Saturday, 15 January 2011

Portmuck and Bryan O'Neill in 1572

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In this detail of a map prepared for Sir Thomas Smith's Plantation of the Ards in 1572, " Belfurs t " (Belfast) is shown at th...
12 comments:
Thursday, 6 January 2011

Cattle men from Scotland? The Eslers at Dalways Bawn

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In 1860, two James Eslers (father and son) were living beside each other a few fields away from Dalways Bawn. James Esler, senior, was in th...
5 comments:
Thursday, 2 December 2010

Booley huts and booleying on the Commons

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The ghostly footprints of ancient sod walls still mark the sites where families once moved with their cattle up to uplands in county Antrim ...
17 comments:
Monday, 1 November 2010

Whitehead and Islandmagee: The Eslers in control of the end of the cattle trail

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Whitehead is a quiet sea-side town, just a short hop on the train from Carrickfergus towards Larne. The road 'East of Eden' to Larne...
14 comments:
Saturday, 16 October 2010

Mark Twain - descended from the Dalways of Dalway's Bawn?

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When I first read 'Tom Sawyer ' by Mark Twain as a boy it gripped me like no other book I had ever read. The stories in my other boo...
6 comments:
Tuesday, 12 October 2010

Portmuck - the end of the Cattle Trail

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Sailing into Portmuck harbour from Scotland takes you past the small Isle of Muck - seen here with the north end of the Gobbins Cliffs in Is...
11 comments:
Monday, 4 October 2010

The Gobbins Cliffs

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The Gobbins cliffs in Islandmagee run almost continuously between the sea-ports of Whitehead and Portmuck, so that these two tiny harbours w...
8 comments: