{"id":27097,"date":"2023-08-09T22:00:04","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T20:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com\/?p=4433"},"modified":"2023-08-10T16:34:28","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T14:34:28","slug":"liz-carr-on-who-do-you-think-you-are-everything-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/rss_feed\/liz-carr-on-who-do-you-think-you-are-everything-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Liz Carr on Who Do You Think You Are?: Everything you need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"

Silent Witness star Liz Carr solved a real-life mystery of attempted murder when she traced her family history to Northern Ireland on Who Do You Think You Are? <\/p>

By Rosemary Collins\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 09 August 2023 at 20:00 PM<\/p>

\n\n

Silent Witness<\/em> actor Liz Carr now lives in London, but she grew up in Port Sunlight on the Wirral. When Liz sets out to find her family history on Who Do You Think You Are?<\/em><\/a>, she\u2019s interested in discovering where she got her personal traits from \u2013 in particular her wanderlust and her passionate anger at injustice, which drives her work as a disability rights activist. She\u2019s also heard a family rumour that there was \u201can assault or an altercation\u201d and she wants to find out more.<\/p>\n

Liz goes back to visit her Mum, Pat. Pat tells her that she didn\u2019t really know her father John Hughes, as he died when she was a child. However, the 1911 census<\/a> shows John, aged 11, living with Margaret and Robert Stokes \u2013 and he\u2019s listed as adopted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To find out what happened to John\u2019s parents, Liz meets historian Julie-Marie Strange. Julie-Marie tells her that in the 1901 census<\/a> John was living with his birth family \u2013 his father John Sr, his mother Alice and his sister Emily. Margaret Stokes was their landlady.<\/p>\n

Tragically, the records show that in 1907 John Sr was admitted to Tranmere Workhouse<\/a>. Julie-Marie suggests the family had fallen on hard times and John Sr went to the workhouse on his own to spare his family the indignity.<\/p>\n

Liz is saddened to see a picture of the workhouse \u2013 \u201cThat\u2019s not a place you want to visit, really. It\u2019s a bit grim.\u201d Julie-Marie points out the building was behind where they are now, so they\u2019re very close to the \u201cghosts\u201d of the past.<\/p>\n

John died in the workhouse a year later at the age of just 44, and his wife Alice died of cancer in 1910. Liz now has a sense of her grandfather\u2019s childhood, but she wants to know what happened next, especially as he would have been the right age to fight in the First World War<\/a>. She looks up his records online and founds out he served in the Royal Navy<\/a>. She meets with maritime historian Simon Wills to find out more.<\/p>\n

John Hughes served on a ship called the Kildonan Castle<\/em>. While he was on board, a German U-Boat attacked the ship \u2013 but luckily they missed.<\/p>\n

\u201cCould have been the end of our line of the family there!\u201d Liz says.<\/p>\n

After the war, John joined the Merchant Navy<\/a>, working as a stoker. Liz is delighted that the detailed surviving records even include descriptions of his tattoos \u2013 and the destinations all over the world he visited. Liz, who also loves to travel, says: \u201cI feel an absolute connection to my granddad and I didn\u2019t realise that was there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Liz<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Liz Carr\u2019s grandfather, John Hughes, with her mother Pat as a child, on Who Do You Think You Are?<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption> Pat Hughes<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Next, Liz travels to County Armagh in Northern Ireland<\/a>, where her paternal grandmother\u2019s family, the Ryans, came from. She learns that in 1864, her 3x great grandfather Barney Ryan was a tenant farmer on the estate of John Foxall. Unusually, he had moved there from the estate of another landowner, Meredith Chambre.<\/p>\n

Like many wealthy landlords in Ireland, they were of English descent. In the 16th and 17th centuries<\/a>, the British Crown had confiscated farmland and given it to Protestant settlers from England and Scotland. Most of the native Catholic population were tenants, living in wretched conditions, especially following the 1845-49 Great Famine.<\/p>\n

Meredith Chambre was attacked in the press for demanding payment of rent while his tenants were starving, and received threatening letters. In January 1852, he survived an assassination attempt which left him badly injured. Press reports at the time link the attack to the Ribbon Society \u2013 a secret Irish Catholic movement established to pressure landlords to treat their rural tenants fairly.<\/p>\n

Liz discovers that Barney Ryan was arrested on suspicion of the murder, but he had an alibi. She suspects Barney was one of the Ribbon Men. Channelling the crime-solving spirit of Silent Witness<\/em>, she\u2019s determined to find out what his real involvement was. She goes to the now-abandoned Armagh County Gaol, and meets historian Dr Eamonn Gardiner. He tells her that another man, Francis Berry, was arrested for the crime. In his deposition, Francis says that Barney Ryan was the one who told him of the murder attempt and took charge of the other men present, telling them to back to their houses.<\/p>\n

Francis Berry was convicted of conspiracy to murder and hung in the same gaol, and no one else was ever convicted of involvement. There\u2019s a final twist in the tale, however \u2013 Liz meets historian Seamus Murphy. He shows her a transcript of an oral history interview with Mary Nugent, a local woman who would have known Barney Ryan as a child. She says: \u201cIt was Barney Ryan was in it and indeed he was at the plotting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liz is left conflicted about Barney\u2019s actions, since he was driven to them by poverty and ill-treatment: \u201cI am not at all going, \u2018yeah absolutely, whatever it takes!\u2019 But I understand why people did what they did. And it doesn\u2019t make me any less proud to be his great-great-great granddaughter.\u201d<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n

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