The McCarthy Family of Ballybeg and Killoo, Clarecastle, Co. Clare

McCarthy Family

The story of emigration to Australia in the 1880s. Elizabeth McCarthy (1865-1942),  left Co. Clare in 1885 bound for Brisbane on board the Wiston Hall.

Kindly donated to Clarecastle & Ballyea Heritage & Wildlife Group in May 2020 by Mr David Flannery, of Canberra, Australia, great-grandson of Elizabeth McCarthy Flannery.

Further research by David has established that Elizabeth McCarthy’s sister, Honoria (Nora), married Michael McNamara and the couple went to live in Killoo. Some of the McNamaras emigrated to America and the last of their children, Thomas McNamara  and Elizabeth Clarson died in 1966 and are buried in the McNamara grave in Killoo graveyard. Elizabeth’s brother, Michael McCarthy of Ballybeg, married Kate Morony of Killoo in Clarecastle Church in 1889 and went to live in Killoo, within 100 metres of the McNamara house. The McNamara house is gone but the shell of the McCarthy home in Killoo is still there.