I have treated question of my divorce from Mairin, and my eventual marriage to Janice, in the main 1990s chapter, mostly from the angle of the political background.

In the context of Nessa's upbringing, at her request we had gone on a camping tour of Ireland, in the late 1980s, and in this context we made contact with my father's home ground, meeting up initially with my cousin Alan and the Achesons, in Benburb and Killygarvan (between Dungannon and Cookstown). Alan subsequently went into an old peoples' home near Benburb, and we visited him there occasionally during the 1990s. He died in August 2000, and was cremated in Belfast. We planted a tree fertilised by his ashes at Killygarvan a year later; there was an extended family gathering on the occasion.

I was able to use the occasion to place something on record about Alan and his family background in the local press:

Dungannon Courier 20/09/2000: The Johnstons of Tomagh

The Kelly farmhouse on the top of the hill at Tomagh, near Kilnaslee, is called Johnstonville. Behind is a small outhouse which was the residence of my grandfather John Johnston (1834?-1909), where his six sons and two daughters were born.

The tenancy was in the Charlemont estate, and he farmed the land and also taught in Tullyarran and then in Kilnaslee schools, both of which were Presbyterian. He was on the parish committee in Castlecaulfield. He may also have taught on the estate school at Parkanaur. During his Tullyarran period he gave evening literacy classes to farm labourers.

My grandfather married my grandmother Mary Geddes, aged 20, of Skea, daughter of James Geddes, farmer, on November 28 1873. At this time my grandfather was probably 39 or 40.

Elizabeth, a sister of my grandmother Mary Geddes, married Joe Loughrin; they lived at Killygarvan near Cookstown; there were 4 children of which two died; the survivors were Sophie, who ran the Killygarvan farm and remained in touch with my father until she died in 1971, and Mina who married an Acheson.

There were in the Acheson family five brothers, Douglas, Sandy, Harry, Morris and Walter, and one sister Winnie.

My grandfather's eldest son James was born in 1874, then there was a daughter Mary Ann born in 1877, but who died when small. The second son Samuel Alexander was born in 1880, the third John in 1883. Then came 'Harry' (William Henry) in 1885, then William on May 13 1888. My father Joe was born on August 2 1890, and then Anne in 1897.

All the boys went to Dungannon Royal School (DRS). There was a girls school associated with DRS, and Anne went to this for a time. Every one of the seven surviving children of John Johnston got university education, over the period circa 1892 to circa 1920.

This, while remarkable, had the negative effect that there was no-one in a position to take over the farm at Tomagh, when my grandfather got too old to work it. My father Joe helped on it, in marginal time, and acquired a feel for the problems, which stood him in good stead when he later developed his career as an economist, specialising in agricultural economics, in Trinity College Dublin.

The eldest son James went to Queens College Galway, and then later to Oxford as a postgraduate, whence he joined the Indian Civil Service, after marrying 'Alma senior', an English girl; they had a family Alan, Cynthia, Maurice, Alma junior and Anthony (Tim).

Douglas Alan Johnston (1905-2000)

Alan was schooled in England, as was the practice with Indian Civil Service families. He went to South Africa, probably on the family network of the mother, worked on a farm, and then bought a bus, and ended up owning a bus company. In 1939 however he sold up and volunteered for the British Army; he was sent to France during the 'phony war' period, and survived the Dunkirk evacuation. While in France he somehow got wind of my sister's marriage to Dermot Carmody (the younger son of Dean Carmody of Down), then a junior cleric in Christ Church, Dublin. Alan managed, despite the confusion of the war, to send them a wedding present.

After the war Alan invested his savings in a farm in Laois, between Monasterevan and Athy, which he farmed with great skill and energy.

My father in or about 1951, after he had written his book 'Irish Agriculture in Transition', decided again to move away from Dublin, and get back into a hands-on relationship with farming. He had done this earlier, near Dundalk, and then near Drogheda, and had accumulated experience with which he wrote critically in the 30s about de Valera's 'economic war'. He moved to a small farm near Stradbally, near where Alan was; he felt he needed to be in touch with Alan's experience.

During the 50s however Alan's experience was increasingly negative; despite doing all the right things, he never made the farm pay. The environment favoured minimum-input subsistence farming, and discouraged productivity. My father tried to turn things round by a combination of livestock and market gardening, and had some modest success, about which he wrote. But in the end both he and Alan gave up farming.

