Mark Gatiss Who Do You Think You Are?

Turning over. Quiet, please!

Actor and writer on Doctor Who and Sherlock Mark Gatiss

makes his living from his lifelong passion - storytelling.

My whole career is a long revenge against PE.

If people know me for anything, I think it's...

I think children who are not necessarily sporty

can take a little bit of heart.

Mark first walked onto our TV screens in the cult comedy

The League Of Gentlemen.

Horror films have been an obsession since childhood.

I used to walk around the football pitch

talking about horror films with my best friend.

Enjoy this performance, Wolfe. It will be your last!

HE LAUGHS

History's also always been one of my biggest passions,

really, from primary school.

-Very dark, but really catchy.

-But funny, as well, I imagine.

It's a sort of affinity with it all, in a way.

My mum used to say I had "an old soul", which I always liked.

Mark's mother, Winnie, died in 2003.

The idea that my mother was half Irish,

it has all kinds of romantic connotations.

I'd love to join the dots right the way back.

I'd like to be the King of Ireland,

but if I am the King of Ireland, I won't, you know...

I'll be quite gracious.

The big mystical thing for me is my mother's side.

The Irishness of her side of the family always appealed to me.

I've never really delved very deeply

but the ideal place to start is with my dad,

who still lives in the house where I was brought up.

Mark's on his way to see his dad, Maurice,

in County Durham in the north-east of England.

I think he's always been intrigued about my mother's

side as much as his own.

I'm really just fascinated to find out.

Mark's stopping in to pick up Maurice at his local pub.

Hello!

All right?

So, Dad, what do you think we might discover

lurking in the shadows?

A murderer of some description.

That's what I said!

So, I painted this picture 15 years ago when I was a lot younger.

I didn't expect you to hang it up like that.

That was when I was slightly obsessed with Velazquez.

Everyone thinks it's me as a choir boy, which I certainly never was.

HE LAUGHS

So, Dad, tell me everything.

THEY LAUGH

Where...? Oh, he's going to start!

I'm afraid it was the milkman.

HE LAUGHS

Well, we'll start with these, then.

This is wedding day, isn't it?

Certainly is, with your mother.

That's 1957?

-It is.

-Where was that?

That's the front of the Catholic church at Dean Road.

Dean Road.

But were you aware of Mum's family being a Catholic family

because Mum was always a bit lax, wasn't she?

Well, she wasn't lax until she met me!

THEY LAUGH

-Do you say that to all the ladies?

-Indeed!

So, what did you know of Mum's family?

Did she tell you about the O'Kane sort of Irish side of the family?

Not a lot. Not a lot.

But you knew that Hilda, Mum's mum, Grandma,

was a widow and Jeremiah had been the local GP, is that right?

-I knew that.

-Yeah.

-He was very well thought of.

So, this is...this is Jeremiah.

Mark's maternal grandfather, Jeremiah O'Kane,

died the year Mark's mother was born

so they know little about him except that he came

from the north of Ireland and moved to England to practise as a GP.

I've always thought he looks a bit like

Little Tich or Grimaldi the Clown!

-You can see the nose.

-The nose.

Did I tell you this nose has haunted me?

It's the O'Kane nose.

We got this photo when Auntie Sheila died.

Never seen this before.

But he looks like he's certainly part of the team.

Team, yup.

And whether it's all...

whether it's actually maternity... It's like Call The Midwife!

Maybe that's what it is.

Mum always used to say, "You should be a doctor."

I said, "Why?" And she said, "You've got lovely hands."

THEY LAUGH

Yeah.

This is very prestigious, actually.

Queen's University of Belfast,

Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery and Bachelor of Obstetric.

Oh, there we are. Maternity was his, er,

speciality.

He's got three degrees.

That's rather good. Wow!

11th December, 1918.

That's fascinating.

So, it looks like I need to head to Ireland,

well, certainly to Northern Ireland and probably to Belfast,

if we're going to find out a bit more about Mum's family.

His grandfather, Jeremiah O'Kane, is Mark's way in to his Irish ancestry.

I became slightly obsessed with being a quarter Irish.

It's quite a good thing to say!

Not as good as half Irish. Certainly, not as good as Irish.

Mark's starting at Queen's University, Belfast,

where Jeremiah completed his medical training in 1918.

He hopes the university's archives will have

records of his grandfather.

Two soups, please!

Archivist Ursula Mitchel is helping Mark.

And this is the entrance... one of the entrance registers

for Queen's University, Belfast.

It's for the year 1912, 1913.

So, this is the year Jeremiah O'Kane came into Queen's.

There he is there, Jeremiah O'Kane.

"Date of Birth, Religious Denomination, Catholic,

"Parent or Guardian, Margaret O'Kane."

So, he was from Derry, then?

He was, yes.

To find out about earlier generations, Ursula has tracked down

more family documents, including Jeremiah's birth certificate.

So, Birth, his is in Garvagh...

..Father, John O'Kane of Garvagh,

Mother, Margaret O'Kane, formerly Mullan.

An obituary. Gosh!

-So, this is his mother?

-Yes.

Died in 1939.

"It was with sincere and very deep regret that her many friends

"learned of the death of Mrs Margaret O'Kane,

"which occurred at her residence, the Commercial Hotel, Garvagh.

