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The Descendents of Richard Gallagher
of Castlefin, County Donegal, Ireland
This record of the descendents of Richard Gallagher has been prepared with the assistance of many people but is largely based upon the information supplied by Katty Caffrey (Katherine Gallagher). The 1988 letters of Katty Gallagher Caffrey to the writer provided significant insights into the Gallagher family and how they lived in earlier times. Maire Keenan Furniss, Catherine (Kay) Keenan Kaye, John Keenan, Eithne McGuinness McCorkell, Shelia Gallagher Sinclair, Bridget Kelly Edwards and Michelle (Shelly) Nicholson Kennedy also provided assistance in preparing this family history.
The records of Professor Johnny Gallagher (#100) serve as the basis for recording the early Gallagher family lineage. Johnny's "father lived to be 92 and gave him 1st hand information." This information was given to William Gallagher (#96) and updated by Katty Caffrey.[1]
They were commanders of O'Donnels cavalry from the 1300's to the 1500's. The Gallaghers provided a military force to protect the clan O'Donnel, who were princes of Tir Connell in Donegal. Between the 1400's and 1500's, six Gallagher's held the position of the Bishop of Raphoe.
Gallagher, ususally without its prefix O, is one of the commonest names in Ireland. Based upon the statistical list from birth registrations, it ranks fourteenth. The majority of the Gallaghers are from County Donegal, the original homeland of the family.
The Gallagher family has its roots in the townland of Dresnagh, Castlefinn, County Donegal, Ireland. The Gallagher farm was about 30-40 acres. It was located about 2.5 miles from the village Castlefinn. When Katty Gallagher Caffrey visited the original Gallagher homestead in 1920-22 life was very simple and probably had not changed from the life of John Gallagher and Rebecca Conaglen and their family.[2]
"... they were self-sufficient - grew their own potatoes etc, cured their house bacon, cut their own peat (or turf) each spring and when it was dried out brought it home from the bog in the autumn by horse and cart to stack in the yard - a sufficient quantity to last out for a year's fires. Food was plentiful but plain. The house was a long single story thatched cottage which was white washed every summer, with usual farm buildings and stable for a couple of horses. They kept about 5 cows. They churned enough milk to supply their needs of butter and the surplus milk was brought to the creamery in large containers called 'creamery cans'. The skim milk was returned to the farmers to feed calves & pigs. It was a completely different life-style from present day [1988]. Water was carried from a nearby well. There was no electricity or bottled gas. Oil lamps & candles were used at night. There were 3 rooms and a flagged [flag stones] kitchen with an open heath fire which was never extinguished. Each night the fire was 'raked' - that is the hot turf embers were covered in turf ashes and smouldered through the night. In the morning it was poked up and fresh turf sods put on hot embers which caught fire and lit up straightaway. Cooking was done on the open fire. Soda bread was baked in a pot oven - a straight sided iron pot about 12" diameter and about 6" deep. When bread was put in, the lid was put on and hot turf coals from the fire placed on top of the lid so that there was heat from above and below. This oven was used for roasting chickens & beef also. The pot oven was hung on a crook over the fire.
We went to Sunday mass in Doneyloop Church, about 2 miles away, in a horse and side-car (jaunting car). Stabling was provided at the church for those who had horses - most people walked. They kept the usual farm-yard poultry. The nearest shop was 2 miles away but once a week a horse drawn van came round the farms selling groceries and in turn bought the surplus eggs. Flour was bought in large cotton bags of 112 lbs. The bags were unpicked [taken apart] afterwards, bleached and used for making sheets, pillow cases and tea towels. Nothing was wasted. There was no entertainment as such, but neighbors used to call at night to play cards or draughts [checkers] or just to exchange yarns [stories]. The women spent their spare time in knitting or crochet."[3]
In remembering her home life on the family farm in the 1910's and 1920's, Katty Gallagher Caffrey wrote "We had quite a large and busy household in my young days. Apart from the parents & 6 children we had two indoor helpers and 2 of the staff who worked in the factory living in. All our laundry & bread making was done at home. By degrees my older sisters and brothers went to Boarding Schools and were only at home in holiday time. We had no schools of further education within daily travelling distance and we all in turn went to Boarding Schools after leaving the primary school. Then Rebecca got married in 1918 and Cherry in 1922 and left home - the factory closed down so our number at home was reduced.