Alan went into the motor repair business for a time, in Blackrock, Dublin, near to my aunt Anne. When she died he moved first to Killygarvan, where he helped Sophie Loughrin with the farm from 1971 until she died in 1981, and then to Benburb, where he ended his days in retirement. For a while he lived in Maydown, doing odd jobs for his Acheson cousin, then after a mild stroke he moved to Chestnut Lodge, from which he will be missed by the residents and the staff.

One can access here a group photo of the Johnston and Acheson families assembled in Killygarvan on the occasion of the scattering of Alan Johnston's ashes, and the planting of a commemorative tree, in September 2001. We have named most of the group, thanks to Aileen Acheson, who now lives at Killygarvan. The Johnston group from Dublin on the occasion paid a commemorative visit to the first two of the three Johnston houses in the Dungannon area: Tomagh and Dunamoney Wood.

Let me place on record here the names of my Johnston uncles and cousins, and their locations, to illustrate the demography.

Indian Civil Service: James already mentioned as above. John married one Gladys, from the Isle of Man; he also died in 30s; there were daughters Monica and Pam; after retiring from India they lived in Jersey. William married Ruby who was Scottish; he retired in 40s; Ruby died, their family Shiela and Peter also died when small. William lived into his 80s in Blackrock; he died before Joe.

Medical practice in England: Harry married one Hilda; the daughters were Joyce and Christine. Sam died in or about 1923, the sons Tommy, Alec and Geddes lived with our family in Dublin in the 20s; my father fixed them up with jobs as best he could; Alec joined the British Army in the 30s and had a 'good war' as a tank instructor; Tommy went into advertising, he married one Dorothy; they were initially in Dublin but moved North in the 50s, to Armagh; there is a daughter Anne who went to Stranmillis, and is now living in London. Tommy therefore I think shares with Alan the privilege of having ended his days near to the home ground. Geddes went to the Argentine, where he worked as a gaucho; he came back for the war, joined the RAF and was shot down over Africa.

Ireland: Both my father Joe and my aunt Anne made their careers in Dublin; the former became a Fellow of Trinity College in 1913, the latter joined the Civil Service. My father was in 1913 a supporter of the Liberal Party and all-Ireland Home Rule, which process he saw being subverted by the Tories in 1910-12 during his postgraduate period in Oxford; he was present in the Oxford Union when Carson spoke.

He reacted with a polemical book, published in 1913, 'Civil War in Ulster', with which he attempted to resist the process that led to the Larne gun-running, and the re-introduction of the gun into Irish politics. (This book has been re-published in 1999 by UCD Press, with my introduction; it has been widely reviewed, and is available in bookshops.)

During the 20s, 30s and 40s he was a critical commentator on Free State politics and economics; he served in the Senate from 1938 to 1949 as a representative of Trinity College, then from 1952 to 54 as a de Valera nominee. The latter seems to have been appreciative of my father's earlier critical comments, and in his latter days my father increasingly had a 'sneaking regard' for de Valera.

Both my sister Maureen and I made our careers in the Free State / Republic, she as a medical doctor near Nenagh Co Tipperary, where she was married to the Church of Ireland rector Dermot Carmody. I worked as a physicist in the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, then with Aer Lingus, with Trinity College, and latterly as an independent applied-science consultant.

Conclusion: the Family Demography

Of my own generation, there is just myself and my sister; between us we have 7 children, all but one of whom have made, or are in process of making, their careers in Ireland. Thus the decision of my father to make his career in Dublin in 1913, and to orient his thinking towards the needs of the emerging Irish nation, while taking an uncompromising Protestant stand, has paid off.

There are no misfits among the third generation and no-one feels excluded, confirming the political view which he tried unsuccessfully to convey with his 1913 book.

Achnowledgments: PJ Rafferty for the primary-school records, William O'Kane for the family records, Norman Cardwell for the DRS records, Winnie and Paddy Acheson for family recollections and Adrian McLernon for Castlecaulfield parish records. Thanks are also due to Arlene Hamilton and the staff of Chestnut Lodge for the skilled care which eased Alan's declining years.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999