"A native of Glenullin, deceased was the daughter of the late

"Jeremiah O'Mullan,

"a large landowner in the district of Ashlamaduff."

It sounds like it's from the Middle East!

Jeremiah O'Mullan would have been a big landowner,

a big Catholic landowner.

-Land...

-Yes.

-..as Lex Luthor always said...

-Yeah, absolutely.

-..people always need land.

-Especially in Ireland!

HE LAUGHS

-Wow!

-Yeah.

-Well, that's absolutely amazing.

It's lovely.

From his mother, Winnie, whose maiden name was O'Kane,

Mark has now traced back three generations.

His great-grandparents, John

and Margaret O'Kane, lived in County Londonderry, and Margaret's father,

Mark's great-great-grandfather, Jeremiah O'Mullan, was a landowner.

Very intriguingly, my great-great-grandfather,

Jeremiah O'Mullan,

had obviously some connection to quite a lot of land.

So, I'm heading to the Public Record Office in Belfast

to find out more about him.

Mark's meeting historian Bill MacAfee, who's been

searching for Jeremiah O'Mullan in Irish land valuation books.

I was surprised I was able to find Jeremiah

because you wouldn't have had many Catholic landowners at this time.

You do have to leaf through the book.

In fact, eventually, you do come to a page in the 1880s where,

um...

-Dennis Mullan, John Mullan.

-There's a lot of Mullans.

-Is that the same as O'Mullan or is it...

-Well, yes, it is.

Right. So, here we have Jeremiah O'Mullan...

Mullan. And then it says...

That says...

It says "same", which means it's Jeremiah.

And if we keep going...

..there he is again. So, this is all Jeremiah.

Right, right. Is it like a farm?

Oh, yeah. These are all farms, you see.

Yeah. He's the landlord?

He is, actually. A fairly substantial landowner.

The valuation books show that Jeremiah O'Mullan

owned more than 700 acres in the 1880s.

This made him one of the biggest Catholic landowners in the area.

Now, I have a surprise for you.

I'm glad. I love surprises!

Who do you think that is?

Oh, my Lord!

Well, certainly.

Wow! Is that Jeremiah?

-That's Jeremiah.

-Oh, my...

-Obviously, as a young man.

-Yeah.

And a looker. Look at that nose!

-It's been following me for centuries!

-Now you know.

-Wow, that's amazing!

-Isn't it?

-1860, 1850, something like that.

-Round about that, yes.

-Cravat.

-So, that's him when he was a young man.

-It's amazing.

There he is as an older man.

Same man, different time.

Ah, some years later.

Yes.

He'd grown a considerable beard there.

Oh, yes. That is a very good pony and trap.

-This is a quality horse.

-Yeah.

This is a quality piece of kit.

-All the livery.

-And all the livery's very good.

So, they are aspirational people.

Oh, yes.

They will drive down the road to

the church on a Sunday in something like that.

-Lord and Lady Muck!

-Oh, yes. I suppose so.

And that's the wife.

That's Elizabeth,

Mrs O'Mullan, Elizabeth O'Mullan. What do we know of her? Anything?

Oh, she's Elizabeth O'Kane.

-Is she now?

-Oh, she is.

That's her maiden name?

That's her maiden name, yes. She is an O'Kane.

Through several generations of his family,

Mark can lay claim to both O'Kane and O'Mullan ancestry.

Mark's great-great-grandmother Elizabeth's surname was O'Kane

until she married Jeremiah O'Mullan.

And their daughter, Mark's great-grandmother,

born Margaret O'Mullan, married John O'Kane.

Both surnames were extremely common.

There are so many Mullans and O'Kanes here

that in fact, you know,

the chances are he'll marry a Mullan or he might even...

Throw a stone and you'll hit one!

Yeah, he might even have married a Mullan. Never mind that,

-there's so many of them.

-Might have married himself!

They wouldn't be necessarily related.

-Yeah, not in a direct way.

-No.

-Brilliant.

So far, we haven't really shown you where in the country

Jeremiah would live.

We're in Belfast here,

and the O'Mullans and the O'Kanes, of course, they're quite...

A lot of them live in this area of County Londonderry.

And that area was once, where they live,

was once known as O'Cahan's Country.

O'Cahan is the Irish for O'Kane.

-It's mine!

-It's yours!

I'm going to plant a flag on it! O'Cahan?

-O'Cahan. That's the Irish. So, you'll be...

-King of Ireland.

I don't know if you can be the High King of Ireland

but you might get part of the way up.

-Those particular genes came from there.

-That's my realm.

-So, Jeremiah O'Mullan is obviously quite an unusual man.

-Yes, yes.

So, we should go in pursuit of him.

Oh, yes, and find out a bit more about him.

Go west, young man!

In this case, you're going to have to go west and slightly north-west.

-Yeah, go north-west, youngish man!

-Yes. Indeed, indeed. You are.

Brilliant. This is so exciting.

In the north of Ireland in the 1880s,

it was unusual for a Catholic to own land.

But Mark has confirmed that Jeremiah O'Mullan

was not only a landowner,

he owned hundreds of acres.

