Time and place : the Merediths of County Sligo : historical study of a family in Ireland c.1629 - c.1981

This extensive longitudinal study investigates the Meredith family and associated people throughout their 350-year involvement in County Sligo near Ireland's north-western corner. It carefully monitors their likely origins in Wales, subsequent activities in London society and the Caribbean plantations and their transition, associations and unions with local Irish families into the twentieth century. Drawn from surviving source material scattered throughout Europe and North America, perspectives into their lives augment new hypotheses that, if further sources can be unearthed in the future, will add much to our understanding of the Irish early-modern era. An intricate web of circumstances describes the family's arrival in Ireland, connections with the Old Irish, Anglo-Irish, Cromwellian and Royalist forces and their ongoing associations with Sligo and Antigua. The discussion follows each branch of these Merediths, their landholdings, occupations and sometimes migration. The monographic and referential work extends the knowledge boundaries for Sligo, a county perhaps unjustifiably notorious for its remoteness and limited range of surviving source material. It will assist researchers tracing county families and provide a template for building other histories.