Seeking Murdocks/Barkleys/Stuarts

Griffiths Valuation for 1861 lists two McGookin households in Ballyalbanagh. William was farming plot 60 and Thomas plot 45. William died in 1879:

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1879/06509/4874765.pdf  William’s will is on the PRONI wills website.

By 1901 there was one Murdoch household in the townland:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Antrim/Ballycor/Ballyalbanagh/990677/

John’s father was another John, a farm labourer.

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_re…

Family appear to have been Presbyterian (so likely Scottish origins). If your family were also Presbyterian then you might want to check the Presbyterian church records around Ballyalbanagh for baptisms and marriages.  Possible churches would include Ballyeastion (1st & 2nd), Ballynure, Raloo & perhaps Donegore. Copies of their records are held in PRONI in Belfast. If you are unable to go yourself, you could employ a researcher. Researchers in the PRONI area: http://sgni.net

 

 

200,000 Scots settled in Ireland in the 1600s either as part of the Plantation or other settlements. There was also a big surge in the 1690s due to famine in Scotland. Chances are your ancestors arrived in Ireland in the 1600s, so it’s not surprising you are finding several generations of them. That was fairly normal.

Some history here on this link:

http://orrnamestudy.com/plantnire1610.htm

Dr David Hume’s book “Eagles Wings” tells the story of the Scotch-Irish (or Ulster Scots as they tend to be known in Ireland) fairly well.  Your family were evidently amongst them.

Yes that’s correct that Co Antrim wasn’t as badly affected by the famine as the rest of Ireland. The people who suffered most in the famine were rural agricultural labourers. However in Ulster many of them were involved in the linen weaving industry as a side line, (made at home on portable hand looms usually in the winter months when there wasn’t much labouring work) and this gave them a bit of extra income that prevented mass starvation.  Whilst the overall population of Ireland dropped by about 20% between 1841 and 1851 due to famine and emigration, in Co Antrim the reduction was only about 2%. According to Bill MacAfee’s website. http://billmacafee.com

You wonder why your ancestors left Ireland. I am sure they left for the same reasons that millions did. To find work, or better paid work. Ireland has very few natural resources (no oil, coal, iron ore etc) and so did not benefit from the industrial revolution in the 1800s, the way Scotland, England, the US, Canada & Australia did, which created hundreds of thousands of comparatively well-paid new jobs in new industries (coal mining, steel making, railways, ship building etc). So that was a big pull factor. There had also been a huge population explosion in Ireland going up from about 3 million people in 1750 to 8 million in 1830. There simply weren’t jobs for all those people. In much of Ireland the only employment was subsistence farming topped up in Ulster and one or two other areas with a bit of linen weaving. And then the straw that broke the camel’s back, along came the famine, numerous times throughout the 1800s. The worst period was when the potato crop failed almost completely 3 years in a row in the late 1840s, and then partially several more years after that. 

Other factors encouraged emigration, eg early mechanisation on farms. With new machines to turn the soil and plant seed, farmers no longer needed an army of agricultural labourers to help on the farm. So those jobs were rapidly disappearing. Likewise mechanisation had led to linen factories being set up in places like Belfast. These made home weaving uneconomic and so also upset the labourer’s family economy. Agriculture was the biggest single employer in Ireland, but it was mostly a barter economy. Few people had any ready cash save what they could make from weaving or any government sponsored work such as building new roads. So when the opportunity arose to get jobs with a regular wage packet, as opposed to a few pence from your father each week, the decision to migrate wasn’t really all that hard to make. So it was as much about economic betterment as anything

In addition, the British Government often placed adverts in the press encouraging people to migrate to take advantage of land that was available overseas. 

There was a massive tide of migration all through that century, including long before the famine. Years after the worst of the famine it’s impact was still being felt across Ireland, and there were still plenty of much better job opportunities in Australia and the USA. 

So to summarise, people had been pouring out of Ireland long before the worst of the famine. All the famine did was speed the tide up.

 

Something like 200,000 Scots moved to Ireland in the 1600s (probably about 20% of the entire Scottish population at the time). Many settled in Co Antrim. They brought Presbyterianism with them and it is the most common religious denomination in the county. (For many years Poirtgelnone had 3 Presbyterian churches. Today there are 2). Half the population of the Portglenone area is of Scottish ancestry.

A big wave of Scots settlers arrived in the early 1600s but there were also quite a lot round the Ahoghill area who arrived when General Munro’s 10,000 strong Scots army was disbanded at Carrickfergus in the 1640s. Many of his troops chose to stay in Ireland. There was also a huge influx in the 1690s due to famine in Scotland.  Your Barkley & Stewart families were probably in one of those waves of new arrivals. Both surnames are clearly Scottish and are still quite common in the Portgelenone area today.