How he came by that, I don't know whether it was by inheritance

or whatever, so I'm heading to County Londonderry

to try and find out more about him.

Mark's come to the Guildhall in the City of Derry in Londonderry

to meet historian Jonathan Bardon.

Here he is.

Ooh, that's a magnificent photograph, isn't it?

Yes.

He looks a bit like you.

I should hope so. Jeremiah O'Mullan.

Would he have inherited that land from his own father?

Let's have a look at this survey carried out between 1848 and 1864.

There's that word again - Ashlamaduff.

And this is the main family holding in Ashlamaduff,

which was right in the heart of the mountainous country.

George O'Mullan, crossed out and replaced with Jeremiah.

We know that George O'Mullan was in fact Jeremiah's father.

The record shows that Jeremiah's father,

Mark's great-great-great-grandfather, George O'Mullan,

had occupied the family homestead at Ashlamaduff before his son

but unlike Jeremiah, George didn't own the land.

This is a Tithe Applotment Book.

I would say that this document indicates that George,

he's not a landowner at all, he's a tenant.

It's poor, arable land.

It's a pretty small amount of land so he's not particularly well-off.

Now our next one is...

it's a freehold lease.

"To Mr George Mullan. 1826."

An Indenture and this is George O'Mullan

and he is leasing land in a place called Glack.

It's certainly a mystery

when we find that Jeremiah is really a very substantial landowner...

Yeah.

..but his father, George...

-Was not.

-..clearly, is not.

How did that happen?

How did that happen? Are you telling me you don't know?

-I don't know.

-Oh, gosh!

I was waiting for an answer! Well, yeah.

So, George doesn't have very much.

No.

And then Jeremiah has quite a lot.

George O'Mullan was a tenant on two plots of land in the 1820s -

the family homestead at Ashlamaduff and farmland in nearby Glack.

This land had been under British control for more than 200 years.

It was in the Province of Ulster in the area

which today is Northern Ireland.

In the early 1600s, the English conquered the North of Ireland

and seized Ulster from the native Irish chieftains.

In 1609, King James I began what became known as the

Plantation of Ulster to bring the unruly Catholic Irish under control.

He decided that he wanted to calm this place down

by introducing good Protestant British.

The most difficult place to attract British settlers to

was O'Cahan's Country. It was the most Gaelic part of Ireland,

it was heavily wooded, it had wolves,

it had "wood-kerne" or bandits in those forests,

and so James approached the livery companies of London

and managed to persuade them

to involve themselves in planting this particular area.

The livery companies had developed from London's ancient guilds

such as carpenters, grocers and fishmongers.

They were made up of wealthy merchants, traders and craftsmen.

King James instructed them to colonise this part of Ulster.

The rule was they had to remove all of the native Irish from their land.

Only 10% of the land was left for the native Irish to keep.

It's sort of like the...

It's like an Indian reservation, isn't it,

or the Highland Clearances?

It's ethnic cleansing that's going on.

The livery companies failed to entice British Protestants

to territory they feared was hostile.

By George O'Mullan's time in the 1820s,

the London landlords had no option but to lease to Catholic tenants.

George rented his plot in the townland of Glack

from a livery company - the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers.

If we look at this contemporary description of Glack here,

dated 1835...

"There's not a single land holder at present in the townland

"of Glack of any other denomination than Roman Catholics.

"The reason assigned for this..."

Ooh!

"..singular instance..."

"..in the above parish is that the entire of Glack was formerly..."

-Ah...

-"Moss..."

"..and mountain, altogether..." Oh, you've got it there.

That's not fair!

THEY LAUGH

-I was doing very well.

-You were.

"..formerly moss and mountain, altogether uninhabited.

"The Catholics were driven up to the mountains of Glack to

"colonise its cold and barren surface."

-That's fantastic. So, where's Glack, geographically?

-Now...

That map is about 50 years older,

got it in about 1965.

But it does show the townland names, which is why

I like to hold on to it.

Right, Glack.

Now, if we can find the foot of Loughermore Mountain...

-..and you should be able to find Glack.

-There's Glack.

There's Glack. Don't forget, it's mountainy land.

-It was...

-Pretty remote.

-It's pretty remote.

-Pretty wild.

Mm.

Before the Plantation of Ulster,

the whole area would have been O'Cahan land,

and Lord O'Cahan, in his territory, he lorded it over.

Other Gaelic gentry beneath him would have been the O'Mullans.

Right. So, I'm gentry?

Just say this, I'm an Irish Time Lord!

That's all I need to know.

You are descended from an Irish Time Lord, you are a Time Lord, yes.

Or a lord, at least.

Cos those lords were, in earlier times, kings,

so the...certainly the head of the O'Mullan clan,

the head of the O'Cahan clan, would have been a king.

At one stage in Ireland in the early Christian times,

there were about 200 kings in Ireland.

-Too many.

-Too many.

-Let's narrow it down.

THEY LAUGH

Ancient Irish kings! That does the heart proud.

I'm deeply aware there are lots of O'Kanes and O'Mullans around here,

so I'll have to devise some sort of Kind Hearts and Coronets-type plan

to knock off all my relatives in order to claim the kingship.

But...I did want a murderer in the family

so maybe it's going to be me!

