Shattered Hearths
For May McClintock and John Mulhern.

In April 1861 - The Month of the Shattered Hearth - landlord John George Adair evicts over 250 tenants from Derryveagh, their ancestral homeland in Donegal, Ireland. Adair blamed the unsolved murder of his land steward on the whole community and uproots them, utterly. Some die on the Roads; others in the Workhouse. Derryveagh‘s young are “assisted” by ship to farthest Australia. Having swapped his Gaelic “eyesores” for imported Scottish sheep, “Black Jack” builds a castle next door at Glenveagh for his new American bride, and the region falls Silent. The scandal splits Parliament, sparking a firestorm across Ireland, England, Australia and America. But John Adair prevails, keeping his titles and dreams. Derryveagh is just the tip of the iceberg: step one in Adair‘s fevered transatlantic quest for a vast, personal empire. “The great thing,” advises his wife, “is to miss as little as possible, and to share as much.” Adair rejects the latter half. His grasp is matched only by its wake: the tragic impact on native peoples - red, white and green - across 3 continents. Today, Derryveagh‘s traces remain hidden in plain sight. As its shockwaves continue to spread, dedicated others still work to preserve and fix the broken links.
Rathdaire ruins

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Ruined castle in the foreground of the Derryveagh Mountains

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this map of the Adair homeland, visit for more Derryveagh Maps

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Recent posts

All creation groans and travails

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“All creation groans and travails…” Is the reason Adair first goes to America because Europe, England and Ireland’s Great Cattle Plague was a Threat to his ...

Post-Eviction Ironies: So Stately and Grey

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“Where the mountains arise to the oft-changing skies, And the Castle stands stately and grey; Where the calm lake lies still ‘neath that wild ru...

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In 1887, Mrs. Adair raised Rathdaire Church (Church of Ireland) to her husband’s memory. Within a few months time, their grand Rathdaire mansion suddenly bur...