Grosse Isle was the Canadian island were thousands of Irish fleeing from the Famine of 1847 landed. For the month of June 1847, the register of the Catholic church of Saint-luc-de-Grosse-Ile listed the burial of 692 persons, and, unlike those in the Anglican church register, most of these were mass burials.
On the 16th of the month, 47 persons were buried - the only one named was five-month-old Patrick Slattery. His parents were named as John Booth and Judith Darcy. Remarkable also was the fact that the mother was aged 50 and the father 40.
Of the 118 burials listed in the register of the Anglican Church of Saint John the Evangelist on Grosse Isle for the month of June 1847, one quarter were under the age of four, and one third under the age of 10. There was but a single one over 70.
Of the approximately 80 whose county of origin in Ireland is given, all but 11 were from the province of Ulster, and over half of these were from Cos Armagh, Antrim and Tyrone.
Grief cannot be quantified, but somehow the death of an 11-year-old daughter seems unspeakably sad. And more sadly still the mother, Jane Stewart, did not accompany her father, John Gauld, to her funeral on June 3rd. This child was Margater Gauld, who had died on board the ship, Ajax, the previous day.
John Gault, labourer, was listed as being from the parish of Ballabar, Co Monaghan. We have not discovered Ballabar in that county (nor indeed in any county), and we suspect that Ballybay is what was intended.
This is supported by the fact that around 1821 one Hugh Gault was an apothecary in Ballybay. In neighbouring Co Fermanagh, in 1850, Messrs Gault & Co were operating a linen collar and cuff factory in bright and comfortable premises on the Sligo Road, Enniskillen. Working from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m., the 100 girls employed there earned 6/8 to 10/- weekly. The ladies' cuffs and the collars were exported to Manchester and London (The Fermanagh Story by Peadar Livingstone).
In Ireland, outsiders who come to live in a locality were - and are - called "blow-ins", a name they never shed however long they reside there. Foreign or anglicised natives, who in past times came to an Irish-speaking area, were betimes referred to as gallda (foreign, English, anglicised).
Anglicised Gauld, Gault/Galt this came to be the name by which they were known, their original surname eventually being dropped. The name is also Scottish with a similar derivation.
A pardon was granted in 1558 to Peter Fitz Henry, of Kylkevan, Co Wexford, and the following year a pardon was granted to Nicholas Fitz Henry, alias Fitz Herrys, of Kilkevan, Co Wexford, gent, son of Thomas Fitz Henry, and a Fiant of 1561 notes the pardon of William Fitz Harries, alias Fitz Henries, alias Galte, late of Kylkevane, Co Wexford, horseman.
The Co Wexford book of the Civil Survey of 1654 shows Sir Henry Fitz Harris, Irish papist, as owning 50 acres at Whitties Hill, in the parish of Kilkevan. This 105-acre townland is now spelt Whittyshill, in the parish of Kilcavan.
The 1659 Census of Ireland lists John and William Galt, shopkeepers, in the town and liberties of Coleraine, Co Derry. These presumably bore the Scottish name, which The Penguin Dictionary of Surnames spells Gauld, giving it as being from Scottish Gaelic, meaning low- landers.
The 1814 Directory lists Charles Galt, Millbrook, Coleraine, while among the subscribers to Lewis's 1837 Topographical Dictionary of Ire- land was W. Galt, Esq, Ballysally, Coleraine. In 1876, when Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards was published, William Howard Galt, Ballysally, had 187 acres there, with a 138-acre Gault holding at Newtownlimavaddy, both in Co Derry.
In Co Antrim, William Galt, Glynn, Larne, had 17 acres, and James Gault, Ballyclare, had 233 acres. Ballysally is the phonetic representation of Baile Saili, "the town of the willows".
Current telephone directories south of the Border contain a mere six Gault entries, three of which are in Co Leitrim. To the north of the Border there is a single Galt and around 200 Gault entries in the Phone Book of Northern Ireland.