Two Smiths~Owen Joseph & Thomas Henry

Market Day, Main St., Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, Ireland. Circa: 1860

[The National Library of Ireland]

Main St., Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, Ireland. 2013 [Owen Smith]

Owen Smith (myself), whose great-grandfather emigrated from Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, Ireland, in the 1850s, discovered that a Thomas Smith (no relation), had emigrated to Melbourne from the same town, also in the 1850s, helped to write the original rules of Australian Rules Football and was a key player in it’s formative years.

So let’s start back at the beginning.

It’s March 2013 and we’re in the town of Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan. I’d been invited by my ‘cousin’ Mary to The Gathering, a Tourism Ireland initiative to bring ‘emigrants’ like me ‘back home’ to their ancestral land. Some have made the journey from as near as England, others from as far as Barbados and Sydney. I’ve travelled from Wodonga, Australia and, here in Carrick, make a discovery that changes my life.

That change is made by my introduction to this Thomas Henry Smith and, as I discover soon after, his introduction to me. Yes, it soon becomes evident that I’ve been imposed upon by the enigmatic Thomas, that he has somehow ingratiated himself upon me (I’m not even sure if that’s a thing). He, the lost soul, would henceforth and heretofore, be my guide, my spur, the thorn in my side, in the re-discovery and dissemination of his life’s journey. And all in his quest for what? For his soul to finally be able to rest in peace? For recognition, reconciliation, freedom?

This is the beginning, but there’s much more to come…