June 25, 2008

Tracking down one’s (Crazy Celt) ancestors

Last week I wrote about being prompted to check out the Highland Games in Fort Wayne due to the lure of cricket.

There was also, however, a secondary reason for my attendance. While naturally, the Highland Games were primarily devoted to “things Scottish” there was mention also of some Irish heritage being celebrated at the event, due to the common Celtic origins of the two countries.

In my earlier years, even though I was a “history nut”, I had never really taken too much interest in the history (or genealogy) of my own family. For some reason however, in the 1990s that changed and in the years since I have assembled four large folders full of Shanly (and Shanley - I still haven’t discovered a reliable reason for the variation in spelling) family history notes.

Like most of the early European settlers in New Zealand (during the 1800s) my ancestors arrived in Christchurch from the United Kingdom in the mid-1860s, before heading north and (initially at least) settling around Napier and Hastings, on the east coast of the North Island.

In my youth I was actually told that our family was of English origin, based on tales of a family home in Exeter. However, when I began my own studies, I discovered that this only dated back to around the 1840s. In fact, a generation earlier, a Daniel Shanly, father of the Exeter homeowner had moved to England from Ireland.

We aren’t English at all - we are “crazy Celts” from Ireland!

The really annoying thing is, though, that I can find virtually no information relating to the early life of Daniel.

He was born “in Ireland” around 1782, of unlisted parentage, and nothing more is known until his marriage in Birmingham, England in 1813 (- on July 4, no less!).

I have managed to trace the actual Shanly/Shanley clan in Ireland back to around the early 1200s, when the first member of the clan set himself up independently in County Leitrim.

I just can’t seem to plug Daniel into the line!

The family established itself around the modern-day town of Dromod, and the area today still has plenty of both Shanly and Shanley families. The clan actually became quite prosperous, and William Shanly (head of the clan at the time) represented his area as “sovereign of the borough of Jamestown” and one of two representatives from that borough in the Irish “Patriot Parliament” of 1689.

Unfortunately, this is where the family came unstuck.

The “Patriot Parliament” supported King James II of England, who had in fact just been deposed by the English for the unforgivable crime of becoming a catholic.

“We can’t have a catholic as head of the (protestant) Church of England - that isn’t cricket!”

I’m sure things were more complicated than that, but the short version of the story is that the English crowned (protestant) William of Orange as King William III of England, and James was forced to flee to Ireland where he attempted to rally his supporters and win back his throne.

The Irish were all too willing to “have another go” at the English, of course, for a number of reasons, and James soon raised an army, in which William Shanly, three of his brothers, and uncle Michael all served as officers.

Unfortunately, “King” William’s forces won the resulting war, and then proceeded to throw the leading supporters of James (including William Shanly and his brothers and uncle) into jail and strip them of all their lands.

Doh! A slight cock-up on the “advancement of family fortunes front” there chaps! Never mind! How bad can this “peasant lifestyle” be?

Isolated members of the Shanly clan were able to regain some measure of minor fortune in later years, but apart from the success experienced by brothers Frank and Walter Shanly (two of the pioneering engineers who built the railroads in Canada at the time my ancestors were settling in New Zealand) the “glory days” were long gone.

A third (the eldest) brother of Walter and Frank, Charles Dawson Shanly, moved to New York and became a semi-famous writer. Walter, in his later years became a member of the Canadian parliament.

(Frank, Walter and Charles were great-great-great-grandsons of William of the “Patriot Parliament” - if only it was as easy to determine where Daniel fits in!)

Every six months or so I get a sudden burst of motivation to do some more digging, but so far, I’m still missing the vital connection.

Just last Christmas/New Year, however, I was able to make contact with a gentleman living in County Leitrim who works at least semi-professionally as an historian, and writes occasional items for the local newspaper.

He has been a huge help with trying to identify local geography, which was a total mystery to me previously.

So far he hasn’t been able to find any local Shanl(e)y residents who know enough about the full family history to be able to help me fit the puzzle together, but if anyone should be able to find the missing piece of the jigsaw, I figure it’s got to be him.

Maybe one day I’ll get the chance to go over there myself and do some digging around. Apparently it’s a great spot for fishing and getting drunk, but given that County Leitrim only got its first set of traffic lights in 2003, it doesn’t exactly appear to be the “technological hub” of the country.

The largest town in the county (not Dromod) has a population of just over 3,500, and Leitrim is apparently the most sparsely populated county in the Republic of Ireland.

It does seem to have a lot of nice scenery though!

I imagine it as being one of those places that has almost totally escaped the modern world, and kept it’s “old world charm” - a real “get-away” spot!

That, and the historic family links do make it very tempting as a holiday (ooops, Americans call it “vacation”) destination.

by FRANK SHANLY

frank@news-banner.com

Email Frank Shanly

Talk about this story in our forums!