Ireland XO
Back to Message Board

Fagans and Smullens

WestmeathKillua (Westmeath)

Hullo all,

I am reaching out to any distant family. There is a mystery in my family and some of us would like to get to the bottom of it.

10 Feb 1833 Bridget Fagan daughter of Edward and Catherine Gaghan was baptised in Castlepollard.

By 1854 the familywasliving in Clonmellon at 60 Crossakeel Road. Bridget's sister Ann was there too it seems because she married Thomas Smollen on 27 Oct of that year.

Thomas Smullen and Ann (nee Fagan) migrated to Australia. Soon after they paid for Thomas' brother John and Ann's sister Bridget (born Castlepollard) to join them.

In 1860 in Geelong, Victoria John Smullen married Bridget Fegan.

The two families settled and had many children. Two brothers married to two sisters. When they began to have children, in Geelong, they changed their name to Mullen. Oral history refers to a very hurtful rift in the family which meant that they wanted to cut all connections. There was supposed to be a brother who went to USA and sometime in the 1900s tried to make contact through advertisements in the paper which were actively ignored by the family here.

We current Mullens hold no grievances and would like to reach out to any family there may be.

cheers,

Barb Mullen

IrelandXO member

2 replies

Barb:

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!

It would be very difficult to determine if there are any distant relations still in Co. Westmeath with the passge of 160+ years.

I did check the online Irish phone book which is only a partial list of phone users in Ireland. http://www.eirphonebook.ie/# Make sure you use the Residential Tab. There is only one Smullen entry and 57 Fagan entries including a number in Castlepollard. Keep in mind that Fagan was a very common surname in Co. Westmeath.

The 1854 Griffiths Valuation head of household listing for Rathgarve civil parish (which includes Castlepollard) lists a number of Fagan entries but no Smullen entries. 

http://www.failteromhat.com/griffiths/westmeath/rathgarve.htm

You may want to consider autosomal DNA testing.

Roger McDonnell

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Hi Roger,

Thanks for your response. I saw there were Smullens in Mullingar. I visited Castlepollard in 1993 and had a wonderful time trying to trace the Fagan connection - at the time we didn't know they had moved to Clonmellon.  Micheal O Conlain was a wonderful help (thank you Micheal!). And yes there were Fagans everywhere...

I have done the autosomal DNA testing and found a cousin here in Geelong, Victoria whose research skills complement mine rather nicely. We have encouraged more of the family to test and beginning to be able to isolate the Smullen & Fagan DNA which is rather special. It is since we untied forces that we were able to identify Clonmellon as the parish our people came from when they left Ireland and have had a wonderful time looking through the church records.

Whatever the Smullen family drama was back in 1860, I think it was significant enough that there could be memory of it. I suspect though that it involved the brother who migrated to USA and that it is now lost over there. Anyway, those in USA may have been 'shamed' by whatever the scandal was and chosen to forget.Those in left in Ireland were possibly more distant relatives and perhaps not directly concerned. 

Our discovery that our name really was Smullen is passing strange. It feels very uncomfortable to learn this when our family name was a point of honour! No Mullens, Mullin or Mullins, oh no - we were Mullen. Ah well, there must have been a good reason.

Thank you for your encouragment Roger,

cheers,

Barb (Mullen)

IrelandXO member

Reply

Reply
One image file up to 2 MB.