1989

Note: This account was written by Betty Seage (born Joan Eva Roff, 1924-2014) after her return to Australia in 1989 from a trip she and her family undertook to the Limerick region of Ireland. That trip was in search of the ancestral home of the Seage family who had migrated to Bathurst, NSW in the mid-19th century.

The search was focussed on Curraghbridge (Curragh Bridge), near Limerick, from where the founder of the Seage family in Australia, John S Sage (1791-1868) hailed.

Below is Betty's account, in her own inimitable writing style, but with minor editing and some explanatory notes [in square brackets]. Headings have also been added for ease of reference.

You can read Betty's account as originally written and illustrated with her photographs here.

The Arrival in Ireland

Early in April 1989 one branch of the Seage family (Ken, Betty, Martin and friend Jenny) set sail from Wales on the ship St. Brendan for Ireland. It was a smooth crossing and after a good night’s sleep at a Bed and Breakfast [B&B] along the route, we sallied forth next morning to attack Limerick.

Due to rain in the vicinity of Waterford we improved the shining hour with a conducted tour of the Waterford Factory. How sad it is that all those beautiful seconds are smashed (80% recycled we are told) and never offered to the general public. Said Waterford tour was very timely as unknown to us, the world outside was acting up very ornery --- the St. Brendan had been cancelled and gales, snow and rain blazed the trail we were about to take. Stopping at the odd little Inn here and there with nothing but a light drizzle to mar our progress, we could scarcely believe there had been such devastating weather in each area. Owing to these odd little Inns here and there, we didn't reach Limerick till late afternoon and headed for the old stamping ground finding a B&B in Adare.

Starting the search for the home of the Bathurst Seage family

Irish people are delightful but terribly vague with instructions or directions. With the help of a hefty B & B breakfast we located Adare Parish as mid-week Mass was about to commence. Adare did not appear to have anything to do with us so we sneaked in to enquire the whereabouts of Cappagh or Stonehall --- funny how you invariably strike a person hard of hearing when you' retrying to whisper and are the cynosure of all eyes.

This elderly Parish Priest was a leprechaun in disguise and would have helped us if he could out hadn't the faintest idea how –-- doubt if any pesky Australian Ancestor Hunters had approached him before and why on earth did we want to know anyway? To make matters worse we were nomads between B&Bs, with no fixed abode for the taking to phone calls which he obviously considered somewhat suspect. But it was arranged that we would ring at midday the following day and he would see if her had any records of Burials in his Presbytery.

It was then time to again visit the Here & There Inn where Mine Host gave us directions to a couple of disused cemeteries and the Kilcornan Church, adding that the Parish Priest was a way for the day. The Innkeeper was quite interesting with his bits of history, declaring the Irish to have given the most difficult pronunciation of their names to the English as their only means of defence.

We tracked down a couple of disused cemeteries where our only find was a skull. One imagines a skull found at Rookwood [a major cemetery in Sydney, Australia] would create a small stir --not there…..” must have fallen out of a tomb……!” At the second cemetery Ken found a mud hole that brought him to his knees requiring a complete on the spot change while his family fell about.

Brendan Seage at the bridge leading to historic Curraghbridge House in 1997 while retracing the 1989 visit of his parents and brother, Martin.

Curraghbridge and Limerick

The most interesting find that day was Curraghbridge, as close as we could get to the Seage origins and possibly very close to the actual farm [of the Bathurst Seages]. As some roads are merely lanes and one is told to “take a right after the black stone” the right is invariably wrong. One such turn was private property and we discovered after a few minutes drive the familiar yellow sign….”Kangaroos 14km…”. We wondered whether the owner himself had souvenired it on a visit to Oz [Australia].

