A Visit to Tawnykinaffe, Co. Mayo

When we were in Ireland recently, we met up with some of my Gillan cousins, who took us out to the small town of Tawnykinaffe, Co. Mayo, where my great-great-grandmother Mary Gillan was born. Although the property is no longer in the family, my cousins had grown up there and so were fantastic tour guides. There are two houses right next to each other, the original one-room cottage and the larger house, built c. 1940. After the family moved into the newer home, the older building was used as a barn. Both are now abandoned.

The new house

The original house

After I got home, one of my Gillan cousins sent me this 1931 picture showing Michael Gillan (born c. 1910) in front of the same house we'd visited.

Michael Gillan, Tawnykinaffe, 1931

I'm not sure whether the appearance that the door is in a different place is just a question of angles and perspective, an indication that the entrance was moved at some point, or evidence that the picture was actually taken from the opposite side of the house (as I can verify that there are both a front and a rear door; I walked through both).

This little corner of Tawnykinaffe, with only a few houses, most of them empty, seemed quiet and isolated. It was a little surreal to hear stories of how bustling, active, and full of life the neighborhood had been as recently as the mid-twentieth century. It was also challenging to mentally eliminate the encroaching trees to try to picture the landscape as it would have been before the Irish government planted them en masse, at some point in the last 50 years. Though they look full grown, they're actually a very recent feature. It's easy, when visiting a town, to look around and identify new buildings and modern technology and realize that the scenery has changed in the last 50 or 100 years. Without my personal tour guides, though, it never would have occurred to me that natural features like trees - particularly in such numbers - might also not have been a long-standing feature of the environment.

I managed to peer through the trees for a glimpse of the view that predated them.

After visiting the family homestead, we went out to lunch in Pontoon. This was cool for me, because Tawnykinaffe is so small that Google Maps can't always find it. To get a general idea of the area I was looking for, I used to search for nearby Pontoon, instead. Pontoon is easy to identify because it falls right between two lakes that are very close together, separated by only a bridge. This is a feature that stands out on a map, and is easily identifiable as you drive across that bridge in your car!


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Ben and I on the Pontoon Bridge

We had a fantastic time and a lovely lunch and I felt so lucky to be able to meet so many of my cousins and have a personal tour of the place my ancestors had lived.

Our last Gillan family stop was a trip to the cemetery, but I will save that post for another day.

The Martins Gillan

When we were recently in Ireland, we visited with several of my Gillan cousins, who showed me the family's old homestead in Tawnykinaffe, Co. Mayo. They were kind enough to give me a copy of a photograph of my 3x great-grandfather Martin Gillan:

Martin Gillan and Martin Gillan, c. 1912
Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland

Standing next to Martin Gillan (seated) is his grandson, Martin Gillan, son of the elder Martin's son Michael. The younger Martin was born c. 1900, and the best estimate of the date of the picture is around 1912, based on the belief that he looks to be about 12 here. I'm told that the photo was taken at the studio of a professional photographer in Castlebar.

This makes two photographs I have of Martin Gillan, which is two more than I have of any of my other 3x great-grandparents. He lived nearly another 20 years after this picture was taken, and the other photo, which was sent to me by another Gillan cousin a couple of years ago, was clearly taken much closer to the end of his life.

As far as I'm aware, there are no extant photographs of Martin's wife Honor Grimes Gillan. I don't know exactly when she died, but she was alive when the 1911 Census was enumerated, so she lived well into the age of photography, and I continue to hold out hope that a picture of her will show up eventually.