GALWAY, Ireland — For an American in Ireland, “name hunting” is a bit like going to a party where you don’t know anyone. You walk around aimlessly, asking folks if they’ve seen the acquaintance who invited you. It’s all increasingly awkward, and you get the feeling everyone’s starting to get a little annoyed with this strange guy who keeps asking for “Steve, with the brown hair, he’s Karen’s cousin’s friend.” Nobody seems to know Steve, or Karen, or Karen’s cousin.
It’s this sort of anxiety I felt as a friend and I set out on a bus from Galway to the tiny rural town of Ballinlough, County Roscommon. The name I was hunting was Naughton, the Irish part of my mother’s family. I only had two other pieces of relevant information: a village called Grange near Ballinlough, and the mental image of the old Naughton house, forever lodged in my brain after studying family photos taken 16 years ago.
My simple mission was to snap a few new photos of the house (if I could find it) and find out if there were any Naughtons still living in Grange Ballinlough. I figured we would roll into town, pop into the nearest pub to ask the barman for directions, and take a nice stroll down a country road. We’d be back in town in no time for a few drinks at the pub before hopping on the bus home in the afternoon. Yes, it was all so simple.
We started walking the road toward Ballinlough—just like my Irish forefathers would have done! I silently knocked “a few drinks at the pub” off the agenda as I calculated how long this ambulatory sojourn would throw us off schedule.
If I had to pinpoint the moment when I realized the day wouldn’t turn out as I had planned, it was probably as I was chasing (and missing) our connection bus in the town of Knock. I’ve since developed a couple theories about the Irish bus service: drivers can and will show up five minutes early, and the sight of two Americans frantically running down Main Street after the bus will not make him stop. We had been enjoying the hour layover in Knock—made famous after an apparition of the Virgin Mary appeared in the 19th century, turning the town into a pilgrimage site—but the prospect of walking 10 miles to our next destination made me wish we had just plopped down at the bus stop for a nap.
Since our options were to hang around Knock for four hours and just go home or continue on our intended journey, we started walking the road toward Ballinlough—just like my Irish forefathers would have done! I silently knocked “a few drinks at the pub” off the agenda as I calculated how long this ambulatory sojourn would throw us off schedule.
A few weeks ago, I was telling an Irish friend of mine where my family was from. I told her they lived in County Roscommon. “Roscommon’s shit,” she said. I told her the town was specifically Ballinlough. “Ballinlough’s shit,” she said.
We walked for 15 minutes before a small car pulled up next to us and offered us a ride. I’ve watched enough horror movies to know a good cliché when I see one, but since rural Ireland is neither Eastern Europe nor Alabama, I threw caution to the wind and jumped in. Another 15 minutes later, the driver, Tricia, dropped us off in downtown Ballinlough. With my schedule back on track and my faith in the Irish people restored, we took a look around at the town my family calls home.
A few weeks ago, I was telling an Irish friend of mine where my family was from. I told her they lived in County Roscommon. “Roscommon’s shit,” she said. I told her the town was specifically Ballinlough. “Ballinlough’s shit,” she said. So I guess I was prepared for what I was seeing. The town itself was actually picturesque, but the effects of Ireland’s real estate bust and economic downturn were evident. For a cool, clear Saturday afternoon, the streets were surprisingly empty. Half of the buildings were abandoned. The hotel at the center crossroads was closed, boarded up and for sale.
“Two brothers live there,” Tom said. “I’ll take you there, but they may be drunk.”
These weren’t quite the encouraging signs I was hoping for, but we stopped into a pub to see if anyone knew where I could find the Naughtons of Grange Ballinlough. The barman knew exactly where we meant (he lived there himself), and he told us there were Naughtons living there. “Turn left about a quarter mile down the main road and then take another left about two and half miles down that road,” he said. “Just knock on any door and ask for Naughton.” This suggestion was more than a bit strange to me, so I asked him about it again. “Yeah, just knock on any door,” he reassured me. “They may be a bit odd, but you’ll be alright.” Alright, indeed.
