Saturday, March 17, 2007

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home. May good and faithful friends be yours, wherever you may roam. May peace and plenty bless your world with joy that long endures. May all life's passing seasons bring the best to you and yours!~ An Old Irish Blessing


My maiden name is Irish. My dad’s name starts with ‘Mc’ and my mum’s ‘Mac’ so l’m a ‘Mc-mac’ (sounds like mic-mac). The popular belief is that Mc is a distinctively Irish prefix while Mac is exclusively Scottish. I think it has as much to do with religion and whether your family spoke Gaelic- 'Mac' meaning ‘son of’. While doing family research l have found that the spelling of a name can change through the years- from Mc to Mac and then back again. Even the end of my father’s name changed with his grandparents from ‘ie’ to ‘y’.
Half my father’s family were from Ireland as were my mother’s side. Dublin, Banbridge, Seapatrick, Cork etc., just some of the places the family were from in Ireland. I call myself Scottish as l was born and raised here but know that my roots are Celtic.
When my mum’s granny came over from Ireland as a wee lass she performed her Irish dancing for Queen Mary at Stirling Castle. Her name was Sarah Neill and her mother was Sarah Finlay.
Sarah Finlay married William Neill on 31 Aug 1872, St. Luke’s Church of Ireland, Belfast, County Antrim. Sadly out of ten children, at the end of this Sarah’s life (54 years), she only had 3 children near her. Infant mortality was high in those days – l do not know how she would have coped. Four of her children had died as infants another wee girl at only 8 yrs. Later two of her daughters, Annie and Fanny emigrated to America.
Now Annie and Fanny became Mormons. My Mum remembers driving back from a Mormon funeral with her parents. Mum’s dad, Charles Mackenzie though it was strange that during the funeral they chanted, ”There she goes and here she comes!” as a sort of valediction. Being that the Mackenzie’s were Brethern they thought this was quite hysterical and mum remembers her parents giggling at it on the drive home.
Sadly l have found it difficult to go as far back with my family history on the Irish side and really need to visit to do a bit more research and therefore proceed further.
My own dad attended the Belfast Bible College in the late 1950's where he was head boy.
Have a great day and don’t forget to ‘drown your shamrock’!
This takes place on St. Patrick's Day, when the shamrock that has been worn in the hat or lapel is removed and put into the last drink of the evening. A toast is proposed and then, when the toast has been honoured, the shamrock is taken from the bottom of the glass and thrown over the left shoulder. Sláinte!

11 comments:

Jeanette said...

Happy "Saint Patricks day" Horizon.
such lovely words to your blessing. Thank you for a little history on your family. take care.

Gwen said...

Hi Horizon..
Hope you had a great ST.PAT'S day
We spent ours with our G/G/daughter who turned 2 on the day Stay Well xx
P.S.Your blessing was beautiful....

TJ said...

I loved reading about your family...maybe my Hubby's family is kin to yours and that would make me kin too so there...we are kin and nobody can tell me different!!
Happy Saint Patrick's Day!!
:-D
PS...I sent out an email that my blog address has changed but many of them bounced back to me...please click on the above profile link and it should bring you back over...you might want to correct it in your side bar too!
Love You!!

HLiza said...

Glad I know more about your roots.. I admit all those sound foreign to me..now I know what it means to be Celtic and Mcs and Macs. I know very little about my roots, guess its' about time to think about it.

Betty said...

We are Mc's and one daughter married a Mc of Irish decent and the other daughter married an O' of Irish decent.

My husband's ancestors came from
Scotland.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you and yours.....

Kerri said...

I have some Irish roots too. Loved reading a bit about your family and learning a few facts. So interesting!
Such a lovely blessing and the same to you bonnie Lass!
Wishing you a very happy St. Patrick's Day :)
xoxo

Charley "Apple" Grabowski said...

Kerri noticed we had the same blessing today and sent me here. I'm glad she did as I've quite enjoyed my visit! If you have Mormons in your tree there should be temple records you can check to give you a good start.

Reflection Through The Seasons said...

I’m a little late with the St. Patrick’s Day greeting, nevertheless, I hope you had a good day.

What an interesting post, I’ve enjoyed reading about your family history.
Have a peaceful Sunday. Marion

Sigrun said...

I have no british ore irish Routes, but deep in my heart - you know - I am British! Because this is the elucidation for that I'm comming each year to Britain!

Sigrun

Margaret said...

Hi, Thanks for sharing your very interesting history .I was married to a Thomas O'Malley who passed away when I was 35. His darling mother had a little tale she told as she became sick of Aussies jesting that her children's name was O'Malley but they were born in Glasgow. I will quote what she used to reply. "For sure, if ye were born in a stable ye wouldn't be for callin' yerself a hoss now would ye?"
I was always very amused by this.
Cheers and hugs Margaret

HORIZON said...

Margaret.
l did not go into detail about all the
family from Ireland but my dad's side was Malley from Dublin- they came to settle in the Glasgow area. :)
Maggie O'Malley from Dublin- lol
You never know ;)

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