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© 1980, 1989, 1996-2005 Edward & Dan GilmartinPage last updated on November 08, 2007
The real object of genealogy is to establish the lines of decent of human beings. The genealogist is concerned with proving the parentage of an individual at a time and then the parentage of his parents, and so on, step by step until the facts are no longer available or provable and fade into history. I cannot claim to be a trained genealogist. From the time I first became interested in my ancestors, I have had a tremendous enjoyment in seeking information. I have obtained a vast amount of factual material. It all began after I had seen the large family picture taken in Prospect Park in Brooklyn in July, 1907. The photo covered four generations, and I wanted to know more.
This photo was taken in Prospect Park in 1907 (colorized in 2003) and inspired the writing of this history I searched the libraries in Brooklyn, Queens, New York, and Washington D.C. My investigation continued in colleges like Adelphi, Nassau Community, Hofstra, Mansfield and Wilkes Barre, the British Museum and the Library of Congress. It was exciting and time consuming, but time well spent. I knew I was adding to my knowledge of events that effected the lives of my great-great grandparents, my grandparents, my parents, and each one of us. The research facilities of the Mormon Church in Plainview, L.I., the National Archives in Washington D.C., Hall of records in Somerset House, England Dublin Castle and the town halls of Wellsboro, Dushore, Towanda in Pennsylvania and many other churches were all part of the material gathering for my desire to find the where, why, and how in the lives of my forbears. The endless reference books read, the microfilm searched and reviewed, make this first attempt of putting some organized form for the benefit of all the family a seemingly impossible task. At times I will write as a romanticist, rather than a genealogist. I will state some thoughts that may not be proven by any fact, but I hope to enliven the interest of some of our younger generations. I hope they will begin a curiosity to search, pick up the torch, and keep the lives of our Ancestors always before us. One of the hardest things for our ladies to accept about family history or the family tree is the emphasis on the male line in recorded history. As each woman becomes married, the maiden name is somehow lost in the records or overlooked in the line of heredity. We must fear not, because it is usually the female who uncovers the facts and becomes the strength and the source of making the family remembered and cherished. There are many details concerning the genealogical methods I used. Time and space will not permit me to explain them all. I hope this little story will delight and sadden, make you laugh and cry, and remember no matter what our name is or has become, we have a lot to be proud of. For this, we should try and see the deep sacrifices our ancestors had to make during the past two centuries to bring us to this time and place in our lives. BACK TO CONTENTS | TOP OF PAGE A Little Irish History We need to understand from the beginning that our story is centered around the Irish culture. What we are talking about is a SEPT, Mac Giolla Mhartain. This is Gaelic spelling for MacKilmartin and many other Irish names who were involved in intermarriage with Kilmartin or Gilmartin. My initial research centered in County Tyrone and Fermanagh, then in Bradford, Leeds, and North Bierly, in Lancashire, England, then in towns in Pennsylvania. Most of the marriages of the time were within the Irish ethnic group. Basically, this was because that is where they were born, grew up, and lived - in a close knit and poverty stricken environment during the past two hundred years. These conditions were imposed from the outside by the rule of the British Government and even the mine owners of America. The same conditions can be said for the Italians, Germans and other Europeans nationalities during the 17th and 18th centuries. The calendar of historical events listed may show a little Irish history and set the stage for the early Beginning of our ancestor’s life in Ireland.
We stopped in 1845 as the family fortunes shifted to England and finally America. BACK TO CONTENTS | HISTORY HOME PAGE Sons of Giolla Mhartain (Servants of St. Martin)
Sons of Giolla Mhartain was the name of an Ulster family, who was ancient chief of Civel Feinradbaigh (1500-1599), in the 16th Century. It was a common name in County Sligo and Roscommon, and was later found to many other parts of old Ireland. It is no doubt, in many instances, now disguised under the Anglicized form of Martin. "Fearcar," brother of Aodh Ornaighe, who is no. 97 on the O’Neil pedigree (of Tyrone), was the ancestor of MacGiolla Mhartain, anglicized as Kilmartin, Gilmartin, and Martin. Dr. R J. Hayes, author of "Manuscript Sources for the History of Irish Civilization," says, "At first the surname was formed by prefixing `Mac’ to the fathers Christian name or `O’ to that of a grandfather or earlier ancestor." Names with the prefixes Mac, or even O, apparently surnames, will be found in the records relating to the centuries before the 10th, but these were ephemeral not hereditary. After a time, other types of names were adopted, still with the prefix Mac and sometimes ‘O’. Those which introduced the words GIOLLA or MAOL, both usually follower or servant, often in a sense of devotion to some Saint as in Mac Giolla Mhartain. As names beginning with Mac Giolla followed by a Saint’s name, especially those with anglicized forms beginning with Gil or Kil, will be found frequently in texts or books and historical documents. So we find the name of Kilmartin and thus the source of our family heritage. The Valley of Kings The story is told in the March, 1968 issue of National Geographic, that in the sixth century an ancient kingdom was founded in part of Scotland, which is now southern Argyle, by an invasion of Irish, called Scots. Throughout history men of the Irish shore crossed over into the northern land. One such wave, about 500 AD, brought the Christian Scots from Scotia (as the Romans called Ireland). They created their own Kingdom of Dalraida. In 563 AD, the slaughter was slowed by the coming of St. Colums out of Ireland. The other great Saints after him and the Picts became Christian. As Norse attacks on the northern islands weakened them, they turned more to