doherty lines are on Seamus’s mother’s side (Winifred née Doherty) and appear to have been in the city for generations.

He said: “Two Inishowen Doherty lines combine in his grandparents’ generation. Seamus’s grandmother was Mary Maggie Doherty, who married William John Deane, father of the William John Deane, who went to Kildare.

“The first Inishowen Doherty was headed by Hugh, the elder, of Ballyannon, and the other was headed by Edward Doherty of Milltown, Ardaravan.

“The Deanes themselves were originally from Bohullion Lower in Burt in south Inishowen and were Protestants who converted to Catholicism at some point and moved into Derry City.

“However, these Deanes had been in Inishowen a long time before their conversion since four men called O’Deane are named on the Inishowen Pardon List of James 1 (1609). As able-bodied soldiers, they would have been born around 1580. The surname comes from Mac an Deagánaigh (The Son of the Dean) and is sometimes Anglicized as McEneany.”

The 'feud-farm', mentioned on in 'Reading in the Dark' appears to be the farm of Hugh Doherty, the elder, in Ballyannon.
Seoirse said: “Hugh was a farmer and former hedge-schoolmaster, as referenced in the Schools Collection of Folklore in 1938. He had been long dead by then.

“During the 1920s of the Civil War the 'feud-farm' was the centre of a Republican dispute involving various members of the Deane family from Derry, Scotland and Inishowen. It is all explained in Seamus’s book.

“My own researches place my grand uncle John Doherty ('Aul' John) as living there alone at the time although he died in 1930.

“Also there, in all likelihood, was 'Aul' John’s nephew Hugh, another carpenter, my father’s brother. This Hugh was an Anti-Treaty insurrectionist and may have been renovating one of the clusters of houses on the Ballyannon farm at the time to go into hiding. He had been fighting in Cork but after 'Aul' John’s death he sold the farm, which John had willed to him, and went to live in Dublin.

“Among the feuding families were the McAteers, two of whom, Michael and Hugh had married Mary Maggie’s sisters, Margaret and Bridget, respectively. Eddie McAteer, who became the leader of the Nationalist Party in 1964, was the son of Hugh McAteer and Bridget Doherty. The McAteers lived in Coatbridge, Scotland but were originally from Fanad, in County Donegal.”

Seoirse related how one of his father's in-laws “stole” the story of Eddie McAteer’s brother, Hugh’s, famous escape from prison in 1943 and applied it to a member of Seoirse's own immediate family.

Seoirse said: “Hugh McAteer (26) was the Chief of Staff of the IRA in the 1940s. The in-law spread the untruth, among many others, that the escapee was my uncle Hugh Doherty, the insurrectionist, but our Hugh had never been in prison!

“I think the preponderance, too, of the first name Hugh confused everybody. This is a story of many Hughs,” said Seoirse.