On January 4, 1907, my grandfather, John Patrick O’Mullan was born to Daniel William Mullan and Elizabeth Gallagher in Moyaver, County Antrim, Ireland. They christened him at St. Olcan’s church – where his father was christened and his family is buried.
My 3rd great-grandfather, Patrick Scally, was born in Moyaver around 1791. Though his life largely predates Catholic parish registers, we can piece a lot of it together from census and property documents. An agricultural census shows that his father, Daniel Scally, was working in Moyaver as a farm labourer in 1803. Pension records show that…
My great-grandfather and his siblings are buried together under one stone with their parents at St. Olcan’s Cemetery in Armoy, Antrim, Northern Ireland. When I visited my grandfather’s birthplace, I took the opportunity to document all the gravestones in his churchyard – 797 souls – and 39 of them were born before 1830, the earliest…
As a kid, I remember thinking that my grandfather’s family owned a farm called ‘Moyaver’ in a place called ‘Armoy’ – – but none of that turns out to be true. Here’s what’s true…
O’Mullan derives from the Gaelic surname O’Maoláin, which dates to before the 10th century. ‘Maol” means bald or tonsured. So Maoláin refers to a monk or a disciple, or really anyone who shaves their head as a sign of religious devotion.