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From whence we came…Close your eyes and picture this scene, okay keep them open, you'll need them to read this. It's Ireland, 1865 and in the small market town of Strabane on the Tyrone, Donegal border a young man is pushing with all his strength against the wooden stock of the canal gates. He's attempting to close the Lock so that the waiting barge, laden with cargo, might enter and make its way up the canal to the Port. That young man is Daniel McMonagle.Daniel is a Lock Keeper on the Strabane Canal, which opened some seventy years earlier and cost, the then staggering sum of, £12,000 to build. It runs for four miles, from his hometown, through Donegal to Derry, where it finally flows into the River Foyle at a small place called Leck. Being a short canal it only had two Locks, 'Crampsies' and 'Devines', where the Locks were named after the landowners or the families who had worked them for many years. Daniel will work on the canal for many years, having various occupations (Labourer, Boatman) and living at different locations along its length (Ballydonaghy, Leck and Lower Leck). 1865 also sees Daniel and his wife Mary McShane bring their first child, Joseph, into the world and by 1877 they have added Neal, Mary Anne and John. As a young man it will be Daniel's son Neal who will eventually take his family and move to new lands. At the ripe old age of twenty-six he marries Bridget McBride, daughter of a Londonderry farmer. After a couple of years away from Strabane and the birth of their first child Daniel, they return there in 1896, where like his father before him Neal is employed as a boatman on the Strabane Canal. While residing in Strabane (Newtown Street) Bridget gives birth to their first daughter, also, Bridget. Two years, later we find them in Widnes, Lancaster, England, where Neal, now anglified to Neil, is working as a Copper Works Labourer and a third child John James has been added to the family. Sadly John James dies as an infant. It's a further two years before they eventually arrive in Glasgow, where by this time another son, Neil Francis has joined the ever growing clan. Their first child born on Scottish soil is born in 1901, John James. (It was not an uncommon practice to name a child after one whom had previously passed.) Employment comes easily for Neil and he finds himself working as a labourer in the Steelworks. The 1901 Glasgow Census has them living in the Dalmarnock area, where one of their boarders was Michael McBride, who I assume, at seven years younger, was Bridget's wee brother. Michael like Neal (now back with his original spelling) was employed as a Steelwork Labourer. Now living in the Garngad area of Glasgow a further three children are added to the family, Mary Ann, Margaret and Catherine, who sadly died in infancy at the tender age of only eight months. Neal continued to provide for his family, being employed as a Steelwork/Gaswork labourer until his death in 1923, one year after his wife Bridget. Most of Neal and Bridget's children spent the rest of their adult lives in Glasgow, some of them producing large families of their own. Daniel married Mary McGhee and they were the proud parents of five children, Mary, Bridget, Margaret Mary and twins, Alexander and Catherine. Bridget married Patrick Malone, producing three children John, Mary and Cornelius, and when Patrick dies in 1928 she married Joseph Boyle and has a further child, Joseph. Neil Francis married Sarah Nicholson and six children followed Samuel, Bridget, Neil Francis, Neil, John and Joseph. John James married Sarah Gray and brought into this world, ten children, Mary, John, William, Cornelius, Sarah, James, Thomas, Joseph, Henry and baby Teresa. Mary Ann married William Liddell, with two children, Irvine and Mary, completing the family unit. Margaret married Archibald Johnstone and again they had two kids, Margaret and Archibald. These are the nucleus of the McMonagle clan here in Glasgow and the origins of the family that is currently spread around the world. Reading this you will recognise the names of parents and grandparents and you will notice how often names are repeated. Irish tradition, although now diluted, gave the first-born male and female child the same Christian name as the grandparents. This can be seen more so with Mary than Daniel, but the tradition of "keeping family names" was very prevalent. We have almost left these traditions behind in favour of "lifestyle" or "happening" names, which may only be a passing phase. If research has taught me one thing it's the value of family history and the gratitude that should be accepted if your parents deem you fit to be named after another loved and respected member of the family. There is also an up side to losing "family names"; it makes it easier to find you when searching through records. Try finding the correct Kevin McMonagle when you have twenty-five listed in your genealogy charts. What is a Family History?From whence we cameGarngadhillOccupationsHow can you help?
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