I am greatly indebted to Brian Ireland, a 4th cousin, for allowing me to include his work on this website. He has, over many years, researched and built the Doherty family tree for the family that descend from Charles Doherty (C1773 to 1840) and his wife Peggy Moore from County Donegal, Ireland.
This is his own introduction to his work:
Your Granny was Doherty, she was the stuff,
She could beat all the others from Derry to Muff,
And she wore a tin pocket to carry her snuff
Traditional family rhyme, attributed to William Starr, husband of Alice Elizabeth Doherty
As a child growing up in wartime London, I was constantly amazed at the number of uncles and aunts, cousins of my Mother, Edith (nee) Doherty, who visited. I found it hard to believe that she could have so many, while I apparently had so few. As I grew older, I became aware that my cousins were spread far and wide, uncle Willy Moore’s family in Canada, whose food parcels we so eagerly awaited at Christmas, uncle Sandy’s family at Whitecastle, on whose progress we received regular updates from auntie Tilly but never saw, and uncle Albert’s family at the other end of the Piccadilly line in Yiewsley; I first met them on a cherry picking holiday in Kent, where they were living at the time. It was much later, at my cousin Brenda’s wedding that I met my auntie Margaret’s family for the first time, and was able to complete my own personal cousin count at 14. Unimpressive compared with Mother’s 79 !
Whenever they called, there was always a tale to tell, of wartime naval exploits, GI brides, relations, the war, but most of all, of Whitecastle, which I soon learnt was the family home, a central link that somehow bound us together, and to it. Whitecastle was the place where so many of them had spent happy childhood days, fishing for salmon in the lough, making hay, picking spuds, or cutting the turf on nearby Glencaw mountain, and, in those troubled days recollections of that peaceful place helped us all to forget the air raids, the bombs, and the food shortages. And for a six year old boy, whose mother had been born there, and brought up in the nearby Primrose Villa, it was like a fairy tale, as the stories unfolded. Little did I know then that it was to give me a lifetime’s pleasure too, albeit from a distance, and in a different way, as, with the help of so many of those uncles, aunts and cousins, and their families, I have collected memories and memorabilia, and attempted to record them for future generations.
In the course of my researches, I have made contact with, and developed close friendships with many distant cousins of varying degree, spread all over the world, in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Argentina, and the United States. Many of these knew nothing of Whitecastle, or our shared Irish origins, while for others it was like a dream, half remembered from past generations, but without real knowledge or substance, unidentified pictures from the family album. I am indebted to all those people, far too numerous to name individually, who have contributed in various ways to this work, dedicated to my dear mother, Edith Doherty.
Pages of Brian's work can be found from the links below.