Margaret,
You ask if there are any Ferry households in Loughgall today. The short answer is I don’t know. (I live about 40 miles away and don’t know Loughgall itself very well). The family farm in Levalleglish is evidently gone but that doesn’t mean there are no family nearby. It looks as though there was still someone living nearby in 1951 when the new probate grant was made.
I searched the local phone book (postcode BT61) but did not find any Ferry entries. There are 2 Ferry entries on the electoral register for that postcode but you need to pay to view them. There are some Farry households in the area which looks to be a variation of the surname, as is Fairy. However as you know many people no longer have a landline or are listed in the phone book so you can’t draw firm conclusions from that. There are plenty of Gribben households (40 in BT61).
You ask about descendants of Bernard & Susan Duffy. Their son James hadn’t had any children by 1911. He died intestate in 1935. His probate file should be in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast and ought to name his next of kin. (His estate may just have gone to his wife Annie of course if he had no children). PRONI will copy the file for a fee or you can go in person and view it free.
Probate abstract: Duffy James of Annaghmore Portadown county Armagh farmer died 3 October 1935 Administration Belfast 6 November to Annie Duffy the widow. Effects £780 1s.
There was at least 1 other Duffy family in Annaghmore. Perhaps you know if they are related. If so, you might be interested in these files too:
Duffy Henry otherwise Henry junior of Annaghmore Portadown county Armagh retired farmer died 22 February 1950 Administration Belfast 17 October to Mary Ann Duffy the widow. Effects £638 2s. 9d.
Duffy, Mary Ann of Annaghmore Portadown county Armagh widow died 24 June 1964 at saint Joseph's Convent Tamnaharry Warrenpoint county Down Probate Belfast 2 April to the reverend William McKnight catholic curate. Effects £467 7s.
Administration of the Estate of Peter Duffy late of Annaghmore County Armagh Plasterer who died 3 March 1912 granted at Armagh to Catherine McNeece Widow.
According to Griffiths, Bernard Duffy had a farmhouse and 8.5 acres in Annaghmore on plot 91, plus he had a one third share in 3 acres on plot 90. Looking at Plot 91 on Griffiths today I see that the farm was down a lane off the modern Annaghmore Rd. The Duffy farmhouse looks to have been on the border between 91b & plot 88A. It appears to be gone. There’s a couple of large sheds or factories and a new modern house there now. (On the Griffiths maps there were a couple of labourer’s cottages on plot 91b (marked a & b on the map) which Bernard sub-let. They both appear to have gone too.
Annaghmore Rd has a postcode of BT62. There’s some Duffys listed in the general postcode area but none on Annaghmore Rd itself. Duffy is a common name though so they may be unconnected.
The 1901 census has a daughter Mary Duffy aged 18. (I am a bit dubious about that since her mother would have been 66 then, but perhaps the ages aren’t quite right. Sarah married John Hagan of Derrylettiff in 1903:
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1903/10250/5730645.pdf
This is them in 1911:
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1903/10250/5730645.pdf
Probate abstract:
Hagan, John of Derrylettiff Scotch Street Portadown county Armagh farmer died 15 December 1941 Probate Belfast 25 March to John Keegan retired farmer. Effects £184.
You mention a Quaker family. Fortunately for genealogists, the Quakers in Ireland kept pretty good records going back to the early 1700s. There’s a copy in PRONI. (About 7 or 8 microfilms so quite a lot of information, and you have to wade through a lot of minutes of meetings to find the periodic returns of births, deaths & marriages). Quakers around Loughgall probably attended the Meeting Houses at Richhill or perhaps Grange near Charlemont. Each Meeting copied their birth, death & marriage records to the Provincial HQ (which for Ulster was/is in Lisburn) so if you there are no records for the years you need in the local records, search the Provincial records too. The marriage records usually contain the names of everyone attending the ceremony so that’s a handy snapshot of friends and family. Plus when they moved overseas or to England they usually got letters of removal (references in effect) which again give some family information. There are copies of those letters in the records. Though obviously generally famed for their tolerance, Quakers didn’t tolerate mixed marriages. Anyone marrying out ie to someone not a Quaker, was usually expelled, and that’s all minuted. Olive Goodbody’s book “Guide to Irish Quaker records 1654 – 1860” pub Dublin 1967 contains a lot of useful information on Irish Quaker families.
Findmypast also has some Irish Quaker records on-line.
