Follow Me Up To Ricketstown

 

     Waking up to another gray morning here in New York, I thought it would brighten my day to take a stroll to Ricketstown in County Carlow; the birthplace of my paternal second-great-grandfather James O'Hora, who arrived at Manhattan's docks on a spring day in 1849. I pulled up Google Maps, did a search, switched to street view, and attempted to set myself down on the red marker that indicated Ricketstown. That resulted in my being bounced right back to the starting point. All right, if I couldn't get to the townland at least I could get fairly close. I set off down R726 near Rathvilly heading south. 

     After a few minutes I came to the road that branched west off of R726 towards Ricketstown and Graney. Moving along it I passed several modern homes, most enclosed by low walls or fences, a yellow dog, and a campaign sign for the "hard working" John Pender.  Ahead was a small cottage, a yellow rose bush blooming in it's gated front yard, then a brick home with laundry drying on a line in the back. The scenery after that consisted of trees and green fields bordered by low stone walls, distant mountains rising beyond them.

How long ago had those stones been piled there by a farmer clearing his land?  Had James passed by them as he traveled to Rathvilly on market days?  Perhaps the last  time he made his way down that lane, as he departed for America, they were there bidding a silent farewell?  Off to the right I began seeing wooden fencing around large fields, horses grazing within. I was now approaching the turn off for Ricketstown as indicated on the map, not sure how much further the site would allow me to go.  As I arrived at the road to Ricketstown, what I saw is pictured below.

          Why was the only road to Ricketstown impassable?  Another view on Google Maps showed a large, three story house sitting on a slight rise to the left of the gates.  It looked as though Ricketstown was now a giant horse farm.  Did that mean I wouldn't ever be able to visit?  How very disappointing, the townland was one of six I absolutely had to see should I ever make it to Ireland.  At least I was able to get a look from afar.  The owners couldn't fence out the views, the same ones that had greeted James as he stepped outside his parent's home.  He saw those same mountains in the distance, topped by lowering clouds.  The same fields were there in the mid 1800's and somewhere across those fields he and his family had once lived though nothing was now left of the cottages that once nestled there.  

     Then it came to me, Ricketstown wasn't that little red marker. That may be the center of Ricketstown, but the townland was all around it, even across the road as can be seen on the Griffith's map below.  Top left underlined in green is Ricketstown North, center is Ricketstown, and bottom is Ricketstown South. The gate pictured above is the green mark right under Ricketstown.  I'm not sure exactly where James lived, the only document I've seen of his that contained an address was his baptismal record and the parish priest at no point wrote anything more than Ricketstown. He made no mention of North or South anywhere in the register though some of his parishioners must have lived in Ricketstown South as Griffith's Valuation identified that place as the most populous. 

     It makes me a bit melancholy the way time moves on, inexorably effacing the past.  Even the little village I grew up in looks remarkably different today than it did when I was a child.  I guess I should not be surprised at this gate...