The Treaty of Limerick between King William and King James II was signed on this "treaty stone" in 1691.  Under its civil articles, Jacobites who remained in Ireland were to be left in peace as long as they pledged allegiance to King William. &… — The **Treaty of Limerick** between King William and King James II was signed on this "treaty stone" in 1691. Under its civil articles, Jacobites who remained in Ireland were to be left in peace as long as they pledged allegiance to King William. But despite the provisions of the Treaty, penal laws came in a few years later under which Irish Catholics were persecuted. As a result Limerick came to be known as the "City of the Violated Treaty"

Once cleaned up and comforted at the Inn, we headed for busy Limerick City, the “City of the Violated Treaty”, a postcard of which Monica nee Seage [a great great grand-daughter of John S Sage, through his sone Patrick Joseph Seage 1838-1908] sent us a few years ago --- [we] didn't dream we would photograph the actual stone --- and the fast flowing Shannon [River].

The Search for Seages Continues

Martin had teed up a Seage in the phone book, the only one to whose residence we had been invited so it was up to O'Brien’s Bridge and into the tip of Clare and Tipperary [we went], climbing for several miles.

[Local residents] Elsie and Jim Sage have a dairy farm way up in Killaloe with a view of the whole world. Jim and his young sons were late getting back from milking and we didn’t spend as much time with him as we would have liked. He told us there had been a family of Sage in the vicinity years before who disappeared without trace; secondly that a Research Society stated the Sage name could have started out as "Savage" as the lrish don't pronounce their 'V' and after reading Debretts’ information sheet [in 1981 Betty had commissioned research company Debrett to investigate the Seage and her own Roff families] we believed we should concentrate on the Arlington area. Elsie had told us there had been a James Sage for several generations and we assumed she meant in the Clare/Tipperary Region. She asked us to ring her Kensington-based cousin. This [cousin] Fr. McMahon was of the opinion, after a visit to Ireland in the [19]60s , that Jim [James Seage] came from the North.

A cursory glance through Origins of Surnames at Blarney Castle turned up the fact that Sages came from England in the 12th Century – to the North [of Ireland] - and wended their way down South – and could have been Savages! [see also the Postscript --- not part of Betty's original article --- for additional, more recent, information on the origins of the Seage name.]

One cannot hasten in Ireland - information is gained very slowly and painfully. We had found the Kilcornan Church (formerly Stonehall) where we photographed the Stations [of the Cross] containing the dedication to Fr. Foley. Being the Parish Priest for 23 years before his death in 1849, he no doubt married, baptised and buried any Sages in question. We also found the Presbytery with nobody home so had no choice but to stay another night around Curraghbridge and hope to catch the Parish Priest in the morning.

Well, that we did in the person of Father Paddy Bowen - no relation to us, being born and bred in Cork --- a charming young Priest with stacks of trophies for golf and who raised cattle but who had been away the day before visiting an orthopaedic specialist for hand that can no longer hold a golf stick or manage cattle. He was running late for a class at school and we delayed him, wishing we could have another hour with the record book which he had to shoot us to retrieve. He mentioned phoning John Nash who was virtually the historian of the area and would know exactly where the Sage farm once stood. He even tried to ring John Nash who wasn’t in the phone book but declared he was “only couple of minutes away”. We'd been told by the Innkeeper the previous evening that “old Mrs. Kennedy” knew everything about everybody in the region and was only a couple of minutes away. What seemed hours later and asking the only two people we happened to encounter we found old Mrs. Kennedy. Sage Who????

The Baptismal Book Fr. Paddy produced, the only one he appeared to have, had been updated by the unemployed young people and supposedly in alphabetical order, contained the following Sage births:

Maria (not Marian as Debretts [in their 1981 Report on the Seage and Roff families prepared for Betty Seage] had indicated) and John 2/11/1834
Patrick 24/2/1838, sponsors John and Margaret Griffin
James 10/9/1840, sponsors Thos. Purcel and Maria Griffin
Bridget 27/12/1845, sponsors Dennis Murphy & Bridget Bridgeman.

