Although a good Irish lad, my paternal great-grandfather John Alexander left a perfectly fine plot of land in County Armagh in the 1870s and sailed to New Zealand with the aim of settling on the Canterbury Plains.
Hello Nicole. Interesting to find your writing here on Substack as I learn bit more of how to use it.
I am quite a novice and introduced to it by a young Korean writer.
My mother and sister are both big fans, and I have just finished The Last Station which I came across as I was exploring info to explain the Murray-Darling river boat trade to a young Zimbabwean friend.
Similar Irish diaspora story in many ways. My great great grandfather who was from County Clare, and had been a River Shannon Pilot as had been his forebears, arrived her in ?1860s with his wife and son, Michael, then aged five. Initially settling in Ipswich, then a major port still for ocean going ships and a point where many Irish started their life in Qld. The Behan family moved a bit also; initially to the Darling Downs (there is a family link to Gov darling, and my dad's full name was John Ernest Darling Behan; he rarely acknowledged the Darling bit, maybe as he once told of being teased at boarding school with 'Who 's an Ernest Darling"). Eventually ending up in Central Qld with property in the Isisford shire, and in a region called The Desert, which actually it was not. Near town of Jericho, Lake Galilee and the Jordan River ( i kid you not. Surveyor must have had their bible out or stuck for names, and Thomas Behan, my GGFather, may have been that man.
I could go on, but the font for this is so small.
More on this saga, if you are interested. And a plethora of stories eg like how a USAAF bomber crash landed at night on one of our roads in WW2.
I live in Brisbane now but have had an interesting time catching up with my Bush Origins as I attended a few Polocrosse meets with an old school friend this year. And camping out with the ponies is a bit more hi-tech these days !
Regards , and So Long and Thanks for the Books ( a play on words that you probably get !), Cristoffa.
more on this saga, if you are interested. And a plethora of stories eg like how a USAAF bomber crash landed at night on one of our roads in WW2
Hi Cristoffa - you have a fascinating family history - love the 'Who's an Ernest Darling'! -
and I do thank you for sharing it. At this stage I have the outlines for the next couple of novels sorted and I've previously made a note of Jericho and the surrounding biblical namesakes (I visited Balcaldine a few years ago), so you may yet see these locations in a future novel!
Always great to receive family references, it really brings a district alive.
Hello Nicole. Interesting to find your writing here on Substack as I learn bit more of how to use it.
I am quite a novice and introduced to it by a young Korean writer.
My mother and sister are both big fans, and I have just finished The Last Station which I came across as I was exploring info to explain the Murray-Darling river boat trade to a young Zimbabwean friend.
Similar Irish diaspora story in many ways. My great great grandfather who was from County Clare, and had been a River Shannon Pilot as had been his forebears, arrived her in ?1860s with his wife and son, Michael, then aged five. Initially settling in Ipswich, then a major port still for ocean going ships and a point where many Irish started their life in Qld. The Behan family moved a bit also; initially to the Darling Downs (there is a family link to Gov darling, and my dad's full name was John Ernest Darling Behan; he rarely acknowledged the Darling bit, maybe as he once told of being teased at boarding school with 'Who 's an Ernest Darling"). Eventually ending up in Central Qld with property in the Isisford shire, and in a region called The Desert, which actually it was not. Near town of Jericho, Lake Galilee and the Jordan River ( i kid you not. Surveyor must have had their bible out or stuck for names, and Thomas Behan, my GGFather, may have been that man.
I could go on, but the font for this is so small.
More on this saga, if you are interested. And a plethora of stories eg like how a USAAF bomber crash landed at night on one of our roads in WW2.
I live in Brisbane now but have had an interesting time catching up with my Bush Origins as I attended a few Polocrosse meets with an old school friend this year. And camping out with the ponies is a bit more hi-tech these days !
Regards , and So Long and Thanks for the Books ( a play on words that you probably get !), Cristoffa.
more on this saga, if you are interested. And a plethora of stories eg like how a USAAF bomber crash landed at night on one of our roads in WW2
Hi Cristoffa - you have a fascinating family history - love the 'Who's an Ernest Darling'! -
and I do thank you for sharing it. At this stage I have the outlines for the next couple of novels sorted and I've previously made a note of Jericho and the surrounding biblical namesakes (I visited Balcaldine a few years ago), so you may yet see these locations in a future novel!
Always great to receive family references, it really brings a district alive.