Not quite sure if I’d even know the right places to turn, we started walking again. The country outside of Ballinlough is beautiful and quintessentially Irish. Rolling green hills, stone walls and livestock abound. It’s slightly unnerving to hear the loud moo of a cow without ever seeing it, but we pressed on like we knew we should. I suppose we looked out of place, since one of the first people we saw on this country road stopped us. “You look like strangers,” she said. I told her about my quest, asked her if she knew of any Naughtons. She said she’d take us to the Burkes’, who were cousins of the Naughtons and would know more about them than she would.
At the next house down, she introduced us to Tom Burke, whose grandmother was a Naughton. Tom dropped whatever work he had been doing in the garage and offered to drive us up to the cemetery and the Naughton houses. “We’ll see if anyone’s home,” he said. I was pretty overwhelmed by the Irish generosity at this point. On our way to the graveyard, we passed a house I immediately recognized as the one from the pictures. I pointed it out to Tom.
“Two brothers live there,” Tom said. “I’ll take you there, but they may be drunk. And the missus may not be wanting you to come in.” This was an interesting development. We stopped at the graveyard next to the parish church, which was clearly a victim of the recent clergy sex scandals plaguing the Catholic Church in Ireland. Tom told us that it didn’t have a priest, and that mass was only said there once a week by one of the priests from in town.
By contrast, the cemetery was well-kept. I found three generations of Naughtons buried there, including a new headstone for the titular patriarch of my clan, James Naughton. His son Pat was also buried there. Pat’s brother John was the Naughton who immigrated to the United States and was my grandfather’s grandfather. Pat’s son Patrick, who died just a few years ago, was also buried there, and Tom informed me that Pat’s sons, Mike and Tommy, were the brothers who lived in the house. The brothers have a cousin nearby named PJ, presumably for Patrick James. Not coincidentally, Mike and Tommy are also the names of my mother’s brothers. I also have a cousin Thomas and a cousin Patrick. I’m told the Irish know more than five masculine names, but I have yet to see evidence of this claim.
My short time in the house and on the land in Grange Ballinlough helped connect me with a family that I had never known about. Not bad for an American student relying on little information and ignorance as to what exactly he was getting into.
We headed back to the Naughton house, and I was beginning to feel a little uneasy about knocking on the door. Tom assured us it was probably fine, but the possibility of running into a pair of drunk relatives loomed in my mind. Mike Naughton came around to let us in, and we were introduced. His brother Tommy was inside, but Mike’s wife had apparently gone to Limerick, leaving these two Irish farmers to deal with having some pasty kid from the States show up unannounced at their door. They were, from the looks of it, sober, and so we ventured in.
We settled in the kitchen, and I pulled out my notes to try to figure out the connection. After consulting a cousin chart on Wikipedia, I have now determined my great-great-great grandfather was Mike and Tommy’s great-grandfather; in other words, we are second cousins twice removed. It’s a complicated connection, but after about an hour of sharing stories and pictures, we were all convinced of the blood relation. I found out their father had been an excellent accordion player. I told them about the death of our cousin Louie, a monsignor in Atlanta who Mike remembered meeting as a child. They informed me that one of the people in my notes, a Mary Naughton, didn’t exist. It was the kind of education about my family that most Americans of Irish descent never have the chance to get.
We let the brothers get back to work, and I snapped a good picture of the house on the way out. I had gotten what I came to get, and a lot more. My short time in the house and on the land in Grange Ballinlough helped connect me with a family that I had never known about. Not bad for an American student relying on little information and ignorance as to what exactly he was getting into.
As I was leaving, the Naughton brothers gave me their phone number and told me to give them a ring before I leave Ireland. They want me to come back up to visit. “We’ll have a drink,” Mike told me. Or several. Either way, it’s all in the family.
Michael Warren is a senior at Vanderbilt University studying abroad in Galway, Ireland for the semester. He blogs about his experiences in Ireland at The American Rover and can be followed on Twitter @MichaelRWarren.
