Rays of delight podcast

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Ballygannah

To anyone with knowledge of Irish townlands:

I was about to email the professor of Irish History at the University of New South Wales with several questions and comments about a book he had written on Irish emigration to Australia. Luckily I checked first to see if he was still working and the old bastard rudely died in 2003.

Anyway, the most important question I had of him was regarding the location of a place called Ballygannah. I need to know its EXACT location. It is somewhere outside Bangor Co. Down, most probably on the east side of said town, twixt there and Donaghadee. A family called Maxwell farm there. My task of you is to find me the location. The EXACT location mark ye. I will pay ye 10 ducats for this knowledge.

The Maxwell's had an ancestor who went to a place called Tambo Crossing in Victoria, Australia and died there. He was a fine socialist and a man of sense. I have read his letters and know this. Just before he got married he coughed up a heap of blood and died on account of his consumption. Tambo Crossing is now deserted and the churchyard where he is buried is overgrown, its place unknown. I intend to travel to Tambo Crossing and erect a memorial to him. I will try and locate the graveyard.

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