HOF – Rynn

Bothwell Castle dominates the surrounding countryside where our Rinn/Rynn family settled after travelling from their native Irish homeland. The castle is a 13th century testament to the wealth of its owners and their penchant to make this known to one and all. The Morays initiated it and after it’s involvement in a siege by Edward I, it passed to the Black Douglasses who added to the structure.

We have no records to offer an insight into their Irish past but pick them up in the Bothwell area with wedding records at the Bellshill United Presbyterian church in 1862, when Edward Rinn married Frances “Fanny” Lindsay. Of their 6 children, Edward Rynn gives our direct line as he marries Mary McPake.

(We know Edward’s sister Martha married Malcolm McKinnon but have no information regarding the rest of the family).

Edward and Mary’s family gave 8 children and from these lines we do possess a significant amount of data with the introduction of the family names Ducey, O’Hara, McDonnell, Gilhooley and McMurray to round out our tree and provide the connection to the O’Haras of Larkhall in Lanarkshire.

Frances Rynn married Francis O’Hara and began a family of 8 children. Francis was a miner and after working in the Lanarkshire coalfields he came down to Sheffield in the 1930’s where the main shafts at Orgreave and Beighton were being sunk. Lodging temporarily with his sister and brother-in-law Annie and Thomas Ducey who were already in the area, he was soon able to find a house and bring the family down to Beighton.

Martha Rynn married William Gilhooley while Bernard Rynn married Mary McMurray. Other than Frances, the Rynn siblings all remained in Scotland and raised their families there.