Cashel - Day 3

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Geo: 52.5187, -7.88797

Today I saw some more of that fine Irish weather. The rain was off and on all day so it made for a good day stay inside. No I did not spend the day in the pub....have a little faith.

To start with I headed to Thurles, Liam had suggested I go there to search the archives for family records. On the way I came across Holy Cross abbey in the town of....Holy Cross. Back int the 1200's the monks in the abbey received a piece of the true cross and their little abbey became a place of pilgrimage. The abbey was disbanded by Henry VIII and fell into ruin. It has now been refurbished and is both a tourist attraction and the local church. As I walked into the church they were in the middle of a rosary so I couldn't really walk around and take a good look. I dropped a few Hail Mary's and then slipped away. I don't know what happened to that piece of the true cross.

In Thurles there is a library called "The Source" and they have a good facility for researching county records. A nice young man by the name of John O'Gorman helped me search through the Tathe applotments, a register of the farmland in the region for valuation and tax purposes on 1832. At this time my GG Grandpa wasn't around but his dad, Richard might have been. He did warn me that some records are incomplete or do not exist, such was the excellent record keeping at the time. We did find a piece of land in Mantlehill, Golden for a John McGrath, which may have been Richard's brother or cousin. John is definitely a family name, but it could be a family name in many families. The next archive we looked at was the Griffith valuation of 1950. We did find a Richard McGrath, not in Mantlehill but Thomastown, just down the road. He rented a house and garden, 24 perches which is about 607 square meters, which I'm told was small for the time.

After that we had no where else to go so John recommended I search the records at the Tipperary genealogy centre. I made the trip over to Tipp, but alas I had no luck. The Parish records in Golden started in 1833, which means I could have found GG Grandpa, who was born in 1837. But I already knew about him, I wanted to find his parents, Richard and Margaret. but we had no luck unfortunately.

After that I decided to put the family stuff aside and go for the more accessible history. I made my way to Cahir, thinking I might take a closer look at the castle. However it was drizzling with rain and I didn't much fancy climbing around a castle in the rain. You know there is going to be a wet stone staircase with little or no railing somewhere. So I decided to head for the Swiss cottage instead. The Swiss cottage was the summer house of the first Earl of Glengall, Richard Butler and his wife Emily. It was built in 1810. Now I say it was their summer house, but they never actually stayed there. The cottage is only 2km from their castle in Cahir and they would make day trips to it in the summer to entertain their friends. Court life was very tedious and stressful, so this is where they would escape to "play poor" in a four roomed cottage complete with a separate servants quarters. I'm not sure what their perception of the "poor" life was like.

The cottage itself was adorable. It was designed by Robert Nash, with the idea that the house should fit into the surroundings. The banisters on the balconies looked like branches of trees, not expertly carved and sanded poles. The same goes with the posts in the veranda. The roof was thatched and lattice work covered most of the exterior of the house. Inside the rooms all had three windows which filled them with natural light. However no two windows were the same. While at fist glance it was a all square but there was no actual symmetry in the house. The furnishings were borrowed from the National history museum, Richard and Emily's furniture has long disappeared. But it was really lovely and I can see why they came here to escape. Great views, right by the river, how's the serenity?

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