But the big mystery at the moment, more recent times,

is Jeremiah O'Mullan's father, George O'Mullan,

who is my great-great-great-grandfather,

was paying rent on a piece of poor, arable land

and then, as we've discovered, his son, Jeremiah...

..is then someone of considerable substance and land.

So, something has changed between father and son.

So, we're going to head to Glack now to see what we can find.

Historian Dr Heather Laird is joining Mark.

She's taking him onto the land that George rented.

So, Mark, here we are.

This is our stopping point.

Bleak, barren, cold Glack.

So, Mark, I know you've been hearing a little

bit about your ancestor, George O'Mullan,

and how this area relates to him.

-Glack.

-Glack, yes. The townland of Glack.

-The cold and barren.

-Yes.

Yes. Looks rather nice today.

I also have discovered that George was married

and his wife's name was Bridget O'Kane,

and I think O'Kane is a name that's come up already...

-Yes.

-..for you. George and Bridget had eight children,

so a substantial family, substantial-size family.

And, of course, as you can see, the land, it's very beautiful today

but it's not exactly the most productive of land.

So, that might raise a question in terms of how George

is sustaining his family and keeping his family.

So, what I've discovered is that George was not only leasing

land from The Fishmongers' Company,

he was also an employee of The Fishmongers' Company.

George's landlord, the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers,

used much of their land in Glack for large-scale cattle grazing.

This could put them in conflict with their local tenants,

renting small farms from them on the higher, less fertile ground

that was left over.

These subsistence farmers believed it was their ancient right

to move their own small herds down to better land

when their grass supplies ran low.

So, the absentee landlords employed locals like George O'Mullan

to protect their interests.

He was employed by The Fishmongers' Company as a land steward

and as a herdsman.

It's kind of like our modern-day equivalent of a farm manager.

And one of his roles would have been to collect rent from those

-who were...

-Oh, God!

THEY LAUGH

..those who were renting the land from The Fishmongers' Company.

Tensions between the locals and their London landlords were

running high when George O'Mullan worked as a land steward.

Population increases through the 1820s and '30s

made life more difficult for tenants, so they sometimes

resorted to intimidation and violence against the middlemen.

I have a document here that actually gives us a sense of just how

vulnerable somebody in George's position might be.

It relates to an incident that took place in neighbouring Fermanagh.

"In the newsletter of last Tuesday we stated that

"the Reverend Mr King of Corrard, County Fermanagh,

"had received a notice from Captain Rock, commanding him

"to discharge his steward, otherwise they would both be destroyed.

"In accordance with this notice, the Captain's men have commenced putting

"their threats into execution, as on the night of Tuesday the 10th inst.

"the house of Hewitt, the steward, was set on fire and consumed.

"The day after the burning, a notice was found, informing

"Mr King that this was the first visitation,

"and to remember that the second would be, 'Death, death, death!'

"Captain Rock." Gosh, this is fantastic!

So, who is Captain Rock?

Well, Captain Rock is not an individual, as such.

There isn't a centralised kind of agrarian organisation.

But what there is is a sort of persona.

So, any group of

subsistence farmers who felt that their livelihoods were being

impinged on could take on the persona of Captain Rock.

So, it's a sort of invented name for a movement, for a gang?

-Yes, yes.

-Captain Rock.

If the warning wasn't heeded, this could then escalate, so...

Did people die?

Yes, people died, property was damaged, people were attacked.

And, in fact, I have an example of a notice...

..that could be received.

"Take notice on pain of suffering

"the most excruciating torments of death.

"Any landlord or landlords' agents or under agents..."

-"On their perils..."

-"On their perils"?

-Yes.

"..are strictly forbidden to take distrain

"or impound any tenants' goods or chattels

"or any pound-keeper taking any man's cattle into his custody

"will undergo the same fate as above mentioned.

"I remain yours truly, Captain Rock."

Wow!

-"Excruciating torments of death"!

-It's great. The language is often

a mixture between kind of pseudo kind of legal language and also

-almost biblical...

-It is, yeah.

-..kind of Old Testament language.

-It's got also the feel of the Jack The Ripper letters.

-Yes.

And I actually have a document which suggests that George's job did,

in fact, lead him into a certain amount of danger.

And it's a document that was sent on the 1st August, 1827.

"George O'Mullan, the superintending herdsman who resides at Glack..."

-Here we are.

-Yeah.

-"..applied to the deputation to be assisted with money

"to enable him to build office houses, his former ones having been

"destroyed by some malicious mountaineers

"in revenge for his pounding their cattle

"when trespassing on the Company's lands."

So, what he's done is he's taken... Their cattle have been trespassing

and he's found them trespassing on the Company's land,

he's taken those cattle and he's taken them essentially into custody.

Right. "George O'Mullan has a salary of £20 a year for receiving

"the rents of the mountain pasturage

"and taking care of the cattle depasturing thereon."

-So...

-So, he'd lost his buildings to a revenge fire.

-He did.

It doesn't say what burnt but that's the most likely thing that happened

-to those buildings, was that they were burnt down.

-It is very, er...

I'm torn because...because, obviously,

your natural human sympathies

are with the malicious mountaineers

who are just struggling to -

literally struggling to exist up here.

