More than “mother.”
The census records Mary as a farmer and gives information about her household and languages. It is a glimpse of a working life—not a complete account of her days.
Meet Mary in the 1901 household →
Explore Leitrim · The McPadden Project
The story
didn’t leave.
For the McPaddens who stayed,
Ireland was not a place left behind.
It was—and is—home.
County Leitrim, Ireland Home. Work. Family. Living memory.
Glenade, County Leitrim · 3 July 2013 · “Off the R280 at Glenade” © Darrin Antrobus · CC BY-SA 2.0. Resized, cropped, shaded and gently animated; image adaptations retain the same license. Image & source notes. Regional context—not an identified McPadden home.
Not the background to someone else’s journey
A place to belong.
A life worth telling.
The people who stayed did not stand still. Their homes, work, families and memories belong at the center of this history. So do the people living in Leitrim today.
Our first records open one family’s door. Local voices can open many more.
01 / A life here · Tullynascreen
Mary McPadden.
A whole life here.
A marriage, children, a household and a woman recorded as a farmer. Mary Conlon McPadden’s story belongs to Ireland, not only to the son who crossed the Atlantic.
Enter Mary’s story →Who belongs to this household?AI illustration informed by the 1911 census—not a verified view of Mary’s home. How this image was made ↗
Look closer · three doors into the existing stories
A home. A livelihood.
A family changing around them.
What did a home hold?
A family-held page names an acre, furniture and effects. Later census returns describe the dwelling and outbuildings. Read what those records preserve, and what they cannot show.
Explore the home and holding →Historical research, not a present-day property claim or invitation to enter private land.The road could lead home.
Thomas McPadden’s family is documented back in Tullynascreen by 1919/1920. His Scotland story is still being assembled; departure was not necessarily a one-way ending.
Follow the family’s different paths →We do not yet know whether Mary lived to see that return.02 / Places & families · Rooted here
One county.
Many home places.
Say the name of a place, and a family story may follow. But a shared place or surname does not establish a shared ancestor. These are distinct doors into Leitrim—not branches we have already joined.
Tullynascreen
The home townland in the records of Mary Conlon and Michael McPadden’s family. Mary, Catherine, James and Thomas give us different ways into its story.
See this family group →Derrindangan
A townland in Inishmagrath parish associated with the family of Sarah McPadden McNiff. Her parents’ household is documented there; Sarah’s exact birthplace remains unresolved.
Meet Sarah’s separate family line →Dromahair & Drumkeerin
Places in the wider Leitrim conversation we want to explore with local families. They are not interchangeable names for Tullynascreen or Derrindangan, or proof of a family connection.
Know a person or place we should include? →Townland, parish, town—why do the names change?
These are different ways of locating a record. A townland names a small area of land; a parish groups places for particular civil or church purposes; a town may be the nearby center someone remembers. Record the source’s exact wording first. Similar names and shared surnames need checking before joining people into one family.
Beneath every boundary, a story
History still worth asking.
How were holdings divided or passed on? How did famine, politics and changing land ownership affect particular McPadden households? Those are important research directions—not explanations we can assign to a family without evidence.
See the research still taking shape →03 / Your Leitrim · An invitation, not an empty chapter
Some history
is still
a conversation.
If Leitrim is home, your knowledge belongs at the heart of this project. Not as a footnote to an overseas family—but as a story in its own right.
You need not share the McPadden name, or prove a connection to the families already here.
Local stories will appear with their contributors’ agreement. These prompts are invitations—not collected testimony.Who should we remember?
A parent, a neighbor, a teacher. Someone whose life was rooted here, whether or not they carried the McPadden name.
Who were they, and what would you like us to know about their life?
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Please leave private documents and living people’s sensitive details out of your first message. We discuss permission before publishing anyone’s contribution.