You mention that your family may originate in the area around Oban. I can’t offer any specific information on them but I do have some circumstantial information pointing to Scots from the Highlands settling around Loughgall, notably because they were Gaelic speakers and asked for a Gaelic speaking Presbyterian Minister. You might find the whole article interesting. It’s really about the use of Gaelic in Ulster but obviously touches on Loughgall:
“There is much circumstantial evidence of Protestants who were native speakers of Gaelic, and other Protestants who became very fluent through everyday interaction with other native speakers. Many of these Protestant Gaelic speakers came from Scotland. During the plantations of Ulster in the early 1600s only ‘inland Scots’ were supposed to be settlers; this policy was intended to exclude Gaelic-speaking Highlanders, but failed to do so. When the Marquis of Argyll brought his troops to Antrim during the 1640s uprisings, most of them would have been Gaelic speakers, and many settled in Ireland when they had finished their military service. Overpopulation and the commercialisation of estates in Scotland also pushed people from Argyll to Antrim in the 1690s; sometimes the dispossessed were recruited for military campaigns in Ireland.
During the time of the Plantations of Ulster there was little difference between the Gaelic of many Scottish settlers and the Irish of the natives. The Irish of Antrim shared many features with Scottish Gaelic, and the Gaelic of Kintyre and Argyll was very similar to Antrim Irish. Robert MacAdam wrote in 1873:
Even yet the Glensmen of Antrim go regularly to Highland fairs, and communicate without the slightest difficulty with the Highlanders. Having myself conversed with both Glensmen and Arranmen, I can testify to the absolute identity of their speech (Ó Baoill 2000: 122).
There are some fascinating accounts which prove that some of the Protestant settlers in Ulster spoke Scottish Gaelic. John Richardson (1664-1747), rector of Belturbet in County Cavan since 1693, wrote some interesting letters on the subject. In 1711 a correspondent of Richardson, J. Maguire, noted the following:
I met many of the inhabitants, especially of the baronies of Glenarm, Dunluce and Kilconaway, who could not speak the English tongue, and asking them in Irish what religion they professed they answered they were Presbyterians ... I had the curiosity to go to their meeting on the Sunday following, where I heard their minister preach to them in Irish at which (though I think he did not do it well,) they expressed great devotion ... His audience, (as I understand) was composed of native Irish and Highlanders (Richardson 1711: 16).
Richardson noted that many Highlanders had settled in deserted lands in Inishowen and Antrim after the Williamite conquest, and as they spoke no English, were supplied with Gaelic-speaking ministers from Scotland:
In the Northern Parts of the County of Antrim, which being also deserted by the Irish, upon the landing of the English army near Carrickfergus in 1689, many families from the Western Isles of Scotland, who understood no other language but Irish, settled there. At their first going over, they went to church; but not understanding the divine service celebrated there, they soon went over to the communion of the Church of Rome, only for the benefit of such exhortations, as the Popish priests usually give their congregations in Irish. And when they were asked the reason, why they did so? They said, ‘It was better to be of their religion, than none at all’ (Richardson 1711: 28-9).
Some of these Scottish settlers were Anglican. When Presbyterian government was established in Scotland in 1689, disaffected Scottish Episcopalians came to live in North Antrim (Ó Snodaigh 1995: 33). Cathal Dallat notes that Rasharkin was settled by Anglican Highlanders who petitioned the Bishop of Connor to provide them with a Gaelic-speaking minister (1994: 38-9).
Richardson noted that the Bishop of Down provided North Antrim Presbyterians with the Gaelic-speaking Reverend Archibald Mac Collum, who... has taken such effectual pains with the Irish and Highlanders of them, that by the blessing of God he has not only brought back numbers who had fallen off from our Church to that of Rome, but brought over several who were originally Irish Papists, and is every day gaining upon them (Richardson 1711: 14).
Scottish Gaelic speakers settled in many areas of the North. A souvenir booklet of Loughgall Presbyterian Church in Armagh notes the Scottish origin of the congregation, and continues, ‘ We glean that the Scotch settlers here still used the Gaelic of their native Scotland, a language spoken also by the Irish in the district. The Rev Archibald Macclane, who hailed from Argyle, and was a fluent speaker in the native tongue, preached in Loughgall meeting house in Gaelic in 1717’ (1954: 3-4).”
Source: www.ultach.dsl.pipex.com/ForLearners/Prodhistory.pdf “.
You mention looking for a route back to Oban. Some estimates say 200,000 Scots moved to Ireland in the 1600s (which would be about 15% of the entire Scottish population). There are no individual records of who came save for some of the big landowners (known as Undertakers). It’s not normally possible to trace a family back to Scotland using paper records, unless you are exceptionally lucky.