And my instincts

would absolutely be against the Company.

So, er, it's...

morally ambiguous, to say the least.

Um, but also feeling

George had got a good job in a very difficult time.

He's in a difficult situation.

-Between Captain Rock and a hard place!

-I think exactly that!

SHE CHUCKLES

And also, as he was almost certainly related to everybody

on the mountain, he might have been very torn!

HE CHUCKLES

Well, clearly, the shadow of the Plantation is immense.

In George's time, it was an absolute fact of life.

They were living with something from two centuries before

which had totally upended the natural order of things.

I'm intrigued to know whether George O'Mullan,

who was in a very precarious situation in Glack,

felt at all ostracised by his community

and by the people who surrounded him.

Mark's in the heart of O'Cahan's country at the local museum

in the town of Garvagh.

He's meeting historian Dr Paddy McWilliams to look at

an unlikely source of information about the local Irish population

in George O'Mullan's time - the Ordnance Survey of Ireland.

-So, Mark, this is done on a scale of six inches to a mile.

-Right.

-Amazing level of detail.

-Amazing detail.

-But quite a bare landscape in a way.

-Yeah. There's Glack.

-There's Glack townland.

-Looks just like it did this morning.

-Yes.

-Which means?

-It's on "glack",

-means the "hollow" or the "recess".

-Right.

-Quite non-specific.

-Yes.

The British Ordnance Survey project of the 1820s and '30s

set out to map Ireland and record Irish place names,

including George O'Mullan's family homestead at Ashlamaduff.

And over here we have the townland of Ashlamaduff.

Ashlamaduff, yes, which keeps recurring.

Ashlamaduff. Your stress isn't in the right place. Ashlam-aduff.

-Ashlam-aduff.

-Ashlamaduff.

-Ashlamaduff. Right. Which means?

Which is "Ashlamaduff" - it's "bare black hill".

But to investigate the origins of place names, John O'Donovan,

one of the principal field workers of the Ordnance Survey, traversed,

I'd say, every nook and cranny of the country for a number of years.

And what we have here is a letter

written by John O'Donovan

to the head of the Ordnance Survey

detailing his experiences in this part of the world, 1834.

"Dear Sir, I have travelled through the parishes..."

-Er...several Irish names.

-Yes.

"..in search of Aborigines." Wow!

-He meant Irish speakers.

-Right.

"I passed through the wildest district I ever beheld

"in the townlands of Glack.

"I was at length directed to a Mr Mullan,

"Land Steward to Mr Sampson." So Mr Mullan, is that George O'Mullan?

-That's George.

-Oh, right.

-"He is a very intelligent man..."

-Naturally.

"..and has a general idea of the county.

"I spent the greater part of yesterday with him

"to get him to define their topographical words.

-"Tur."

-Hm-mm.

-"A talking place", maybe where people gathered to gossip.

-Yes.

-"Evish."

-Yes.

-Avish.

-Evish.

-"Soft grass, wild mountain pasture."

-Mm-hm.

So, your ancestor, through his meeting with O'Donovan,

was able to provide, what, more than a dozen

-little snippets of information...

-How wonderful.

..that John O'Donovan used.

So, your ancestor made an impression on O'Donovan.

He was a Land Steward, he sort of worked for the other side,

you might say, to a certain degree.

Yet, I don't think he lived at arm's length from the people

because I don't think a person would be able to be so imbued

and so aware of their origin

and of the living history around them

and the traditions and recollections of the county.

I think was certainly not at arm's length from the people

amongst whom he lived. No, a decent, decent sort.

Without his input, O'Donovan perhaps would have had more difficulty

in ascertaining the local townland names

which are still here to this day.

-And this one...

-Have a stab at that.

Well, I'll go round the houses cos it doesn't -

it won't sound at all like it looks.

-"Sissan"?

-"Sheskin".

-"Sheskin".

-"Sheskin".

Quag. A quaw. A quag, a shaking bog.

Yeah, I think that's short for quagmire.

Unlike perhaps in England or in Great Britain,

where things are written down,

history in Ireland was passed down primarily in an oral manner.

John O'Donovan's enquires

unearthed a lot of oral history that was about to disappear,

and he meandered into some wonderful tales.

George O'Mullan told a story to O'Donovan.

-Great. So, there's more...

-There's more indeed.

What have we got here?

"Mullan tells the following story of the fate of the O'Kanes." Oh, good.

As well as explaining local names,

George O'Mullan was a keeper of the family stories.

"He reached..."

He told O'Donovan a colourful and elaborate tale of distant ancestors

in O'Cahan's country.

"He drew his dagger and ran him through!" Exclamation mark.

I think the gist of it, Mark, is that the rightful O'Kane heir

was killed by a usurper, and he, in turn, met his comeuppance

at the hand of the followers of the rightful heir.

That's quite a yarn, isn't it? The fall of the O'Kanes.

The fall of the O'Kanes indeed. I'd be amazed if this was the only story

-that George knew. I can't believe it.

-Yeah, yeah.

And O'Donovan probably heard more but told this particular one because

of the intrigue and the skulduggery involved in it.

A modern seanachi would perhaps tell you more than I could.

-And what's that?

-Seanachi is the Irish word for "storyteller".