their Scot Kin and fellow Christians. In 843 AD, Kenneth MacAlpin, half Scott and half Pict, merged the Celtic Moieties (special word) and became the first king of Gaelic Alba (Scotland was not yet Scotland in name). The name of the villages here echoed an earlier age (Kilrunner, Kilmichael, Kilbride, Kil referring to a monk’s cell of medieval times). When the author came to Kilmartin, he stopped, its graveyard contained burial slabs of the 14th to the 18th centuries. It was the site of the coronation when Kenneth MacAlpin united both peoples, and became King of Alba, now called Scotland. This place is called the "Valley of Kings". This place, called Kilmartin, still teaches the Gaelic language after many years of suppression. I have searched the files, and no recorded names of Kilmartin’s have been found. However, it is nice to know that the name was known a long time ago and marks a place in the evolving Gaelic nostalgic inclinations, living in the soft afterglow of antiquity. BACK TO CONTENTS | TOP OF PAGE We Meet Kilmartin’s The first positive indication that the name of Kilmartin was native to Ireland is found in the 1659 census found for the County of Fermanagh, in parishes of Devenish, Aghareigh, and Cleenish, in the Barony of Clanawley. This census was found in the home of Lord Landsdowne. According to a topographical and historical map of ancient Ireland, compiled by Phelp MacDermott, the following were the principal families in Ireland of Irish, Irish-Norman and Anglo-Irish prigin from the 11th to the end of the 16th century:
Of course, many other names may be left out. This source is one of many. In the County of Tyrone, in the 13th century, the name of O’Neil was known to be the Chief and King of Ireland. We are related from the O’Neil as stated earlier. It was around this time that the Kings of England, starting with Henry II in 1154 AD, began the migrations to Ireland. They continued under fifteen kings, with a total of seventy eight migrations, until the religious atmosphere changed under King Henry VIII. It continued under Queen Elizabeth, becoming an anti-Catholic attitude. The direct cause of this attitude was the battle of Kinsale in 1552. BACK TO CONTENTS | TOP OF PAGE Plantations In a figurative sense, the term "plantations," is applied to the establishment of new colonies of English, Welsh, and Scots in Ireland. This colonization was chiefly carried out by Queen Elizabeth, and James I (1550-1572). The preliminary groundwork was initiated, as mentioned earlier, by King Henry VIII and during the reign of Edward VI and Mary. Plantation and settlement records of Ireland (1603- 1703) comprise a great body of records, government documents of members of old and new landed families. This plantation of Ulster took place in the first decade of the 17th century (1610) and extended through the Cromwellian Settlement of 1650. These records concern the progressive confiscation, and the successive series of new land grants, until the final distribution placed most of the acreage of Ireland in the possession of English Protestants. It is hard to understand Ireland’s history, and resultant poverty, both economic and religious degradation, that lasted through the great famine of 1845 unless we grasp what effect of the Settlement of Ulster had. It is difficult to describe the conditions of life during the 16th century under British condemnation. Even writers of prejudice British had to admit that learning and religion continued to exist with a perseverance that was sublime. A Jesuit priest, Father Quinn, who early in the 1550’s made a report to his superiors in Rome, writes; "On a spot of ground in the middle of an immense bog, Father James Forde constructed for himself a little hut, where boys and girls came to be instructed in the rudiments of learning, virtue and faith. Then they go from house to house, teaching parents and child what they learned in the bog. We generally live in the mountains, forests and inaccessible bogs where Cromwellian Troops cannot reach us." After the end of the Nine Year War in 1607, the remnants of the leadership of Hugh O’Neill, Rauri O’Donnell and Conor Maguire, sailed for France. It was referred to as "The Flight of the Earls," because the Irish knew it was the last effort to retain Ireland under the control of their leaders. It was the end of the old Gaelic order, it completed the conquest and left the country clear for the Plantation of Ulster. It has been shown that Catholics owned 61% of the land in 1541. By 1668, they owned only 22%. By 1703, 85% of the land owned by Catholics changed hands to Protestant ownership. The continual oppression of the Irish by the confiscation of land, slowly but inevitably brought the people to a condition of slavery. Every effort to resist, during the 17th century, brought more severe measures upon every class of Irish life. The term "Settlement" was used in the last half of the 17th century in relation to the great changes in the ownership and occupation of the land. This is explained in the Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland by John Prendergast, of Doublin, in 1875. Settlement, of such importance in the history of Ireland, means nothing else than the settlement of the balance of land according to the will of the strongest. Force, not reason., is the source of the Law. The term "Cromwellian Settlement" is to be understood as the history of the dealings of the Commonwealth of the people of Ireland after the conquest for their country in 1652. The Englishmen’s objective was to extinguish a nation, rather than suppress a religion. They seized the lands of the Irish, and transferred them (and with it all the power of the state) to an overwhelming flood of new English settlers. The settlers were filled with the intense national and religious hatred of the Irish. When James II ascended to the throne of England, there was a strong effort by the Stuarts to regain some control over the lands of Ireland. Catholics attempted to rally to the Catholic Stuarts support. This was a counter revolution initiated by some of the royalists English of Ireland, and a few native Irish, restored to their estates under the Act of Settlement and Explanation. The Protestant forces, under the leadership of William, severely defeated the Irish army at Drogheda. It is referred to as the famous Battle of the Boyne in 1690. BACK TO CONTENTS | GO TO CHAPTER SIX | TOP OF PAGE
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