Doagh Famine Village

Doagh Famine Village is an outdoor museum in County Donegal just over half an hour from Derry. The village itself was lived in until about 20 years ago by the family of the man who owns this museum. The displays are mostly under cover due to the amount of rain that falls. This is a seasonal museum, open from the middle of March until the end of October.

Doagh Famine Village follows the history of a family from the 1840s until today. Almost all of the buildings have thatched roofs and are interesting to see. The tour was led by Pat Doherty who started off in the house that he grew up in. I think that it was a shock to many of us that people still lived in houses that dated from the mid 1800s and in conditions that we would find difficult to believe. The people in the area depended on the sea for a lot of their food resources. Mr Doherty gave us a description of how the food was gathered and prepared.

Mr Doherty also gave us a good description of how daily life was like when he was growing up. This was not much different from what his ancestors had experienced in the mid 1800s. The houses were generally simple, a kitchen where most of the household work was done, possibly a parlour where guests would have been entertained. But many a young one would get into trouble when they went in with dirty shoes or clothes. A room for parents to sleep in and usually a loft for the children. There were no bathrooms as we know them. The family washed at the kitchen sink and used an outhouse. Bath night was when the wooden bathtub was hauled out and filled with hot water that had been heated over the kitchen fire. The father of the family would have his bath first, followed by the mother, and then the children from oldest to youngest. Clothes were washed by hand and then dried by wind power.

After Mr Doherty was finished his tour, he told us about some of the other displays that were available including the display showing how the republicans were kept safe from His Majesty’s forces, and the Haunted House. There is even a display for the Travelling People, otherwise known as Tinkers, or in some cases, Gypsies.

The houses each had different displays including a kitchen, a parlour, an Irish wake, and others. It made for an entertaining and educational afternoon. One of my favourite amusements was the Haunted House. After all, I have been through Nightmares in Niagara Falls. Why wouldn’t I go through a mere haunted house?

Would I go again? Yes, I think that I would as history is sometimes hard to understand with one reading or one presentation. The village did have some focus on the Great Famine, but I found that it had more focus on the politics of a violent time period covering the establishment of the Republic and the consequential establishment of Northern Ireland, with its problems and some of the solutions that came from the persistence of the Irish people for peace.

Family

Today, I had the opportunity of working on my family history. I had sent an email last night to a cousin in Vancouver asking about some information that he might have. Well, Jim answered the email and sent me information as well as an obituary about the person that I was asking about.

I sorted through the information and was able to make sense of most of it. After I had entered it into my tree, some more information came to the surface. I use websites that have an automatic search function. This function does about 80% of the work when the information is on their website. This function can only sort through the information and records that the website has available. Not all information that is needed is on websites or is not yet digitized. It costs money to digitize records, but, fortunately, there are people that do the work needed.

Anyway, there was a bit of the information that he sent that did not fit easily into place. As it turned out, this information was on the tree of another cousin. This cousin lives in Rainy River, and we have been in touch previously. It just didn’t sink in which part of the tree was the one that she belonged to. I found out today.

We have just spent about an hour and a half, getting to know each other. I also took the time to sort out those hard-to-fit pieces of the puzzle and can now put it to bed (so to speak). I also asked for more information concerning the family and she was quite happy to give me the information. I found out that she is about a year and a half older than me and that her brother is about three quarters of a year older than me as well.

We plan to stay in touch as we are family, albeit distant family. My husband has been told that if we were to travel west in Canada, we will be stopping to visit.

I have found that when you research your family history, you have a marvelous opportunity to meet family members that have drifted away. This drift is not always intended and, sometimes, you think that there are not many members of the family.

Family history will help you to discover your living family as well as those who have gone on before you. It helps you to rebuild the ties that should never have been severed. It can make your family stronger. Once you discover how large your family actually is, and you may never know the full extent of the family, it’s up to you what you do with the information. It can be a very joyous trip.

On the other hand, you might dig up some information that some members of the family do not appreciate. Just remember, your ancestors were people too. They made their mistakes just as we make our mistakes. Life can be very rewarding even with the mistakes that are made. After enough time, we should be able to look back and say, “Yes, I made a mistake, and it was a bad one. But I learned from it.” Or “Yes, I made a mistake, and I thought that it was a bad one, but I survived and am trying to do better.”

Live life. Love your family. Look for the missing members of the family that should be there. Work together. Have fun. Support one another. If you don’t have your family, you don’t have one of the most important things in life.

What Easter Means to Me

Today is Easter in the Christian calendar. Have you ever thought about what Easter means to you?

Easter may mean family gatherings, the yearly visit of the Easter bunny with his basket of chocolate, going to church before going for the Easter egg hunt if you didn’t hunt for the eggs on Saturday, among other things.

How many people really know the significance of Easter? How many people have chosen to turn away from that significance, saying that it’s not a part of their lives?

Approximately 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ was put to death on the cross at Golgotha just outside of Jerusalem and the day before the Sabbath. It was the day after the Passover feast. Three days later, He rose from the dead, never to die again.

Part of the mission of Jesus Christ was to break the hold that death has on us. Jesus Christ was the first person to be resurrected and He fulfilled God’s plan. The resurrection was never intended to be the Atonement. The resurrection was intended to be just that. It is a free gift from Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to all of mankind. It doesn’t matter whether you were rich or poor, arrogant or humble, a murderer or a righteous person. Every one has to experience death. But, because of Jesus Christ, our bodies will be perfected and we will be able to experience life eternal.

Between death and resurrection, we will continue to exist in spiritual form. In spirit form? you ask. Doesn’t life end with death? Life as we currently know it does end with death. Have you ever felt the presence of your grandparent or parent after they passed on? I have.

You might ask for scientific proof. You could google for scientific proof and there will be a list of websites giving proof. But, how would you feel if you found a website that proves the opposite? A great many people say that there is no meaning to life. Everything started with the big bang theory. I am not going to change your mind about that.

I believe that there is life after death in a place where we will dwell as spirits until it is time for us to reunite with our bodies. I believe that we will then have perfected bodies that will not corrupt and that we will not be separated from our bodies again. I also believe that I will be able to be with my family and my ancestors and that we were meant to be in family units. I believe that when I pass from this world, my ancestors and the family that left this existence before myself will be there to greet me.

This is what Easter means to me.