Amy Bellew is one of more than 70 million people worldwide who can claim Irish ancestry. On her first visit to the Emerald Isle she celebrated a heritage that went back to the 12th century.

 

There seemed to be some confusion over the distance to the land of our forefathers, writes Amy Bellew.

We weren’t far off, parked by an ancient stone bridge that crosses the sparkling River Nanny, looking at two signposts, each with differing information. We decided that if we took the winding lanes it would be 3km or if we walked straight across the fields it would reduce the distance to Bellewstown.

Well, we had to find a good excuse for the puzzle, especially as we had suddenly come over all proud of our Irish heritage. In England, the name is unusual but here we were 20 miles north of Dublin and my father, brother and I found our surname all over every signpost and property like a rash.

The Bellews’ tour to County Meath had only come about after a chance conversation in the pub one Sunday lunchtime when a friend, who likes a bet on the horses, asked me whether I knew the Bellewstown racecourse in Ireland.

I hadn’t even heard of it, let alone know it, but the question was enough to make me curious and a quick search on Google Maps brought up Bellewstown, complete with racecourse, on the Hill of Crockafotha.

My brother Keoghan took an Irish name but other than that I never knew much about our family. Our father, Tony (not the famous boxer from Liverpool!) was one of six children who never met any of his Irish relatives.

In the post-Second World War years my father’s parents lived ‘hand-to-mouth’ and before the children were up their Irish father, Thomas, was already at work and spent every hour of daylight grafting as a plasterer to feed his growing family. Thomas died in 1980, two years before I was born.

“Your grandfather always told me County Meath was one of the most beautiful places in the world,” said my father when I suggested a Bellews-on-Tour adventure to Ireland. He did not take much persuading.

Once we were on the plane to Dublin his memories began to flood back: “My father talked fondly of his sisters and brother, a priest in New York, but otherwise Ireland was not part of our lives. There was never the time or cash to take half a dozen kids to see his birthplace in Carrickmacross.

“I had always wanted to see his hometown but it all just faded away.”

We made straight for the National Archives in Dublin with what scant information we had about our family. The archivist was immediately familiar with our name – the Bellews were among the first Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland, tracing their descent from Roger de Bellew who came to Ireland with Henry II in the 12th century.

How about that? We had been in the country for under an hour and we had some real history, possibly even a pedigree, to unravel.

And did we know Bellew means ‘beautiful water’? The name derived from the French name de Belle Eau and later changed to Belleau, then eventually Bellew, pronounced bell-yew. No, we hadn’t known that either but we liked the ring of beautiful water!

The information kept on coming, mainly from a 2004 academic paper by Seamus Bellew, from Dundalk, who had researched the family and its coats of arms over 30 years.

The Bellews were very much landed gentry until the 17th century when they were kicked off their vast tracts of land and transplanted to Connacht, during the Cromwellian Settlement.

Many Bellews eventually came back after the Restoration of Charles II, while others stayed in the West of Ireland. Seamus’s research explains why there are two main areas in Ireland where the name Bellew is found. Many Bellews fought on King James’s side at the Battle of the Boyne and John Bellew, according to an inscription on his grave, was ‘shot in the belly’ at Aughrim in 1691.

Our heads were spinning as we left the archives armed with a copy of Seamus’s work, website addresses and genealogy links.

It had seemed only right to stop for a Guinness before making our way to Bellewstown. We mulled over our new discoveries and read up on Facebook that the summer horse racing tradition on the one mile, one furlong left-handed course goes back to August 1726, when it featured in the Dublin Gazette.

For a family with no experience in ancestral research we were finding information coming from every corner and we had not even started on more recent history.

Bellewstown, we discovered, owes its origins to Sir John Bellew who lived there in the 1500s, on land granted to him by the English Crown. He was a direct descendent of Roger de Bellew.

To us it was a rural idyll, still primarily farmland with a scattering of houses, a school and a church, the Bellewstown Inn opposite the racecourse, and an impressive 18-hole golf course.

“If I was going to create a village, this would be it,” said Keoghan, with growing delusions of grandeur.

On the off-chance we gave Seamus Bellew a call. He arranges The Bellew Gathering every other year and has even started a DNA programme to work out strands of the family.

He was happy to point us in the direction of more Bellew places of interest: “While you are in the Drogheda area you will be able to see the Bellew name inscribed on highly decorated tombs and marriage stones on several buildings and bridges. The coat arms is on Barmeath Castle and another tomb at St Nicholas’ Church in Dundalk is worth visiting.

“These all mark t he important marriages and family alliances and point to importance of the Bellew family and their standing in the community.”

In one weekend we were not going to find them all but Seamus’s description of Sir John Bellew’s altar tomb and a marriage stone at St Mary’s Church, in Duleek, caught our imagination.

When we discovered St Mary’s was the first stone church in Ireland, built around the 12th century, there was a collective silence. The roof of the grey stone building had long gone, but many of the walls and arches had stood the test of time.

In the middle of the church ruins was a huge altar tomb with Sir John Bellew’s name inscribed on the top and it sides carved with delicate foliage, shields, angels and saints. We also made out the Bellew coat of arms, which looks like a lattice apple pie, with the motto Tout D’en Haut meaning ‘all from above’.

A marriage stone on the east wall was not only intact but in excellent condition, recording Sir John’s marriage to Ismay Nugent. Romantic or a display of a conceit, we didn’t care.

The six million dollar question was – were we actually true descendants of the original Bellew line?

Would my father want to take part in the DNA project that goes back 10 generations?

That was going to take more than two days in Ireland to answer.

But we’ll be back for The Bellew Gathering in 2015 and it will not be just a flying visit. Next time we will spend more time exploring the wonderful countryside, stopping off at the friendly pubs and visiting more of the Bellew castles and monuments. Perhaps by then we will know exactly whether we come from Roger de Bellew’s line. Wow!

Factfile: Visits to the National Archives must be booked at www.nationalarchives.ie Amy Bellew flew with Aer Lingus to Dublin www.aerlingus.com The D Hotel, at Drogheda, is well-placed for exploring County Meath www.thedhotel.com Bellew family inquiries to Seamus Bellew – seamus.bellew@dkit.ie