Wednesday 25 August 2010

Death in Wales

It is with sadness that I have heard of the death on Tuesday 17th August of Walter McIlhagga, at the Maelor Hospital in Wrexham, North Wales. I recall with pleasure that I visited Walter and his wife a few years ago in Richmond Road, Wrexham when I was made very welcome, and I send Mrs McIlhagga my sincere condolences. The funeral notice in The Leader, Mold, Wrexham, says that Walter was a beloved husband, dad and grandfather, and that he will be sadly missed by all his family and friends. His funeral service is on Friday 27th at Pentrebychan Crematorium. Donations are asked for Nightingale House Hospice. Walter James McIlhagga was unique in that he was the only male McIlhagga who has been born in Wales, in Conway in 1931. His father, James Wilson McIlhagga was born in Belfast but got employment in the Conway District where he met Mary Gladys Jones whom he married at All Saints Church in Caernarvon. James was the second son of the large family of nine children born to William Gage McIlhagga and Jane Todd. William was born in 1865 in Connor, County Antrim, Ireland, also a second son in a large family of twelve children born to John McIlhago and Elizabeth McCullough (the spellings in the marriage register). At John and Eliza's marriage in Ballymena John's father gave his name as Harry. It is possible that John and his father Harry, both farmers, were part of our clan family who farmed in the townland of Maxwell's Walls, in the parish of Kells and Connor, about which I have written a number of times.

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