Cullonaughton - Tom's ancestors' former home

We found the hillside village of Cullonaughton, the home of our ancestors, located halfway between Swinford and Foxford in "The Callow". It isn't even a town, barely a village, and consists of only about 70 people scattered in about 35 homes placed far apart.around the bottom and beside the beautiful Callow Lake. No one we met in Cullonaughton knew of Grandpa of course, he had left that area in the late 1870's as a teenager. As soon as I mentioned his father's name though, (Hugh Edward "Ned" McGowan) everyone knew immediately how we were connected to the McGowan's that they knew or knew of. Ned our great grandfather and our great grandmother Mary Conyngham had five children, Mary, born and died in 1857, Patrick, born and died in 1859, another son named Patrick born 1860, died 1949, Grandpa born 1861 died 1939 and Edward, born 1863 died 1944. Ned died in 1896 but he and his father (our great great grandfather, Edward Hugh McGowan) were the original people to clear the land and to begin the McGowan farm in the late 1830's or 1840's. 

The local church (St. Thomas in the Callow) has been there in that spot, virtually unchanged (except cosmetically) for two hundred and three years and it is where all of our ancestors attended church and were baptized. The original altar and sacristy are intact as well as the holy water font (now painted brown) and the original baptismal font, they all date from 1812. The church has of course been updated over the years, new roof, new floors, electricity and modern conveniences but it is the original footprint with most parts of the church, including the hand hewn wooden choir loft all original. Brian and I were invited to attend mass there with Margaret McGowan the next day and we both did. It was a surreal experience to know that I was sitting where all of the McGowan's before me had worshiped for almost two hundred years.

As you will see by the two signs at the entrance to the village that leads back into the hillside property along and above Callow lake, the village is spelled two different ways. Though the spelling variation is slight it has existed so for a very long time. Recently the decision was made to finally name the village as it was originally spelled on the 1830 census. The "Old McGowan Property" part of this video shows the home that is currently standing on that property and that was erected about 15 or 20 years ago. It is of course a large and much newer home, nothing like the small homes that were common when the original house was built. When I complete the blog I will include some early pictures of the original McGowan home before it was torn down about 1970. They come from our newly discovered 2nd cousin (Grandpa McGowan's brother Edward's granddaughter), Kathy Grbac who lives in Lompoc, California. Kathy' mother, Ellen (McGowan) Conway grew up in the McGowan home in Cullonaughton and came to Chicago in 1927 with Grandpa McGowan's help.    

As an interesting tidbit of information one of Grandpa's nephews, Hubert McGowan (Patrick's Son) came to Chicago from Ireland, with Grandpa's financial assistance about 1920 and became a Chicago fireman. When he retired from the fire department he returned to Cullonaughton. He was still well remembered by the older people that we met because he had lived into the late 1960's. We tried to find the original land from written descriptions and copies of pictures from long ago that we received from cousin Kathy. After some lengthy frustrating and fruitless driving up and down the dirt roads and trying to match up the description we had brought with us with what we could actually see I asked Brian to pull over near the bottom of a long driveway up to a home.  I figured there was no way we were going to make the trip to Ireland and give up our search that easily. I walked up the driveway to the door and knocked. A child answered and I asked for his mother who appeared behind him. I explained "This may sound odd but my name is Tom McGowan, I'm here from America and trying to find my ancestors farmland. can you help me?" She said, "Well come right on in Tom McGowan, you're very very (yes, she repeated very)  welcome here, we know the McGowan's well, will you have a cup of tea?"  That was our introduction to Helen and Ian Clarke and their family. At their suggestion I spread out a number of old photocopies that I had brought with me from pictures that had been taken in the 1970's.  Everyone looked at the photos trying to recognize familiar views but the area had become much more heavily overgrown in the past fifty years. When the pictures had been taken it was cultivated farm land and looked different than now. Helen left a voicemail for her friend Margaret McGowan and told her about our visit. She gave me Margaret's phone number and suggested that I call her back later that day.

Helen said, "we'll do better by getting into the car and starting the search that way". We drove down to the bottom of the driveway where she and Brian met. We then followed Helen's car and she led us up and down the "boreens" (grassy cart paths, the only roads within the village) while we followed behind, trying to locate familiar spots from the pictures. We found a few places that matched the photos but not the McGowan farm. She said that Margaret (our distant ?? cousin) knew precisely where it was. I called Margaret that afternoon and we made plans to meet at her home the next day which we did. When we first met Margaret McGowan, her brother Michael and their mother Mary, they were standing in their front yard waiting for us as we arrived. Margaret's mother took one look at me in the doorway, threw her arms around my neck and told me I was "the spitting image" of Hubert McGowan. I remember our Dad talking about Hubert while we were growing up.  Mary told me how he had come back to Ireland after he retired from the Chicago Fire Department and bought a red VW and that it was the only car owned in the entire village. She said he drove up and down the grassy roads in the village for years He taking anybody that needed a ride to where they wanted to go. I had heard of Hubert but here was a person who had actually known him and remembered him well. She also knew his siblings that have only been names in my ancestry research files for all these years. She put a face and a personality onto all of them. She is eighty three years of age and full of wonderful memories which she freely shared with us for over an hour while we all sat in their kitchen together, a magical experience!

The distant cousin that we met  there, Margaret McGowan and her family, gave me the definition of Cullonaughton. She said that "Culle" in Irish means woods, or forest and Naughton was the name of the original landlord of that entire area so Cullonaughton simply means "Woods of Naughton". That would tell us that the land was heavily wooded until it was cleared for farmland which must have been a herculean task. The forest is back now and covers most of the farmland in that area now. The land and Callow Lakes are such a beautiful setting, it's even more stunning than I could have imagined. Margaret McGowan, in the video, is guiding me down the path on the old McGowan farm to Callow lake. She told me that she had played all along the path with the other McGowan's as a child and that the path led down to the original fishing (and swimming) hole at the lake. She said that all the McGowan's including our great great grandfather, great grandfather and grandfather and all of the family members had walked down that same path to that same fishing hole for almost two hundred years. It was an experience that I will never ever forget!

Every home that we went into (six) the peat stove was in the center of the small kitchen right near the front door and that is where people gathered to talk. Margaret McGowan showed us how the peat is cut by a machine while in the ground and then stacked in piles to dry. Once dry it is an excellent and very clean source of fuel.

				Peat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Peat (turf) is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter that is unique to natural areas called peatlands or mires.[1][2] The peatland ecosy...
In the larger cities it's likely that natural gas is used for heating and cooking but in the rural areas which comprise most of Ireland, Peat is seemingly the prime source of energy. It grows in the ground in bogs, is natural and replaceable by nature.

We loved the entire trip but the days we spent in Cullonaughton were extremely special. It was the end of a lifelong quest for me, I found my roots and it was an adventure unlike anything that I could have imagined. I was walking in the very footsteps of all of those who came before us.

The people of Ireland, in by themselves are the most wonderful offering of the country. Without fail they were warm, sincere, smiling, welcoming, helpful to a fault and extremely accommodating. The Irish have earned their well earned worldwide reputation for being friendly and the McGowan's and their friends all took us into their homes and their lives in a "heartbeat". They hugged us and told us that they wanted us to know that they considered us their family and that we would be very very (yes, repeated again) welcome at anytime that we could come back to visit. It was truly a wonderful experience!