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- Mike
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I've been looking back at my Irish ancestry (1800's ish) and it has been a fascinating experience. I've found out a lot about Ireland that you don't get taught in English schools (or didn't when I was a lad). My family were forced off one property after the grandfather and grandmother died (named sub-tenants) and then the younger folks got into more difficulties and were thrown off yet another rented plot when the father, then later, the mother died (after then being in the workhouse). It seems that they are buried in a mass grave, having being wrapped in a sheet and covered over with lime (for hygiene!). My great grandfather, then a teenager, was moved to England, to work in the Durham mines, as a hewer (pickworking at the coal face). This whole episode was a created situation by the English government to "sort out" the Irish "problem", that was large families living on small plots in self sufficiency. Plus a lot of other financial incentives for the "landed gentry", who had the land given to them by royal decree of previous kings who sent in French mercenaries to again, sort out the Irish "problem" of tribal warfare! My ancestor was one of the Irish kings, killed by one of the mercenaries soldiers, by spearing him in the back.