The Great Ferriter Family

Causation trumps randomness, every time. That events emerge as consequences of precursors, and are formed by myriad related influences that also extend from predecessor commissions and omissions seems without refute. Our lives also then, take certain form under the influence of innumerable actions and reactions extending back into time immemorial. Channeled and directed in more or less greater ways by all that has happened before, we make our choices, and in doing so set in motion the context of the future. Not all those factors at play in our lives have emerged from human activity, and those human influences are in turn the sum of... Read More

Medieval life in Ireland was most often harsh, and frequently violent. The intrusion of the Normans and the follow-on attempts of the English monarchy to exert control within Ireland created extended periods of social, political and economic turmoil, and the constant friction between the Norman Lords and the Irish, as well as between the Norman Lords themselves led to a succession of minor wars that sputtered for centuries. English Law extended only to those of English birth, English Heritage (including the descendants of the Normans), and those few Irish who had been granted coverage by the crown. During the first 150 years following the initial... Read More

For the Feirtears, no doubt those years of famine, and the longer decades of poverty and degradation came enshrouded in grief and loss. Beyond that there was the family. For twenty generations perched at the tip of the peninsula, itself on the edge of the island, on a windswept and sometimes harsh landscape, a landscape possessed of a raw grandeur and sweeping beauty. Home.   Home. From Mount Brandon, westward down to the sea, along the rocky shore, with the small coves and harbors, and for some centuries the abandoned fortress, once the family’s seat and symbol of power. All lost, yet lingering in memory... Read More

A look into the past, from Morgan Ferriter, Donegal, Ireland. These are two shots I scanned from a book called West Kerry Camera. I am not sure exactly who the Ferriter men in the shot below are, someone else may be better able to shed light on this.   All these men but one, are from the parish of Ballyferriter. Front row, from left: Tomas O Fearghusa, Séan Feiritéar, Tomas Óg Feiritéar. Back row, from left: __?, Tomás Feiritéar, Séamus Feiritéar (with son Brendan), Johnny Ó Guithín (Dunquin)   Trif ghIdin Feirtarach Thforabhin i bPariste an Fheirtaraigh 1907. (Feirtear family in Ballyferriter parish taken 1907.... Read More

I took this shot 2 years ago, its of An Fear Marbh, which is part of the Blasket Islands. In the past the whole group of Islands was referred to as Ferriter's Islands. From the end of the 13th Century the Ferriter family leased the Islands from the Earls of Desmond, and from Sir Richard Boyle after the dispossession of the Desmond Geraldines at the end of the 16th Century. This shot is taken from the shore at Clogher Beach, on the road from Ballyferriter to Dunquin, a very dangerous tide to swim in because of the strong under-currents. Read More