Rossendale Irish | The Irish in Rossendale

Bacup Irish Club Reminiscence

A lengthy Facebook Conversation reminiscing about Bacup Irish Club.

(From Steven Thornton's Bacup, Past & Present group)

Irish Family Headstones in Stacksteads' Cemetery

'Samhain' duties were fulfilled with a visit to Stacksteads' cemetery recently and whilst there I started to document/archive the Irish family headstones, i couldn't do all as my hands started to numb, it was a bit chilly, but here are a few:

Further information on families buried in Stacksteads' Cemetery can be found by clicking here.

Family Surnames

Strange to grow up in an area that burgeoned by the investment of the great industrialists with such proud names rooted in Old-English and rich in Anglo-Saxon origins such as Ashworth and Hoyle. Also to be surrounded by place names that also derive from Old-English with many other influences: Stacksteads, Bacup, Todmorden, Tunstead, Haslingden, Loveclough, Rawtenstall, Baxenden ...just to mention a few.
Yet, being amongst so many people with far from indigenous Lancastrian surnames and to attend schools where loads of your class mates had Irish family names.

I've tried to recall as many as I can that I associate with growing up in Rossendale, I probably have forgotten some and maybe invented a couple of others but please feel free to add any Irish surnames you know that are common in the Rossendale Valley:

Doherty, Cahill, Egan, Regan, Melia, Flanagan, Byrne, McShea, Harkin, McFadden, Harrison, Daley, Sweeney, Grogan, Sharkey, Ruane, Murray, McGuire, Melvin, Hernon, Kearns, Clarke, Connolly, Keough, Moran, McTiernan......

Please list any more below

Internet links on meanings of surnames:
http://surnames.behindthename.com/names/usage/irish
http://www.surnamedb.com

Gaelic Speaking Mayo

Interesting to see that East Mayo still came under the Gaeltacht in the 1911 census and many people who came to Rossendale, East Lancashire came from families that used both Irish and English: