A Limerick man's diary from 1912 has attracted a whole new audience

FROM ASKEATON to Australia, a little-known link has come to light between the West Limerick town and a city Down Under.

For the last year, descendants of John John Fitzgerald, born in 1856 in the townland of Mount Pleasant, near Askeaton, have been in contact from South Australia to trace a piece of their family heritage.

And their work may open the door to finding other people with Shannonside descent living on Australia’s south coast.

For Carmel Ryan, the vice-chair of the Askeaton Civic Trust, it all started on an otherwise unremarkable Sunday evening, that of July 9 last year.

She received an email from a Greg Were living in the city of Adelaide.

It detailed how he had studiously read the diaries of his great-great grandfather John John and discovered that, having been raised in Ireland, he returned here as a “prodigal son” in 1912.

Born to James and Brigid in 1856, John John (pictured below) was one of four brothers and left Limerick around the age of 20 to travel to the Southern Hemisphere.

Greg, who ran a software firm up until his retirement two years ago, has since delved deeper into finding more about his ancestors.

His interest crystalised after his mother Lila Were told her son of the well-travelled John John's hand-written diaries which lay under her bed.

“These are diaries written in the 1880s through to 1915. My mum gave me one or two and I became fascinated by them. It’s like a Netflix show - very interesting,” Greg said .

He admitted he read two or three sets of diaries, but his mum eventually introduced him to several more of John John’s recollections.

“I’ve worked out there is somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 words in all his diaries,” he added, pointing out there are 15 in total.

Keen to know more, particularly of John John’s heritage in Ireland, he reached out to both the Limerick Genealogy Society and the Askeaton Civic Trust.

The culmination of all this was the presentation of John John’s diaries at last month’s weekend to mark the 825th anniversary of Askeaton Castle.

Above: Greg Were, who has studied the diaries of his great great grandfather in depth

At the Civic Trust’s headquarters on the banks of the River Deel, Greg gave a presentation of his great, great grandfather’s diaries.

In search of a better life, John John joined the famous emigrant ship, the Lady Jocelyn alongside his brother Michael, with his two other siblings David and Patrick following suit.

For 20 years he worked on a farm outside Port Pirie, a city of 13,896 people north of Adelaide, before then becoming a sea captain, transporting wheat.

His diaries provide a fascinating slice of the life of an Irishman abroad in the 1880s.

Naturally, St Patrick’s Day was a particularly big deal.

Greg said: “Every St Patrick’s Day parade, he mentions in detail. He talks about whether the priest did a good job of running the parade through the town. He talked about the sports they had after. It was a real highlight.”

One St Patrick’s Day, Greg reveals, John John set out for a party a farmer was having - only to find out when he was half way there that he had forgotten his sash.

“When I told my mum this story, she told me she actually still had that sash. Rather than it gathering dust in the shed, it means something to us, which it would not have done before.”

Even before he worked as a sea captain, John John was interested in maritime life.

On one occasion, his diary details, he befriended the captain of a ship which arrived in Port Pirie harbour from Ireland.

“He bought a bag of soil,” said Greg. “It was sold to him as a bag of Irish soil. John John declared he would take it home and spread it on the ground. So at least once in his life, his children could walk on Irish soil. This was the level of passion he had.

He said the soil of Ireland is better than the soil in Australia.”

While John John’s children only ever stepped on imported soil, he did make one final visit to his homeland.

In 1912, he was made redundant after the south Australian government brought in a law that every sea captain had to be paid $17.

The ship owner was not prepared to pay this, and John John being out of work, decided to return to visit Limerick.

Greg said: “It was his one chance to go home. He’d saved money to do this. He knew after that, he would be living in Australia the rest of his life as his children and wife were there. When he arrived in Limerick, he was reunited with his older brother Michael. He introduced himself as the prodigal son coming home. He was pleased to be returning home, to have the chance to see his family again.”

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And although he was only in the area a matter of months, his diary describes in great detail the people he met and adventures he had.

“He mentions local names like Nash, O’Connell, O’Donnell, Conway, Mangan, Fitzsimons, Hayes, Shaughnessy, O’Shaughnessy. These were the names of people he visited.”

There were days collecting mussels from the estuary, hunting for castles, attending dances, festivals and sports.
“He went to Barrigone to drink the water from the well, and makes the point that Irish water is much better than Australian water. It has a lot of spiritual and healing qualities,” Greg said.

John John’s diary also notes his disappointment at a local landlord felling some of the trees.

“He reflected a bit on how Ireland had changed in the years since he had been there. He is disappointed on some occasions when he sees the vandalism of some of the castles,” said his great-great grandson.

Foynes island was compared to “the Garden of Eden”, he traversed west to Tarbert, and he also completed Madame Rose’s Velvet Walk, in the vicinity of Askeaton.

It was a walk his ancestors completed when they were in Askeaton last month.

Greg brought several generations of the descendants of John John’s family for the weekend of Askeaton Castle’s 825th anniversary celebrations.

In that number were his mother Lila, 86, who was invited to cut a cake to bring the curtain down on a weekend of celebration (see picture below)

Lila was great-granddaughter to John John.

Also present was Greg's sister Moira Were, who is the current mayor of Onkaparinga, almost 300km south of Port Pirie.

The whole experience has left Greg wondering how many more people of Limerick descent might be nestled in this pocket of South Australia.

Perhaps it's more than a coincidence that the local Australian Rules Football team Port Pirie Football Club plays in green and white, just like our All-Ireland winning hurlers.

Greg says he's been “blown away” by the generosity he has received from the people of Askeaton, the Limerick Genealogy Centre, and the wider community of the city and county.

As for John John, following his visit to Limerick, he returned to Australia living out his days in Port Pirie, where he passed away on September 28, 1933.