4 June 2023
This was the day that we finally made it to Macroom, the town where our Pearson and Davies families were centred in the late 1700s/early 1800s. It took us about two hours to get there because we opted to take the quieter (and narrower!) rural roads which took us up hills, down into valleys, and through some very tiny villages. There were a couple of times where Mum and I started doubting the GPS as we turned into tiny little lanes, but we eventually made it and got to see parts of Ireland well off the tourist track. Macroom itself is bigger than we expected, and very pretty with a market square (actually more a triangle), very old castle gates, colourfully painted houses, lots of pubs, and very fast drivers! We arrived late morning on a Sunday and the town was fairly deserted and nearly everything was closed. However, once the Catholic Church service finished, town was suddenly bustling, and the pubs all started to open and fill up.
We visited St Mary’s Church to see if we could find any graves of our Pearson or Davies relations, and while we did find one Pearson grave, we were unable to find anymore. Apparently there is a vault underneath the church where Christopher Pearson (Mum’s 6th Gt Grandfather) was buried in 1767. The current church was built in the early 1800s, but on the same site as the old one. We were hoping that with it being a Sunday the church would be open, but it wasn’t. We asked for help at a local pub and were told that the church is currently being renovated and will eventually be opening as a community centre. The local council have a key and would have let us in, but of course they are closed for the weekend. Next time!
About 3km out of Macroom is the location of Mount Cross House, where the formidable “Big Mrs Pearson” had lived, along with many other Pearsons starting with the Christopher Pearson mentioned above. With some help from locals, we were able to find the original house but were not keen to enter through closed gates to walk up the drive. Luckily we could view the back of the house from the road, and we got a good idea of what the estate would have been like. It has been subdivided so there are more houses surrounding the old house than there would have been in the Pearson’s time. It took a bit of searching to find it, so for anyone in the future looking for Mount Cross House, its towards Macroom on the western side of the R582 just down from the crossroads where the R582 meets the L3416/L3417 roads.
15km southeast of Macroom is Kilcondy House, where Dr William Davies and his wife Isabella Gethin Creagh (Mum’s 3rd Gt Grandparents) lived just before the emigrated from Ireland to New Zealand. We were very brave and drove down the long narrow driveway to see what remained of the house. After passing a modern house, we came to the ruin of Kilcondy House. It must have been a grand house in its time, but there is now not much left of it. While we were there, we met some walkers and another car with people looking for their dog – not too sure why I was so nervous driving up a stranger’s driveway, it seems to be a ‘thing’ over here. Again, for anyone in the future looking for what’s left of Kilcondy House, it’s off the N22, down from the Shandangan Crossroad, and just past the Lee Valley Equestrian Centre.
Today we were definitely off the beaten track and trying to find some very obscure locations. I am very lucky to have had a ‘navigator extraordinaire’ guiding me (i.e. Mum!).
After yesterday’s very long day, it was quite nice to have a
slightly shorter day today and have some time to catch up on writing and
washing. Not too sure yet where we might go tomorrow but are thinking of
perhaps heading down to Kinsale which is just south of Cork City. Kinsale is
where Isabella Gethin Creagh’s father, Rev John Bagwell Creagh, died (he’s the
one who built The Hermitage house that we visited yesterday), and where Mum’s 2nd
Gt Grandmother, Gertrude Anne Eliza Davies, was born in 1830.
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