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Ken Barber's avatar

Interesting. My ancestors had a large estate in Athlone a few hundred years ago.

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Paola Bassanese's avatar

Tell me more! What did they do and which area did they live in?

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Ken Barber's avatar

The name was Lyster. Perhaps you know where the estate was?

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Paola Bassanese's avatar

Mmh not personally but here's what I found on Google: "The Lyster estate was in the parishes of Cam, Kiltoom and Taghmaconnell, barony of Athlone, county Roscommon." There's also a building called Lyster House in Athlone built in 1820 that was first a distillery, then a school and currently an academy teaching English as a foreign language. Fascinating! Did your ancestors own a distillery?

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Ken Barber's avatar

OK, I dug the Lyster Pedigree out of my archives and discovered — I made a mistake!

They weren’t in Athlone. They were in Athleague.

Still in County Roscommon though.

The distillery was, no doubt, started by a distant relative but there’s nothing about that in the family history that I have.

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Paola Bassanese's avatar

Oh, I see! No free booze for you, then!

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