While Donal McCarthy was growing up in Dunmanway, young Joan Culverhouse, aged 18 months, was being deposited with her grandparents in Bandon, a town roughly half way along the road to Cork city. This was in the early 1930s.
No one is quite sure why the young English girl remained in Bandon, but she was to call it home for the next 17 years or so.
As we have seen, the McCarthys get everywhere. Joan’s grandparents were McCarthys. They lived a short way from the Protestant town of Bandon in a cottage in Kilbeg. A few years later they moved to Knockbrogan Cottage nearby.
Joan, my mother, at Kilbeg early 1930s and in August 1995
My great grandfather Patrick died in 1938 and great grandmother Margaret (in the first photo above) in 1949. In 1911 there was a tragedy with their young son John meeting with a fatal accident when driving a horse and cart along the road. They all lie in lonely Kilbrogan cemetery, the headstone having been erected in recent years. (Here’s a link to the image.)
Somewhere along the way Donal and Joan hooked up, joined the general emigration from Ireland and rocked up in Birmingham in about 1950. These were the days of landladies openly displaying signs saying ‘No Dogs, Blacks or Irish’.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Back On The Rock 
More great stories Roy, I never did tell you that we have McCarthy’s in my family too – my Uncle by marriage was a McCarthy so I still have plenty of McCarthy cousins, but what I don’t know is where his ancestors came from.
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Thank you Andrea. World domination is the plan 🙂 I think all the McCarthys trace back to the south-west of Ireland originally.
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Wonderful stories, Roy. I have an exact photo of my father standing on a chair, but next to his grandmother. His mother died when he was two years old.
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Thanks Jill. Thank goodness some people place a value on old photos. So many have been discarded.
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Very evocative, Roy. It’s great that you have the photos and I seem to remember you saying they weren’t up to much. They are treasures!
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At least we have a few Jean. A shame there aren’t more. My cousin Ann in Cork is going to have a rummage to see what she can find.
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Rummaging can yield great fruit.
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These are important posts, Roy. They remind us that every single person on earth has their own personal story, and we can learn from each one of them. Your last line, about “No Dogs, Blacks, or Irish” reminds me that, at least in North America, it has always/often been the case that the most recent wave of immigrants are treated with suspicion and scorn: the Irish, Italians, Filipinos, etc. How quickly they forget once they are integrated/accepted and the new wave arrives, like for example the Syrian refugees. Very sadly, it seems to have been ever thus. For people of colour the path forward seems heartbreakingly slow.
Keep them coming. I need to find out how you got to Jersey!
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Thank you Jane. The Irish – and now their children/grandchildren – have long since become assimilated into the city. Here in Jersey there’s a general ‘man the barricades’ attitude to immigrants even though more than 50% of the population aren’t Jersey-born.
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Old photographs have character about them–something that always makes me want to know a little more.
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Hello Renee 🙂 Yes, a single snapshot in time often leaves us wanting more. I always grieve for the photos that weren’t taken and for the details of the lives of those portrayed which are mostly lost with their passing.
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Wonderful to follow along and read some of your family history Roy. The house looks amazing must be good to be able to trace your history and visit some of the places you have written about too.
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Thank you Kath. I wish I’d started researching much earlier, but so much history has died along with those who have passed on.
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Yes we become interested as we age and I wish I had started asking questions and journaling about my family long ago too Roy.
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