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Tell us your family secret

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,448 ✭✭✭crockholm


    Grandmother was engaged to a sailor on HMS Hood,but ol' Bismark took care of him.She then met my grandfather.

    Had cousins in the British Army,was always odd when they used to drink with a family member who was in the IRA,All admitted,that given the situation neither would have any qualms killing the other,as it was duty,lucky it didn't come to it and older age has softened their opinions and perspectives.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,678 ✭✭✭I Heart Internet


    MonstaMash wrote: »
    My grandfather & his twin brother arrived from Sicily to Ireland in 1897, they were on the run, accused of a vendetta killing arising from a feud between two families.

    Did they do it?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,400 ✭✭✭lukesmom


    My 'mother' used to be called Harold and wears neck scarves in public


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,425 ✭✭✭MonstaMash


    Did they do it?

    That's for me to know & you to find out :p

    The grandfather stayed after marrying my grandmother & ended up fighting with the IRA in Jacob's garrison in the 1916 rising.

    His twin brother went back to Sicily just before the outbreak of WWI & lived to a ripe old age.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 23,646 ✭✭✭✭qo2cj1dsne8y4k


    lukesmom wrote: »
    My 'mother' used to be called Harold and wears neck scarves in public

    Christian? Is that you??


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  • Posts: 24,286 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    wuzziwig wrote: »
    My Dad was born out of wedlock in the 40s. They tried to force my Gran to give him up but she fought tooth and nail and kept him. She's Catholic and when he was 5 she married a Protestant. 2 huge scandals at the time in her community. Nowadays it's practically the norm!!


    It's women like your gran that this nation owe a great deal of gratitude to for having the courage to live the life she chose for herself as opposed to getting pushed around by the church and its zombied followers.


    Had there been more like her that had the cop on to realise that the catholic teachings in Ireland was based on a load of fascist shíte then there may not have been half the oppression and child abuse over the last century


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭ElleEm


    Great idea for a thread!
    The best I can think of is that my granny was adopted in the early 1900's, and had two birth certs with totally different dates on them (different years, too). I don't think she knew, she was a bit mad. We just picked one of them and told her that was her birthday!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 847 ✭✭✭Bog Standard User


    Keith wrote: »
    Have a half sister out there somewhere that I've never met. . . .

    which half? top or bottom????


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,060 ✭✭✭✭biko


    I am a serial killer, but I only kill other killers.
    And my sister is a cop.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,094 ✭✭✭OU812


    One of my great grand uncles was an admiral in the British Navy.

    His records are sealed which means he probably did something dreadful :(


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,501 ✭✭✭Madam


    My great uncle was a bootlegger in New York, he came back home to Ireland in the 1930s for some unknown reason. He then opened a pub and kept a loaded shotgun under the counter - he once shot and wounded someone with it but was never charged. Great guy by all accounts but I'm not sure I believe all the stories I've been told about him!!!

    I looked up the census for my granparents, seems my granny was 5 years old when they married:eek:

    My great uncle William(Winter Willie behind his back but thats another story), drank all his inheritence, so no money or land left for anyone when he died!

    I COULDA BEEN RICH I TELL YIS:D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,046 ✭✭✭martinedwards


    My Grandfather was born in Moville in 1909, then his family moved to England.

    during the war he was a Naval officer, and ended up as acting captain of HMS Violet, a corvette in the south Atlantic, before he was invalided out with TB

    he "retired" to Moville but remained on full pay for the duration of the war.

    it was his job to spread misinformation about convoy timetables etc out of Derry to anyone who'd listen on the Republic side in the hope that word would get to Nazi sympathizers with a radio.

    He had a legendary ability to drink and appear drunker than he was. A very useful ruse in the the old deception game......


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,046 ✭✭✭martinedwards


    OU812 wrote: »
    One of my great grand uncles was an admiral in the British Navy.

    His records are sealed which means he probably did something dreadful :(
    or spectacular.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,944 ✭✭✭✭Links234


    after reading this thread, I think my family must be secretly boring :o


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 408 ✭✭certifiedcrepe


    My dad has been talking to myself and my brother for so long about his life up to the time he met our mother. He get really smashed one night and got a butterfly tattoo, then he was engaged to be married to the dermatologist that removed it until she left him at the altar for her ex.

