Name of Townland: Esnabreena

Hi Catherine,

Thanks for your message. 

I have sent this information on to one of our volunteers who may be able to assist you.

Kind regards,

Genealogy Support

Hi Catherine, 

That name is not familiar unfortunatly. Could you tell me where you got that name from, is it an old document and if so how old ? This is a handy list of townlands in the area over the years and as you can see nothing really matches your spelling. If you have any more information that would help with the location please let me know, what is the family name that you are looking for ?

http://www.bmdnotices.com/ElectoralArea/Townlands.aspx?ReferenceId=889&…

Regards Danny Tobin

Hi Danny,

Thank you very much for getting back to me.

Over the last number of years we have undertaken an amount of family tracing and have made quite an amount of progress. 

My great, great grandfather and grandmother emigrated from west Cork during or just after the Famine.

A family story enabled us to locate from where my great, great grandmother came  (Drinagh - Catherine Connolly).

My great, great grandfather is more of a mystery.  His name was John McCarthy (of course!) and his father was Daniel McCarthy. He was born prior to the famine.  I will have to check all the files to get the exact information. I thought it would be impossible to trace him, and perhaps it will be - but you have got to try!  Within the timeframe, there are actually only 3 Johns born to Daniels in west Cork. One of these was in Kinsale (there has never been any indication that the family came from there).  One from just outside Bantry, going east, and the third was from Sheepshead.

From cousins we have discovered, Bantry was also mentioned by a number of them, and they also had a family story handed down that John used to watch the ships sailing to America from the top of the hill.  From other research we have done, often family stories are accurate, its just you may not understand them correctly at first.

The John from Sheeps Head came from a townland called Esnabreena (got this from an online search of baptismal records - may have misremembered the spelling - will try and check).  I contacted the place names commission, but they had no record of it.  I note from the list you sent there is an Eskaratha.  This might be an adjacent place.  I understand that the name could mean something to do with a conflict.  The townland was mentioned in some Bantry estate records I came across (a reference to the records online).  I think I got the impression from the baptismal records that the place appeared to be uninhabited after the famine as there were no further references to it after 1848 (I think). This may be the reason there is no memory of it, or reference to it in 1911/1901. 

Thanks for all your help!

Catherine