Paradise...all 650 acres of it...

...the place my grandmother grew up for the first 10 years of her life...but this photo is of a tiny piece of my garden which is my paradise.

I found a newspaper article in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph in the mid 1890's where one of their reporters wrote a glowing report on the estate my Great Grandfather put up for sale. As any screen shot I take and put on Blipfoto will be unreadable, I will have to type it out...

Before I do, by the way my Great Grandfather had been letting his estate for the previous 25 or 30 years (and maybe his father before him) "...well stocked with Grouse, Partridge, Hare, Snipe, and Cock. For terms apply to...."

Oh, I have just received photocopies, via email, of the Irish marriage certificates of my Great Grandfather and the births of his children to the second marriage which included my Grandmother, and amazingly she was born on this estate. It was actually written on the birth certificate !!!

So here is the beginning of the flowery description in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph...

"Is there among our Radical readers one who desires the dignity of having an estate, a landed estate adorned with a translucent trout river, a little timber, undulating pasturage, some patches of heather land, and a most picturesque environment ? The idea is tempting. There is game on the estate as a well as good fishing. The running water, the hanging wood, the emeraldine hollows, the goodly framework of mountains, and the homely but cosy house make up a picture which only the genius of the late George Robins could have done justice. Another charm of the place - a charm which, to the Radical mind, only stops short of enchantment - is that it is in Ireland - yes in the 'Isle of Saints'. It is one of the little shining facets of 'the first gem of the sea'. It is within eight miles of Parsonstown, King's County. And oh the plenty of good things that may be had there almost for the asking! The owner would not have to buy coal. There is turf for the cutting - and only the cakes baked in a turf fire are perfect. There are ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys galore, at prices which sound ridiculous, prices ranging at one-half to one-third of that charged in Sheffield. There are rabbits and hares frolicking in the joyous consciousness of their immunity from the 'the murdering Sassenach.' The estate is not large. Its dimensions are modest as its variety is pleasing. It consists of 650 acres and if some 600 or 700 persons will each take a ticket value £1, one of them will get it....."

This goes on and on and on and on in a similar vein extolling the virtues of the estate. I do learn that my Great Grandfather was a 'tall man', and that he was staying at the hotel he owned at the time of the newspaper article. This hotel was also up for sale, as well, and of all things incorporated a police station within the hotel. Even after his retirement due to ill health as a result of an accident in railway sidings, in1860's, he appears to have kept in contact with the police whether in Ireland or in England.

I had previously discounted the hotel as belonging to him (even though it was the same name) in my research, because he had his fingers in so many pies. But the email of the marriage certificate I got from Ireland this morning tells me that when he married my Great Grandmother, both him and her live in this place and that he is the Hotel Owner. Shame, living together before they married and actually putting it on the marriage certificate! When I got married, at least I had the decency to put a different address so both our addresses weren't the same, so no one will be able to find out from my marriage certificate that we were living together before we got married....

I never found out from the newspaper articles what was the outcome of this draw, except there were many adverts my Great Grandfather put in various newspapers. He died a year later.

I am amazed I have found so much from old newspapers and old censuses going back to 1841. And now these Irish marriage and birth certificates appears to have opened a whole new wealth of information...

I am gaining a greater understanding of my Grandmother now and my past, and the little she told me now makes sense.

I am having to shelve this project for awhile. I have a lot on the next few weeks...