Tea with the locals

Norman Levingstone with his grandfather's grave at St Mary's church in Bunclody


 Last night Norman Levingstone (there's a story behind the spelling) showed me the farmhouse where his mother still lives which he believes was built by the very first Levingstons to come to the area from Scotland in the 1700s. That would most probably have been the parents of his ancestor William Levingston and ours John  Levingston (1754-1828). Norman had just arrived back from Donegal and it was dusk so the photos aren't the best. It's down that long narrow lane off the St Colomban way that I ventured down on my first night here.  



The Levingston farmhouse about 300 years old



Original farm buildings

The cows were kept in the lower level, grain storage above
 

 This morning I had a cuppa and a slice of apple pie with 90 year old Jim Rothwell, his wife Betty and Ben Rothwell, a local historian probably not much younger than the other two, in their farmhouse kitchen. Jim has lived in that house all his life and could describe so many Levingston families, where they lived, rattling off local place names like what we would call suburbs except these are all rural. because they were almost all farmers. My head was spinning. And they told me not to bother trying to find Jane Byrne's family- Byrne is one of the most common names in Ireland!

Out in a paddock on their farm are the overgrown ruins of another Levingston house, where a Robert Levingston lived but its not known which Levingstons built it.









Ruins of another Levingston farmhouse, originally 2-storeyed



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