French Family Association
The Official Website of the Surname French
Tower Remains of the Monivea Castle. Nearby are the remains of the stables, and in the distance is the Mausoleum. I was fortunate to visit the thousands of acres of land several times and will post photos and more data as I have time. Mara
Chart #IREH, ffrenches of Monivea Castle,
Co. Galway, Ireland
Last updated by Mara French on 11/20/08. Numbers in brackets [ ] refer to the bibliography at the end of this chart. An asterisk (*) shows continuation of that line. Send corrections or additions to Mara French. Revised 1989, 2008.
Note:
This is a very extensive ffrench
family. There is so much information online about them that I plan to include
only a small part here. I am mainly trying to research the connection of the
French, ffrench, and de Freyne
families born in Ireland who immigrated to America. With this particular line,
one family immigrated to Australia in the 19th century, and one
family immigrated to Canada in the 20th century.
Contents
Generations 11-12, plus other records and the Bibliography
History and Research
Monivea is a village in County
Galway, a dozen miles east of Galway City itself, in the Republic of Ireland.
It is small, with a population of fewer than 200 souls, and noteworthy
principally for its elegant ruined church and its broad main street, laid out
more like an English village green, with the Post Office on one side and the
Garda (police) station on the other. At the eastern end of the village is an
old stone wall with a broad gateway, through which lead the roads to the local
rugby club's pitch, and behind that Monivea Forest.
It is really the gateway into local history of Monivea
Castle [9].
Monivea was an O'Kelly castle (John Crosach OÕKelly) of the 15th century, which later became part of the Ffrench mansion. The castle and mausoleum are protected structures. Inhabited until the mid 20th century. This Ffrench family were descendants of the fourteen Tribes of Galway.
Monivea Castle, which no longer exists. The Ffrench family built onto the fortifications of the OÕKelly Castle and established Monivea House. The village grew out of the dwellings of the estateÕs farm workers and domestic servants, and of the mercant posts established to serve their needs.
Successive generations of the Ffrenches worked hard to reclaim useful land from an estate which was mainly bogland spreading lime and burying sheep's carcasses to encourage the growth of plants, especially trees, which would dry out and stabilise the soil. Oliver Cromwell came and confiscated their lands, but once he was gone, they bought them back again and continued the reclamation process. They were well-respected folk around the county, enough so for Robert Ffrench to have represented Galway in the United Kingdom parliament between 1768 and 1776. Robert d. in 1779 (fifth generation below).
14 Tribes of Galway
The 14 Tribes of Galway are: Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, D'arcy, Deane, Ffont, Ffrench, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martin, Morris, Skerritt