The Blacks, McCurdys and McFauls
Bob chats it up with John McCurdy, who has worked the Rathlin Island Ferry for decades
Back the day, there were essentially three families on the Island, the Blacks the McCurdys and the McFauls. There was much intermarriage among these families and all three names populate all three family trees. One of the challenges for Bob in building and maintaining our family tree is that there are multiple appearances of McFauls in our tree. Bob says that we might have more McFaul blood in us than Black blood. Of course, our connection to the Black Family singers and the fact that we were staying at their house, gave us special status. In any event, everyone we met with one of those names is likely a relative and knew it.
From the minute we walked onto the ferry to the island we were greeted as family even though none of us had been to the island in years. John McCurdy knew Bob and Richard and knew the whole Black family story. He even knew we were staying at the singing Blacks homestead. They all spent the ferry ride catching up on developments on the island. There were a could of recent deaths of well-known figures on the island, people with whom Bob was very friendly. Chief among him was Augustine “Gusty” McCurdy who has written numerous books about Rathlin and ran the historical society. We paid our respects at his grave the next day.
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