While Irish immigration frequently is identified with the millions who came to the U.S. as a result of the Great Famine, the reality is that many Irish made the trip across the Atlantic well in advance of that tragedy. Among them were our Sullivan ancestors. These folks were established in the U.S. before the famine and well in time for the American Civil War.
We must be in awe of these Irish ancestors who pulled up stakes in their native land, bid goodbye to relatives they would never see again, and headed deep into the wilderness untamed in a country unknown. In understanding what motivated these forbearers and their exodus from Ireland, we begin with the patriarch of our branch of Sullivans.
The Origins of “Irish Jerry”
Jeremiah “Jerry” Sullivan, our great-great grandfather, was born in Ireland in the 1790s. His precise birth year is in question. In the 1870 census, he is listed as having been born in 1798 but in a 1896 biography it is given as 1791 - a substantial difference. Trying to validate one or the other dates through internal evidence only compounds the confusion. It is possible that even his children were uncertain of his age. When he died in 1875, for example, a newspaper obituary vaguely pegged him as “at the advanced age from eighty to ninety years.”
Jeremiah’s birthplace was in County Cork in the south of Ireland, a region known asLabels: Jeremiah Sullivan, Ivleary, Inchigeela, Whiteboys Rebels, Rocktites, Immigration from Ireland Iveleary, literally the Valley of the Learys. Iveleary was the Roman Catholic parish designation. The civil locality was called Inchigeela after the central municipality of the area. Parishes were the original unit of administration in Ireland and were used right up to the end of the 19th Century. Thus, Jeremiah’s tombstone gives his birthplace as “Iveleary.”
The name Sullivan is the third most common in Ireland, ranking behind only Kelly and Murphy. A 1978 booklet estimated that there were then 41,500 bearers of the name -- including variants like O’Sullivan -- resident in Ireland. It is the most common name in County Cork. The booklet suggests that there were perhaps 10 times that number of Sullivans living throughout the world. My father often boasted that there were more Sullivans in the Boston telephone directory than Smiths. A check made of that claim a few years ago showed he was right. Sullivan today is said to be the 41st most common name in the U.S. In the original Gaelic the name is “Suilleabhain,” whose meaning variously is given as hawk-eyed, black-eyed or one-eyed. Of the latter interpretation, the story is of a clan king who was so generous that he gave away one of his own eyes to a blind man. He obviously was a man far ahead of his time in surgical procedures.
According to heraldic books, the Sullivans/O’Sullivans were members of one of the principal families of the race of Eogan (Owen) of Munster who held power in Cork, Kerry and most of Tipperary. The three lines of the family and their territories were O’Sullivan Beara (Bantry and the Beare Peninsula), O’Sullivan Mor (Dunkerron and Kenmare), and O’Sullivan Cnoc Raffan (Tipperary). It is impossible to know which of these three strains were in Jeremiah’s blood. The motto of the Sullivans in Gaelic reads: “Lamb foistenach abu.” That translates to “The steady hand to victory.”
Of Jeremiah’s immediate family we know almost nothing, not even the names of his parents or siblings. Family legend has it that the Sullivans were farmers of some substance -- the information coming from a former “hand” on their farm. My father was always skeptical of such claims, noting that Ireland was so poor in those days that even ownership of a cow might be deemed wealth.
Trouble in the Valley of the Learys
The countryside around Inchigeela is some of Ireland’s most beautiful. Nearby is Gougane Barra, a 1,000-acre wooded park surrounded on three sides with mountains and the fourth open to allow the headwaters of the River Lee rise and flow from a stunning blue lake of springs. St. Finbarr’s Oratory is located there, a round one-story structure open at the center to a cross with beehive like cells for the individual monks. Gougane Barra also is known for a holy well (curative waters) and a beautiful stone chapel dedicated to St. Finbarr, a companion of St. Patrick and patron saint of Cork.
Inchigeela, meaning “Inch of the Hostage” is in a region of Ireland with a reputation for violence. It is shown above in the 19th Century. Secret societies of Catholic Irish agricultural workers, usually youths in their 20s and even teenagers, known generically as “Whiteboys,” were on the rise there during Jeremiah’s boyhood. They robbed and burned and sometimes even killed, reputedly as a protest against injustices to Catholics. Poverty and famine, occasioned by a Cork crop failure in 1822, may have been the proximate cause of their violent outbreaks, but required tithing to the established Protestant Church and confiscatory rents for land were perennial irritants. The Whiteboys also may have been encouraged by a widely-believed contemporary prophecy that Catholics would overthrow Protestants in Ireland by the end of 1824. Because of continuing unrest, County Cork was under English martial law for most of the 1820s.
In early January of 1822, when Jeremiah was a youth, skirmishes were fought at the Pass of Keimaneigh (the Deer’s Pass) that marks the boundary between Counties Cork and Kerry. The fight was between a group of Cork Whiteboys known as Rockites and a force of gentry yeoman led by Lord Bantry. Combatants were killed and wounded on both sides. A famous poem in Irish commemorates the fight and the spirit of the untrained locals who challenged the King’s militia. On January 25 three more incidents occurred, one close to Inchigeela when Rockites attacked and torched the home of one of Lord Bantry’s officers who had fought them at Keimaneigh. By February, however, the British had reinforced their troops in the county and had implemented an Insurrection Act enforcing the martial law. Rockite prisoners were sentenced to death and hanged in public executions in several Cork towns.
Although County Cork and Inchigeela were generally calm for a time after the quashing of the Rockite Rebellion, the region remained a recruiting ground for rebels. In the next century, a Fenian member called Harold Delaney would escape British capture in the Inchigeela church by dressing as a woman. He later memorialized the event in a well-known Irish poem. One stanza captures the spirit of the place:
“Like all the boys along the Lee I joined a rebel band,
“And pledged myself to freedom’s cause for dear old motherland,
“An outlaw, I was chased from Cork to Keimaneigh’s famed Pass,
“And forced to fee from Erin’s Lee and my Inchigeela Lass.”
While it is impossible to know what impelled young Jeremiah Sullivan to leave Ireland, it is possible to speculate that his departure somehow was the result of a disturbance that occurred around 1824. When tax collectors for the British occupiers rode into the area on horseback from Cork City, they were met by an outraged populace who hurled rocks at them. The tax collectors retreated but returned in several weeks, this time accompanied by soldiers. In a short time the uprising was quelled and three men were tried and sent to the gallows. Two of them were named Sullivan. (Interestingly, the name of the hanging magistrate also was Sullivan).
We can speculate that the hanged Sullivans may have been relatives of Jeremiah’s family. It also possible that he himself played a role in the uprising. Or there may also have been pressures on him as a young Catholic laborer to join a Whiteboys society. There is no way to be sure of his motives for emigrating. But we do know that not long after after the rebellion had been put down, Jeremiah was on a ship bound for New York City. Unfortunately, research has not revealed anything about the name of the ship or the events of his passage. He may have been accompanied by Edward King, his friend and future brother-in-law. Jeremiah never returned to Ireland.
[End of Part One.]
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