It appeals to me because it makes it feel like

there's storytelling in the blood.

I'm really taken by the fact that George O'Mullan was regarded

as something of a storyteller, a "seanachi".

So, I'm now going to try and meet the genuine article

and see if he can tell me a bit more about him.

Mark wants to know more family stories of the O'Kanes

and the O'Mullans that his great-great-great-grandfather

would have passed down.

-Hello, Bob.

-Mark.

-How are you?

-Very well, thank you.

-Welcome to Glenullin.

-Thank you.

You'll see a few headstones...

-Yeah, familiar names.

-..which are familiar names.

Mullan, Mullan, Mullan, O'Kane.

Mark's joined Bob Curran at St Joseph's Church

in the village of Glenullin.

Bob is a folklorist - as well as a storyteller.

People like George O'Mullan would have imbibed

the traditions of the area.

We're beginning to look at stories, myths, folklore

and bits and pieces of history,

all fused together to give the people a sense of belonging

and to give them their identity.

And I suppose they get more and more embroidered as generations pass?

Well, you see, these are oral stories, Mark,

and in order to remember the stories,

you had to have wonderful facts.

The more spectacular the story, the better they remembered it.

And in this area, you're surrounded by supernatural.

So, are there any famous stories that George would have known around

the supernatural that actually concerned the family, the clan?

-Well, Mark, I know you're very interested in vampires.

-Tends to be.

Yes. Now, the Irish for vampire

is "dearg-dul", the "red drinker".

And here is a book which might be of interest to you

and has a story in it which is connected to the O'Cahans,

which George O'Mullan would undoubtedly have known

-and may well have formed one of the strands..

-Of Dracula!

-..of Dracula.

-How brilliant!

So, you think Stoker would have known them?

Well, in this area,

the word "Droch-fhoula" means "bad blood".

-No!

-Yes.

-THEY LAUGH

-That's too good!

-Where am I looking?

-You're looking, I think, about Page 64.

"The Tale of Abhartach."

-Abhartach.

-Abhartach.

"The legend comes from the townland of Slaghtaverty

"near the town of Garvagh in North Derry, which, though it is

"only a few miles from the town, is still a fairly isolated spot.

"It lies in the Glenullin Valley and is cut off on three sides

"by the beginning of the Sperrins mountain range.

"In the fifth and sixth centuries, this valley

"was a patchwork of tiny kingdoms,

"each ruled by individual kings

"who are little more than local warlords."

-So, this vampire story concerns an O'Kane?

-It does, yeah.

It would have been a story known to my

-great-great-great-grandfather O'Mullan?

-Yeah.

-And Slaghtaverty is still there?

-You can go and have a look at it.

Before the sun goes down!

I would go there pretty quick!

THEY LAUGH

Now, whatever you do, Mark,

-don't try to lift the stone or the vampire will get out again.

-OK.

"Those under the harsh rulership of Abhartach wished to get rid of him.

"But because of his dark powers,

"they were too frightened to attack him themselves.

"So, they hired another chieftain called Cathan..."

or "Cathain" - O'Kane -

"..to come and kill him for them, which he did, slaying Abhartach

"and burying him standing up -

"a befitting burial for an Irish chieftain.

"The next day, however, Abhartach was back

"demanding a basin filled with blood from the wrists of his subjects.

"'In order,' says the legend, 'to sustain his vile corpse.'

"Puzzled, Cathan went to a holy man and asked him the reason.

"The holy man thought for a moment.

"'The evil Abhartach is not dead,' he replied at length.

"'But he is in a state of suspension due to his dark arts.

"'He has become one of the neamh-mairbh

"'and cannot, therefore, be killed.

"'But he can be prevented from rising again.

"'In order to do this,' the hermit told him,

"'Cathan must slay Abhartach with a sword made of yew wood,

"'he must bury him upside down,

"'he must surround the gravesite with thorns,

"'and he must place a great stone

"'directly above the spot where the vampire lay.'

"The grave is still there.

"It is said that the thorns that Cathan placed around the site

"have grown together into a thorn tree

"that grows above the remnants of the sepulchre."

"Even today, local people will not approach the field after nightfall."

ANIMAL HOWLS

Which, looking at the state of the sun,

means that we should probably get out of here!

George O'Mullan was a brilliant storyteller,

so I don't want to over-romanticise it,

but it sort of feels like maybe that's where I get it from.

Somehow, there's a little slant towards all that

which comes from being of this stock way, way, way back.

I'd like to think so.

That might be just me romanticising, I don't know. Might be just cos

I spent too much time watching horror films as a child.

But it's... It feels right, it feels like it's coming from somewhere

and I rather like that.

And all that brilliant stuff, you can feel it, you know,

still feels possible on a dark night like this,

in the middle of Northern Ireland.

Clearly, we know from his storytelling that George was

very aware and very proud of his roots,

but, um, his story is very up and down, isn't it?

George O'Mullan had a job as a Land Steward

for the British Landlords, the Company of Fishmongers,

but like his neighbours, he was also a tenant farmer

renting poor land at Glack,

as well as the homestead, Ashlamaduff.

Mark wants to know what became of George and his family,

and get to the bottom of how his son, Jeremiah,

came to own such a vast amount of land.

