My people.

"He said to me in prudent words,
sing to me the history of my country,
it is sweet to my soul to hear it."

The far distant past has as definite relation to family history as the present.  Our immediate ancestors may have blood lines which go back centuries to the early Celts. A clearer picture of the McManuses and the Murphys emerges as one studies their early history.  "It could be claimed that Irish history begins in Ulster because the earliest reliable evidence of man's presence on the island about 6500 B.C. was found on Mount Sandel, south of Cobraine, in County Derry and further evidence was on northwestern shore of Lough Neagh, the nearby Banks of Bann, and further along the coast."* (Both of our ancestors originated in Ulster.) Newcomers unknown racial origin came in 3500 B.C. during the Bronze Age but little is known about them until the coming of Christianity.

The coming of St. Patrick to Ireland around 400 B.C. affected our Celtic ancestors to a great extent and many years later caused bitter hatred toward the English.  St. Patrick came in the fourth year of the reign of Niall.  He traveled over Ireland, coming to Ulster where he spent six years and found Armagh which became his Sea, here he built his church, monastery and school, making Armagh his primatial. Here the work and fame of the schools became famous within a few years. "To quote the words of Dormistetes Armagh was not only the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland but also the capital of civilization." The native Irish here lived under Roman Catholicism for many years.

It would be remarkable if time could be turned back to prehistoric Ulster so that we could learn more about them. But one generation glided into another until the 16th century.  Changes had occurred. England became a powerful nation, reformation caused trouble and our customs were endangered.  "Through these dreadful centuries, England's energies were concentrated on an effort seemingly to annihilate the Irish race."

During the prehistoric era the McManuses and the Murphys had an uneventful life in Ulster, an Emerald Isle they loved. Here listed under the names of chieftains they developed an affection which they never lost.  Climate changed in the 16th century.  In the county of Terarven (ancient name for Tyrone) under the Chieftain O'Neill were listed names of prominent people.  There under them was the name Murphy. (Maternal ancestors always stated that they had a farm in Donegal, close to Tyrone.) In the same section of the reference "Other families of note in Ulster were MacManus Sept, a branch of the MacGuires, county Fermagh. Our paternal ancestors left for Scotland from Galway, close to Fermagh. They lived in a hauntingly lovely unforgettable land.

The events that happened in the 16th century caused deep discontent for the native Irish. Reformation and England's desire to control Ireland changed the lives of Irish. During these years, fighting was not unusual. At the time Chieftain O'Neill succeeded in allying many Irish chieftains to rebel against these enemies. Chief among Irish leaders were the MacGuires. They expected aid from Spain. They fought from 1600 to 1603 when O'Neill was forced to surrender. To avoid death and humiliation, he went into exile with one hundred Irish leaders. "Their departure remembered as the flight of the Earls was lamented by the Bards."

From this time on the Irish lived in hardship and near extinction. Flight of the Earls was an excuse for King James I of England for wholesale robbing of the Clans. The Earls were traitors making their estates forfeit and for distribution among King James' hungry followers. This caused bitterness because Irish law stated that the clan lands belonged to the whole clan community and could not be confiscated.

Going back to the 16th century the Reformation opened new doors for the persecution of native Irish who would not give up their religion. Queen Elizabeth fixed the price on the head of a Priest uniform with that on the head of a wolf. These conditions caused deep discontent which exists today.

The native Irish lost their fertile farms, forced to live in near poverty. King James I confiscated four million acres of Irish land of which the one and a half million, infertile or totally barren were allotted to the native Irish. Grants of the good land enriched the Protestant Church, Royal Schools and forts. Estates of 1000, 1500, 2000 acres were rented to English and Scotch Protestant Landlords on one condition - only English and Scotch tenants on these estates.  In the first ten years about forty thousand Scotch came to West Ulster. To the original inhabitants of Ulster these settlers were objectionable and regarded as grabbing intruders, alien heretics who spoke a foreign language and reviled the faith. Our ancestors lived here from 1607 to 1850, the potato famine, when they emigrated to Scotland and during that time fighting often erupted.

"Through these many dreadful centuries, England's energies were concentrated upon an effort seemingly to annihilate the Irish race."

History is often based on hearsay, spoken accounts handed down from one generation to another. My mother was the storyteller to whom I never tired of listening to stories chiefly about the Murphys but also many from the McManus family who lived near her in Scotland.

Land from which one emerges often affects their lives and those of their descendants. Both families came from Ulster, Murphys from a farm in Donegal and McManuses from Connacht. These families suffered under English rule with excessive taxation, seizures of farms, back breaking labor and religious intolerance. My father and Uncle Johnny hated the English. Both families left Ireland probably around the Potato Famine for Scotland where they lived for several years.

When they went to America around 1880, two oldest McManus men went with the two oldest Murphys. Later they brought their families over.


*couldn't find citations for the quotes

From Mary Flanagan's History of McManus and Murphy Families.  Undated.