    There's a few other things like how he used to knock our aunt Robin and all that. He really tells us too much, I wish he just told us how he met our mother.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭ElleEm


    Links234 wrote: »
    after reading this thread, I think my family must be secretly boring :o

    Or you're the secret!!!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,230 ✭✭✭Merkin


    I keep my great aunty Josephine in a sealed container in the attic. I allow her out on Holy Days when I read Wuthering Heights to her and feed her dried figs (as long as she only answers my questions in Spanish).


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,094 ✭✭✭OU812


    or spectacular.

    See... Now I'm intrigued again.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,150 ✭✭✭kumate_champ07


    its staying secret!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18 Fr.Buzz


    Not so much a family secret but my grandmothers brother was walking home from the pub one Christmas night with his two mates. Walking down the lane to his farm house while intoxicated having a sing song when he was attacked by a neighbour who heard them coming. He mistakend there signing to be that of the screams of the Banshee so he attacked him with a rock. His two mates picked him up carried him home and put him into bed. Next day he was found dead in his bed. His death was put down to exposure to the elements as his clothes were wet!..No Garda investigation! No suspicions raised! Nobody outside of my family and the man who attacked him's family know what happened that night!..Rural Ireland was a strange place place in those times where people didn't talk about things like that!..So they just moved on with their lives while justice was never served!..


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,478 ✭✭✭wexie


    .....where to start, my family has so many skeletons we could start our own graveyard.

    Best one is probably the aunt and uncle that announced (at the same time as announcing their divorce) they were both gay, had always both been gay and had always known about eachother. Early on in their relationship :confused: they both caught the other one in an 'indiscretion' (allegedly of such magnitude its never been mentioned again) and decided to write off the indiscretions against eachother and carry on the relationship.

    one of their (2) kids was always somewhat unstable and is now technically completely loopy.

    Good ol' catholic families ey?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,579 ✭✭✭charlietheminxx


    I would be typing all night if I started on mine. There's so much drama it sounds like a soap...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,043 ✭✭✭MurdyWurdy


    Charles Haughey tried to feel my granny up when she was 6 months pregnant. It's actually not really a secret. We all laugh about it and tell my uncle he looks like him! It's not funny though in reality. I think she told him to eff off


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,512 ✭✭✭Muise...


    MurdyWurdy wrote: »
    Charles Haughey tried to feel my granny up when she was 6 months pregnant. It's actually not really a secret. We all laugh about it and tell my uncle he looks like him! It's not funny though in reality. I think she told him to eff off

    GUBU boo boo! :eek:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 516 ✭✭✭wuzziwig


    It's women like your gran that this nation owe a great deal of gratitude to for having the courage to live the life she chose for herself as opposed to getting pushed around by the church and its zombied followers.


    Had there been more like her that had the cop on to realise that the catholic teachings in Ireland was based on a load of fascist shíte then there may not have been half the oppression and child abuse over the last century

    She was some woman alright. She had 11 more children (one died as an infant). She'd give u a clip in the ear as quick as she'd look at you too. I remember staying with her as a child & when you got up in the morning she'd have a big pot of porridge cooked along with the full dinner for later in the day!

    My grandfather (not technically my grandfather but he will always be the only grandfather I've known) was an absolute gentleman. He had a wooden leg. He got gangrene after getting cut with rusty metal while working on the railway tracks and he had his leg amputated.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 310 ✭✭Osborne


    We know how they get the figs in Fig Rolls.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,478 ✭✭✭wexie


    Osborne wrote: »
    We know how they get the figs in Fig Rolls.

    Everyone knows that!!!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,057 ✭✭✭amazingemmet


    My ancestor was commander of the tower of London during the time of the two princes. He knew what happened to them and was given land and a title in exchange for his silence. When I'm old enough I'll get to know the truth.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princes_in_the_Tower


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 560 ✭✭✭markomuscle


    My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather killed a Norwegian.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,699 ✭✭✭mud


    I was sent to live with my two spinster aunts and their talking cat while I tried to work out our family secret.


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