I'm off now to Drumcovitt House

which is a Georgian house originally owned by the Company Of Fishmongers,

of whom we've heard a lot,

to meet a historian called Olwen Purdue.

Olwen has been searching the livery company's records

for more information about George.

The first, from 1836.

You might like to have a look at this document

from the Fishmongers' Company.

"We received a petition of George O'Mullan, Glack,

"stating that in consequence of the extreme severity of the last winter

"he had lost 15 head of black cattle and four horses,

"and soliciting a loan of £100 at 5% to enable him

"to continue his improvements and to bring more land into cultivation,

"which sum he would repay at the end of five years

"or by yearly instalments as the court may please direct."

He's taking out quite a significant loan here and promising to repay it.

-That's a lot of money.

-It was a big, big investment.

-Yeah.

As well as the grazing, would there have been crops?

He would have been trying to grow potatoes,

I would have imagined, as well. I mean, ultimately, at this stage,

potatoes were the bulk of the population, were the staple diet.

-When was the famine?

-Famine started in 1845.

So, it would... I mean, he didn't know this,

but it's getting very close to the big crash, isn't it?

George O'Mullan was heavily in debt when the famine hit.

For seven years after a blight wiped out the potato crop in 1845,

the Great Famine devastated Ireland.

Nearly a million people died from starvation and disease,

contributing to a mass exodus from the island.

The kind of land that George was trying to cultivate,

the famine hit very hard indeed

and continued, really, until 1850, 1851.

There was an agricultural depression at the time, as well,

so things were really, really hard across the board.

So, out of five sons of George, four of them migrated,

two to New York and we think two to Australia,

and leaving Jeremiah, the fifth son, here at home with his father.

That's interesting. I wonder why he chose to stay behind.

You do suspect that this was something that was very important

to George, to have one son with him, presumably helping him out.

So, I think for Jeremiah to stay,

to carry on that family presence here was very important.

So, you might want to now look at this next document, 1852.

"The Deputation much regretted to find that the Company's old tenant,

"George O'Mullan, had been dispossessed

"of his holding in Glack." Hard times.

After putting all that effort and all that money in,

he's basically just chucked out on his ear.

And would that be basically because obviously he was...

He would have been increasingly behind with his payments

and that it never really... And then the famine hit and it was all blown?

-Absolutely.

-And it also it says here:

"His age being greatly against his so doing..."

So, he was clearly too old to make a fresh start.

There is a mystery here

because we know Jeremiah, who stayed behind, we now know...

-in the 1880s. he is listed as having quite a lot of land.

-Yeah.

So, his fortunes certainly improve, if not his father's.

Do we know anything about that?

This affidavit might actually start to give you some clues

as to what happened to Jeremiah.

This is a bit later.

This is 1876.

So, this is...an affidavit.

"Jeremiah O'Mullan, the only other son of the said George O'Mullan

"and Bridget, his wife,

"and the brother of the said Bernard O'Mullan,

"and that since his father's death about 13 years ago

"he has always resided in,

"and now resides in, Ashlamaduff aforesaid in said county."

Mark's great-great-great-grandfather,

George O'Mullan, died at Ashlamaduff around 1861.

Jeremiah, the only son remaining in Ireland,

stayed on at the homestead, still just a tenant.

We have to ask why was this affidavit needed?

This letter might help shed some light on the mystery.

-"August 24th, 1875."

-This is a letter.

"Mr Jeremiah O'Mullan.

"Dear Sir, a letter from Messrs Fitzharding & Son

"of New South Wales,

"solicitors for the executors of your brother Bernard O'Mullan.

"Your brother died with the considerable sum estimated at

"£20,000 and that by his will he bequeathed the principal part of it

"to his brothers George Vaughn, Neil Arthur,

"yourself and John in equal shares.

"The object of the communication is to obtain

"the address of yourself and brothers in this country."

Oh, my God! So, it's an inheritance!

That would have been £5,000 then,

which would be about £400,000 today.

-It's a fortune.

-It is a fortune. It's a lot of money.

So, Bernard has done very well in Australia.

-Do we know what he was doing?

-He was a grazier.

-Like his dad.

-Like his dad.

-Wow!

Gosh, that's wonderful.

So, out of this adversity something has come.

We know from the Public Records Office Jeremiah invested a lot of it

in land himself cos he has hundreds of acres.

So, finally...

"An Indenture of Conveyance,

"1891, made between the Corporation of Master and Wardens

"and Brother and Sisters of the Guild of Fraternity

"of Corpus Christi of Skinners of London, and Jeremiah O'Mullan

"of Ashlamaduff, Garvagh, in County Londonderry, farmer,

"therein after called the Purchaser of the third part."

And that is Ashlamaduff.

-So, he bought it.

-He's bought it.

Well, well.

Rather than investing in rich arable land somewhere else

-in the country, he's basically bought home.

-He has. Yeah.

It shows the deep commitment he had to home.

This was a really important thing for him to do.

-To be able to actually own the land...

-Yeah.

-..was really something.

-And own their clan land, really.

I mean, going back to the O'Cahans and everything,

this is their territory.

You can imagine him wishing that his father had lived to see it

cos it's one of those things, isn't it?

