Proleek, Great-Grandfather James McArdle's home

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I wondered, "What motivates you to do this?" and remembered my mother's Canadian passport in which, for place of birth "Proleek, Ireland" was written and my request to our cousin, John Mills, who invited us to stay with them after my mother passed away, June, 2013, the request being to visit the site of great grandfather James McCardle's home, where grandfather Peter McCardle was raised, information since discovered from the Irish census.

On the morning of Sunday, May 25, John took us from mass on a tour of sites related to the family. One of these was the site of the McCardle home, Proleek Townland.

The ruins of the former home of Peter McArdle are on a corner of unnamed streets in Proleek, County Louth. This is a view of the southwest side.

There site is an anonymous corner on a unnamed street with no outlet. The street ends close to the Proleek Dolmen, an ancient passage tomb, after passing farms and fields.

The interior of the property. I see no evidence of great grandfather James McArdle's home, It has returned to the earth.

The 1901 Irish Census provides these details from 116 years ago:

Today, the site is another person's property, it was not possible to explore further than when the camera lens reached when I leaned as far a possible into the brush; No sign of standing walls.

Across the road from the McArdle Plot is this ditch (stone wall) and a home. In the far distance, just visible across the plain, rising from it, is an unnamed land mark, a rounded hill 350 feet tall of the neighboring townland of Bellurgan

The site is surrounded by homes on the west and south, farmland on the east and west.

For this posting I collected the following images from Google Earth. The site is marked with a pushpin, "McCardle Home." A "Proleek Dolmen" pushpin marks the passage tomb.

A closer view suggests, if we trespassed and poked around, some remains of the structure were concealed by the trees and brush.

Between May 2014 and this image, from 2015, the center of the plot was gouged out. The area corresponds to the corresponds to the remains indicated in the 2013 image. From this we can understand were the structures stood in relation to the road.

Using the polygon ruler tool the size of the site is 413 feet in circumference, 9,619 square feet, and the gouge, indicating the ruins, is 1,368 square feet.

But for John and Betty Mills, their kind invitation to stay and John's guidance that day, the "Proleek" notation on my mother's Canadian passport would still be a mystery today.

John Mills passed away the next year, September 26, 2015