We had two men helping on the farm. One was a ploughman, the other general worker with cows & cattle. They were supplied with free cottages and butter, milk & potatoes and thought the wages were small they were content & stayed with us for years. They had large gardens where they could grow potatoes & they also got a couple of ridges of potatoes in our potato field which they could harvest & sell. We had 3 horses - 2 plough horses, and a driving horse, also a donkey & trap for the children.
We had three horse traps - one large one called a `Dugdale' which my father used to carry out the materials to the various depots where the workers would come to collect the parcels and sew up the garments (by hand) in their own homes. The 2nd trap was used to take us driving, and the 3rd trap was a high `Back to Back' trap which my father used if he was going to a funeral. On these occasions he always wore a `Frock Coat' and `Tall Hat.'
We had a very large yard with numerous out buildings & a vegetable garden at the end - Stable for three horses, Byre [cowshed or barn] for 8+ cows, loose boxes, houses for calves, poultry houses, Hay Barns. We had our own thresing machine in another barn. This machine was driven by a horse which was yoked to a long iron bar outside - the bar when rotated by the horse set the cogs of the machinery in motion. The horse mill rumbled & with motion as the horse strined forward on its monotonous circular course - a multitude of interlocking cog wheels oiled and greased set in motion the machinery in the upstaris barn where the sheaves of oats were fed into the mill. The sheaves were stripped of their oats into sacks, the straw fell down through a trap door to the shed underneath. The chaff was gathered into piles and peole came with sacks to carry the chaff away to refill their mattresses.
We had a similar machine driven by a horse for churning the milk when supplies were plentiful in the summer. The horse was driven round a circular plot, it was connected to a long iron bar & the machine probeller the `churn dash' up and down until the butter rose to the top of the milk and could be removed, washed in a wooden tub, salted and made into 1 lb. blocks. Any surplus butter was sold. Customers used to buy the buttermilk also for baking their soda bread and for a cooling drink in summer time. The `churn dash' was a minature wooden wheel about 18 inches in diameter attached to a long wooden handle. In the winter when milk was scarce a smaller churn was used and tow people in turn used the `dash' to bring the butter to the top of the milk. It was an arduous task.
The factory was built over an archway - it was a 2 storey bright building. Our fields were outside the village so the cows had to be driven out to the fields and collected twice a day in summer for milking. They stayed in the byres overnight in the winter.
As we had no mains water supply we were dependent on rain water for the bathroom but we had a hughe tank built on top of the `back return' and rain drained from several roofs. We had large barrels all round the yard to collect the rain from all the shed, and plenty of rain!!
We had a specially made cart with shafts to which the horse was harnessed to bring water from the village pump for cooking etc. The cart was hollow with just a few wooden supports to hold a large wine barrel on its side. A trap door was cut on upper side of the barrel through which the water was filled by bucket from the pump. A tap was inserted at one end so that we could fill our kettles etc. the barrel lasted for years as it was painted every year....
In the 1950's the Rural Electricity Scheme brought electricity to all the villages and mains water supply also became available so life was much easier...."[4]
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[1] Katty Caffrey to author, - April 1988, original in possession of writer, lists descendents of Richard Gallagher and Rose Meehan, information about Andrew Gallagher and wife Mary, life in Dresnagh, Edward Gallagher and Harriet Thomas, Richard Gallagher and Mary Bonner, William Gallagher and his wives Alice Houlihan and Sarah E. Boyle.
[2] Katty Caffrey to author, - April 1988.
[3] Katty Caffrey to author, - April 1988.
[4] Katty Caffrey to author, 20 June 1992, original in possession of writer.
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