Step 6) And, finally to Cragg, near Kilmihil (re BUTLER and FITZPATRICK ancestors)

When we arrived back in Kilmihil, John McCarthy, one of the people from Creegh who was going to the afternoon tea dance in Kilmihil, volunteered to escort me down to the local shop to get directions to Cragg where some of our BUTLER ancestors lived just before they left to go to Australia in the 1880s.



John insisted on coming with me on my quest to find Cragg. So, after assuring his friends and wife that I was not going to kidnap him and take him back to Australia, he set off with me in my car to find Cragg. It was a few km out of town and I would have had no hope at all in finding it without his help. He explained that there were about 9 houses in Cragg and the house he planned to take me to was one of the oldest.

We drove up a long driveway towards a house on the hill. The views on the way up of the surrounding farmlands were impressive.

The house at the top of the hills was very modern but with some older outbuildings which may have been part of the older house or which may have been the old house.

The people who owned the house were generous with their time and showed us an old sketch of the original house.

Thanks John for your help in finding Cragg, just outside Kilmihil.

A few pics of the views on the way down the hill, out of Cragg, back to Kilmihil ...

I may never know if this is the house that our ancestors lived in all those years ago, but it may be close to where they lived.

After our adventure, I dropped John back to Kilmihil, to his afternoon tea dance. He told me that he had done a similar type of thing in the US years ago - tracing where his ancestors ended up. So, he appreciated how important it was to me to find the place where our ancestors came from before they arrived in Australia. What a lovely person he was, John McCarthy of Creegh in County Clare.

Next step on my County Clare journey:

Step 7) The old church at Kilmihil (re BUTLER and FITZPATRICK ancestors)