Who Do You Think You Are - Mark Gatiss 8th Oct

[kiterunner]

On BBC1 at 9 p.m., and repeated on Tuesday at 11:35 p.m.

[kiterunner]

Episode synopsis:
Mark Gatiss's mother Winnie O'Kane, who died in 2003, was half-Irish, and Mark wanted to find out more about her Irish ancestors. He started by going to visit his father, Maurice Gatiss, who still lives in County Durham, where Mark grew up. Maurice and Winnie got married in 1957. Winnie's parents were Jeremiah and Hilda O'Kane. Jeremiah came over from Ireland to work as a GP in England, and he died when Winnie was a baby. Mark was shown Jeremiah's degree certificate from Queen's University of Belfast, dated 11th Dec 1918. He went to Belfast and was shown the Queen's University entrance register for 1912, which stated that Jeremiah was a Catholic, and gave his next of kin as his mother Margaret O'Kane. Jeremiah's birth certificate gave his father's name as John O'Kane and his mother's maiden name as Mullan.

An obituary of Mrs Margaret O'Kane in the Coleraine Chronicle of 1939 said that she lived at the Commercial Hotel, Garvagh, Co Londonderry, where her father Jeremiah O'Mullan, a landowner, had also lived.

Mark went to PRONI (the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland) and met an historian who showed him that in the land valuation books from the 1880's, Jeremiah O'Mullan was listed as the landowner of over 700 acres in Co Londonderry, and gave him photos of Jeremiah. Jeremiah's wife's name was Elizabeth O'Kane. O'Kane and O'Mullan were both very common surnames in the area.

Mark went to the Guildhall in the city of Derry/Londonderry and looked at Griffith's Valuation from 1848-64 which showed that Jeremiah took over as tenant of Ashlamaduff, the main family land holding, from his father George O'Mullan, but the tithe applotment books showed that George was not a landowner.

A document from 1826 was a freehold lease of a piece of land in the townland of Glack to George from the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers. Another document from 1835 said that all the landholders in Glack were Roman Catholic because the land was of such poor quality. Mark went to Glack to see the land that George rented.

George's wife was Bridget O'Kane and they had eight children. George was employed by the Fishmongers' Company as a land steward and herdsman, as well as renting land from them. His job would have included collecting rents. A document showed that on the 1st Aug 1827, George O'Mullan applied for money to build an office and house to replace those destroyed by protestors after he had pounded their cattle.

Mark went to Garvagh Museum and saw Glack and Ashlamaduff on the Ordnance Survey map. A letter from one of the OS researchers said that Glack was very wild, but he had met Mr Mullan the land steward who was very knowledgeable and helpful, and had told him the story of the fate of the O'Kanes. Mark met a local storyteller to learn about the oral history tradition.

Mark went to the house where George used to live, and was shown more Fishmongers' Company records. A document from 1836 said that George applied for a loan to improve the land and bring it into cultivation after a hard winter. Soon after this, the potato famine struck Ireland. Four of George's sons emigrated, two to America and two to Australia, with Jeremiah the only son who stayed in Ireland. A document from 1852 said that George had been dispossessed of his holding at Glack.

An affidavit from 1876 stated that Jeremiah, whose father had died about 15 years previously, was the brother of Bernard O'Mullan. There was a letter dated 1875 from the solicitors in New South Wales who were executors of Bernard's will, which left about £5,000 to George. George used the money to buy a lot of land, including Ashlamaduff. Betty Ann McNichol, a distant cousin of Mark's, owns Ashlamaduff now and rents it out to other relatives. She was born in the USA but grew up at Ashlamaduff. She now lives in Dungiven. She showed Mark a photo of her aunts Winifred and Rose. She took Mark to see the old house at Ashlamaduff. Jeremiah died there in 1908, age 75.

[Margaret in Burton]

Didn't really like this one. It plodded along and I struggled to stay awake. I suppose if you have ancestry in that area it would be interesting but not to me.

[kiterunner]

I didn't find much in it to make notes about! The stuff with the vampire story reminded me of when they had the celebrities try out their ancestors' jobs in the last series.

[Olde Crone]

Not all that interesting for me, but I don't have any Irish ancestry that I know of. He irritated me a bit, kept cracking feeble jokes.

The really interesting thing was the brief glimpse of the Indenture with its elaborately indented top!

OC

[Guinevere]

I fell asleep. Found it very dull.

[Lynn the Forest Fan]

I turned it over part way through

[Just Gillian]

Very dull. I persevered because I have quite a bit of Irish ancestry, but wished I had watched the new thriller instead. The vampire bit went on far too long.

[Ann from Sussex]

Well, I do have Irish ancestry, some of it from Ulster (although from Co. Antrim, not Londonderry) and I thought it only slightly interesting. I did find it very sad to see the old homestead mouldering away when it had clearly meant so much to the family, not all that long ago. The cousin who now owns it must be around my age or only a bit older I would think and yet she had lived in that very basic and remote house as a teenager. When I compare it to the house I grew up in in the 1950s with all the mod cons of the day, I am amazed at the difference!

[Olde Crone]

Ann

I was left pondering why a family would feel so attached to a basic home in a remote and bleak part of Ireland. I'd have been up and gone somewhere easier, with my inheritance in my back pocket.

OC