-"If my dad could see me now."

-He'd be so proud.

-He'd be so proud.

Is it still mine?

Well, actually, it is still owned by a member of your family,

a lady called Betty Ann McNicholl

who lives just down the road in Dungiven,

-and the property itself isn't far away.

-Wow!

-Well, that's fantastic.

-So, it's still in the family.

This whole situation is like a western, I think -

the grazing of the cattle, the pushing out of the indigenous people

onto the poor land.

It's really interesting.

And this is a bit like a Native American

getting a little bit of Manhattan back. I'm going to write a western,

that's what I'm going to do, and film it here.

It is a brilliant story.

"The land is them, they are the land."

That's the tag line of the film, by the way!

Mark's in the town of Dungiven to pick up his distant cousin,

Betty Ann McNicholl.

Betty Ann is Jeremiah O'Mullan's great-granddaughter,

one generation closer to him than Mark.

-Pleasure to meet you, Mark.

-Pleased to meet you.

-Are you coming in,

-maybe for a cup of tea?

-Yes. Yes. As long as there's a cup of tea.

-This is him...

-Ah, my goodness.

..in the 1850s.

Aye, my Uncle Jerry's very like him.

We always talk about the O'Kane nose,

my Uncle Pat has it, my mum had this nose...

-Ah, yes.

-..but I think it's an O'Mullan nose now.

And believe it or not, my sons have it.

-So, there we are.

-I'm proud of it now! I used to hate it!

THEY LAUGH

I'll show you this photograph of my grandfather.

Now, he'd be a son of Jeremiah.

This was in the boat coming home from America, the SS America.

And that's my grandfather, James O'Mullan, a son of Jeremiah,

and a brother of great-aunt Margaret.

-Great-grandmother.

-Great-grandmother.

-And that's myself.

-Huh-huh.

-That's my brother and my mother.

So, you were born in America?

I was born in Long Island, New York.

You could run for President!

I still have my American passport, though.

And I've also here photographs of your two aunts,

Winifred and Rose, your great-aunts, I should say.

-Your mother was Winifred.

-My mother was Winifred, yeah. Winifred Rose.

-She was named after...

-Winifred Rose.

-Oh, for goodness' sake, named after the two of them.

-Mm.

Isn't that lovely? When did your mother die?

-2003.

-2003, uh-huh.

-You have a look of my mum, as well.

-Is that right?

-You do, yeah.

THEY CHUCKLE

Betty Ann grew up at Ashlamaduff from her early teens.

She now rents the land to cousins - Mullans - who still farm it.

So, this is it, then.

-This is the homestead.

-The old homestead.

-That's right.

-Ashlamaduff.

-Ashlamaduff. Happy memories.

So, do you remember what you what you thought

-when you first saw it after coming from America?

-Not really.

I just remember getting out of the car,

up at the door and all the people being there...

And they had a big ceili house,

and plenty of laughing and singing and dancing.

-A welcoming committee, was it?

-A welcoming committee.

-Yeah.

-All the neighbours and cousins had all arrived to meet us.

-Right.

-Uh-huh.

-Well, there it is.

-It was home to me.

-Yeah, mm.

We had our rosary every night down on the cement floor

and that was...the way it was.

It's very, er...

It's very it's striking that I think that there's so much travel,

-lots of people in the family going to Australia and America...

-Yes.

-..but there's the sense of wanting to come home...

-Oh, yes.

-..is incredibly strong, isn't it?

-Aye.

And there's a pull, there's always the pull to your homeland, you know?

There's something about this here,

of course, because your grandfathers

and your great-grandfathers...

It's where your heart lies, just, you know?

And it's still in the family, you've kept it going.

Still kept it going, please God, we will as long as we can, whatever.

Just only time will tell.

-Now, in we go.

-Watch your step, watch your step.

-Uh-huh.

There we are.

Well, when I lived here, that's the fireplace,

-there was a big fire burning there with our kitchen table there.

-Yeah.

That was all those years ago.

-It's a shame to see it like this, isn't it?

-Aye.

It's over 50 years, you know, since anybody lived here.

-And there we are.

-Extraordinary. It is.

-Mm-hm.

Several generations in here.

-I'm going to see if I can get round the side.

-OK, Mark.

Like his father, George, before him,

Jeremiah O'Mullan died here

at Ashlamaduff in 1908. He was 75.

It's wonderful to find something as tangible as this.

As a homestead, I just really can't get over how bleak it is.

It's such tough country.

The choice to live here,

in such a landscape, it's moving, really.

I like him for doing it.

Hm.

I should really take a little bit back.

HE CHUCKLES

Build something around it.

Living with the legends and the history of the O'Mullans

and the O'Kanes, and having once been kings in ancient times,

is a very strong sense of ownership and dispossession

and then a rightful restoration.

To have been bought by Jeremiah,

almost certainly lived in by George O'Mullan,

sort of brings the whole story full circle.

I'm very heartened to know it's still in the O'Mullan family.

And by dint of that, somehow the O'Kanes, too,

as we're all intertwined.

I have loved every minute of this.

I don't want to stop.

I'm definitely coming back,

at the head of an army, to reclaim my rightful kingdom.