 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
It doesn’t seem to be fashionable any more to be proud of one’s ancestors, which is a shame. But it would be a sorry world if a historian weren’t allowed a certain interest in his own kith and kin.
My branch of the Ewings come from Lurgan, Co. Armagh, though I myself grew up in England. The Ewings first appear in Scotland during the 1500’s, and there is evidence to link my line with the Ewing armigers of Bonhill, Dumbartonshire, whose arms are first recorded in the mid-sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century, one or more of the Ewing families joined the growing number of Protestant Scottish settlers in Ireland; they hoped to avoid the religious turmoil of the time, and in so doing helped sow the seeds for a more recent sectarian struggle. In the eighteenth century, according to family tradition, my ancestors in Lurgan played host to John Wesley, and the family remained Methodist for well over a hundred years.
Ultimately, the Ewings are descended from Clan Ewen of Otter. To find out more about Clan Ewen click on the button at the bottom of this page.
Through my mother, I am related to the Anglo-Irish Burton family, including the artist Sir Frederic Burton, and more distantly to Captain Thomas Blood who famously ran off with the Crown Jewels in 1671. Isabella Burton was the mother of Muriel and Grace Gifford, who married Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Plunkett respectively.
