dawesberry adventures my view of the big family adventure.

The Ashe Family Ok, so someone in my mom’s branch of the Kennedy Family made a very detailed family tree that shows the Family tree back to the late 1800’s to when many branches of the family had immigrated to the US from Ireland. My mom, Janetta, went to Ireland a few years ago and showed me a photo from Dingle of a pub that belongs to some of those distant rellies. So, I thought I’d check out my roots and I went into that pub and they said, “well, if you are related to Thomas Ashe, the Patriot, then you are related to us”, but they couldn’t tell me much more because actually they weren’t Ashes but recently married into, or employed by the Ashes. She suggested I go to the local library for more info. Which I did the next day. At the library, I asked for help with finding birth records or death records, explaining that I was trying to find my family roots. The librarian sent me to the hospital, so I walked there, near the end of the day, where they said that the records person wasn’ t there, but would be tomorrow. So back there the next day, the very friendly woman said that they didn’t have any records quite that far back(1850), that I’d have better luck talking to the church people. But she did ask what family name I was looking for and when I said Ashe, she said, oh ,that I looked so much like an Ashe (as if!) and then gave me some clues about that family, which part of Dingle they were settled in. She also said that the family would have used the same names over and over, so if there were an uncle Mathew Ashe, then there would be nephews named after him. So, on the tree that Janetta gave me, my guide, I looked at the names of the Ashe men; there was Mathew (my great great grandfather) and his brothers Gregory and Thomas., and their father was Mathew Ashe. So, I was like, ‘YES! these ARE my relatives!” So, at the library, I asked for a book about Thomas Ashe in English. I was reading about this famous patriot of Ireland, fighting the oppressive rule of the English in the early part of last century, my relative! The next spare chunk of time, I MADE Steve drive us out to Kinard (Can Aird) in order to see the memorial at his gravesite and to experience the land that my family came from. This led to all sorts of fantasizing about strolling the fields, digging turf, shepherding, speaking the native tongue, all the things that MIGHT have been had Mathew Ashe not emigrated. (yeah, I know there were lots of other emigrators, but I was enjoying feeling a land connection that was many centuries older than the American connection). Anyway, I went again to the library, and discovered that there was a whole memorial display devoted to Thomas Ashe (this must have been what the pub lady was sending me to). There I discovered an illustrated family tree for the Ashes, which goes back a few generations further than Thomas Ashe the Patriot (TAtP), and there, sadly, I discovered that my Mathew Ashe is not a relative of TAtP! Oh well. It was a fun fantasy for a day. Apparently, dear Uncle Edwin was in Dingle some years ago, and went to the pub, and made right friends with the Ashes there, and told mom that we were indeed related, however, when Janetta pressed him for what the connection was, and if we were really related, or just shared the name, he became vague, a straight answer not forthcoming. Oh well. Still, in my reading about TAtP, there was a good deal of history that tells of the original Ashes, coming from Norman decent many many generations before, settling at kinard. I must also insert here, that one of the things Thomas was fighting against was the cultural obliteration that England was forcing on the Irish. This would include the attempt to eradicate the Irish language. Thomas Ashe is the English version of Thomáis Ághas. So, the real family name would still be used had it not been for the bloody English creating a famine on the Irish, killing so many, thus weakening their resolve to use their own language. Fortunately, they were able to maintain some other aspects of their culture - music & dance for instance! I’m sure, in a more distant way, I AM related to this whole family, Ághas of An Daingean (Dingle). Rather than defeated, I feel more inspired to research it further. I’m almost certain that I will have more luck with internet genealogical research with broadband at home and THEN go to some of the places to feel what it was like to live there. For me, it’s a great way to study history, starting with a question like, why would Mathew Ashe leave Ireland? I’m a bit ignorant of histories, but now I’ve got a better grasp of Irish history!