My name is John Goodfellow. I was born in 1941 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where I still live.
I commenced work in 1961 as a trainee computer programmer, and have remained in the computer business (profession ?) since then. I have been a Member of the British Computer Society (MBCS) since 1972 and am a Chartered IT Practitioner (CITP). I am also qualified as a statistician, although I have forgotten most of my statistical theory through lack of use. I currently work as a self-employed computer consultant, with a small practice in my local area.
My grandparents' names were Goodfellow, Charleton, O'Kane and McGroarty, which is the least common of the four names.
My late mother was a McGroarty with family connections to Keelogs, Inver, Co. Donegal - a very small area from which most people of the McGroarty name seem to originate.
When I first began, belatedly, to take an interest in my family history, I decided in my innocence to trace this line first, thinking that it would simply be a matter of going on-line and finding everything I needed all nicely wrapped up and presented without any great effort on my part. Oops !! It has actually proved very difficult and quite time-consuming.
My great-grandfather was BERNARD McGROARTY, born c1856 in Co Donegal. Bernard became a policeman in the RIC (Royal Irish Constabulary) in 1876 and was posted to County Antrim as it was not permitted for a man to serve in his home county.
At that time Ireland had not been partitioned and was under British rule. For some years prior to this the constabulary had been unpopular among the ordinary people, often being seen as the tools of oppressive authority under the landlord system. However around about this time, a number of McGroartys joined up, so it is to be assumed that the organisation was becoming more acceptable.
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This information was supplied by the Royal Ulster Constabulary Historical Society.
The Constabulary Service Register, which is all that survives in the way of personnel information, was a copy register maintained and held at the Inspector General's office in Dublin Castle and records the details on individuals as only single line entries. Only counties are given as it would have been of little interest to the IG's office where a man was posted in a county. It was sufficient for these to be recorded to ensure that he did not serve in his home county or that of his wife.
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Bernard married Elizabeth Cunningham in Belfast in 1886 and was transferred to Banbridge, Co Down, where he served until the end of 1901.
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He had three sons that I know of - Joseph, William (Billy) and Philip. It is possible that he had another son called Patrick, who left Ireland as a young man and then returned in the 1950s. Joseph died, aged 20, in action in Europe in the first World War.
In Memory of
Lance Corporal JOSEPH McGROARTY
15281, 7th/8th Bn., Royal Irish Fusiliers
who died age 20 on 21 July 1917
Born Banbridge, Co. Down.
Son of Bernard and Elizabeth McGroarty, of 55 Gracehill St., Belfast.
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Remembered with honour
MENDINGHEM MILITARY CEMETERY
Commemorated in perpetuity by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
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Philip and Billy both married and settled in Belfast, and Bernard joined them after the death of his wife. He lived with Philip until his death c1928 and is believed to be buried with his wife in Banbridge.
Bernard's son PHILIP, probably born in Banbridge, Co Down in 1900, was my grandfather. He married Margaret (Maggie) O'Kane, who came originally from Randalstown in Co Antrim. Margaret's mother had died at a young age and her father had re-married. We believe that Margaret then came to live with relatives in Belfast.
Philip died in 1948 and Margaret in 1997. They had 4 children - Mary, Elizabeth, Margaret and Bernard.
Their oldest daughter MARY, born in Belfast in 1921, was my mother. In 1940 she married Bernard (Barney) Goodfellow b.1919 and they had 7 children (one of whom died in childhood). I am the oldest. My father died in 1983 and my mother in 1999.