No mention was made of Elizabeth Seage [eldest daughter of John S Sage], who married Martin Bowen, or [her brother] Thomas but on 20/5/1843, the year of Thomas Sage’s birth, there was an entry for "Thomas Griffin" whose parents were John and Joanne Sage and sponsors Richard Burke and Jna[?] Sage which made us wonder, after the book had been dragged from our grasp whether the unemployed young people got themselves mixed up - and could the same thing have happened to [the Baptismal Book entry for] Elizabeth.

Thanks to Martin's sharp eyes flicking through the book, we found two entries of interest:

Birth of Catherine Goggin 12/11/1826; Parents Thomas Goggin and Elizabeth SAGE; Sponsors……..and Maria Walsh
Birth of Thomas Goggin 26/10/1829; Parents Thomas Goggin and Elizabeth SAGE; Sponsors Michael Bourke and Hana Hayes

As the records did not start till 1825 there could have been earlier Goggin births, so the Goggin and Sage who had the land holding at Ballynamona in 1825 must have been brothers-in-law and some Goggins did come to Australia.

Father Paddy saw us on our way charmingly scorning any offer to pay for the info. Recently we sent him a small donation to the Society for the Prevention of Australian Ancestor Hunters and mentioned the Thomas Griffin mystery – but we’re not holding our breadth.

Martin was conscious of his promise to ring Fr. Bouke at midday but at each phone we encountered the number was engaged. He finally spoke to Fr. Bourke’s cousin who declared that all the records were at Kilcornan parish so that was --- where the death and marriage records are we know not.

By the this time we were so far away from where John Nash might have been we thought about our experience with Mrs. Kennedy and decided to press on. So we’ll die wondering whether John Nash had the exact location [of the Bathurst Sage’s farm] or not.

The surroundings were all very green and lush with no sign of poverty - no sign of people for that matter. Those who ran the Bed and Breakfast Farms worried about job opportunities for their children but nobody looked underfed or down and out or short of petrol - we didn't investigate Dublin where unemployment, drugs and poverty obviously exist.

Ken and Martin had 9 holes of golf at Dooks in the Ring of Kerry while Jenny and I brought up the rear giving advice. We found Ireland incredibly beautiful during our 8-day stay as we'd taken sun to places that barely knew of its existence. That day at Dooks, mere mortals could be forgiven for thinking they had died and opened their eyes in Paradise.

We returned to the Big Wet, to nesting mice and cockroaches, 8-week old mould and an aroma reminiscent of Hong Kong but be it ever so aromatic, there’s no place like home. Furthermore, despite Ireland’s possible likeness to Paradise, Ken gives daily thanks that his great grandparents decided to migrate to Australia.

Postscript on the Origins of the surname "Seage"

This unusual and interesting name recorded in the spellings of Sigg, Siggs, Segges, Segge, Seage, Siege, and no doubt others, comes from England. But it is Norse Viking pre 8th century origins.

The derivation is from the personal name 'Sigegor', which broadly translates as 'victory-spear', and is a good example of the double or sometimes triple, element names so popular in the period. These names are built around the beliefs in religion, valour and success, and were probably necessary to prop up society, at a time when after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, as in the 20th century, the underpinnings of civilisation were removed.

The early recordings of this name include such examples as 'Sigga' in the Danelaw Rolls of Lincoln in the year 1162, and Sigge of Anemere in the Hundred Rolls of Norfolk in 1275. John Sygges is recorded in Suffolk in 1524, and Colet Sege at St Margaret Moses, London, on August 7th 1558. John Siege was christened at St Martins in the Field, Westminster, on October 10th 1713, and Richard Seage was a witness at St Giles Cripplegate, London, on August 28th 1808.

The name has also provided the suffix for such names as Sigfrid, Sigward and Sigmund found as both personal and surnames. The coat of arms has the blazon of a gold field charged with a black bend, and thereon three knights spurs pierced of the field. The crest is a dolphin haurient. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Aunketillus Sigge, which was dated 1214, in the Pipe Rolls of Dorset, during the reign of King John of England, known as 'Lackland', 1199 - 1216. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

Maurice-Robinson Family

The Irish home of the Seages: Curraghbridge Revisited