For Irish Heritage Month, we travel back to the shores of Belfast Bay—where our McGill story begins.

On the banks of Belfast Bay in County Antrim, some twelve miles seaward from the city, there once stood a comfortable stone dwelling facing the water—the ancestral home of the McGills.

The grounds sloped gently toward the lough, with a green lawn stretching before the house and a hedged lane leading back to the road between Carrickfergus and Belfast. A steady spring brook ran through the land, emptying into a quiet cove along the shore. Around the home grew fruit trees, shade trees, and flowering shrubs, giving the place both beauty and comfort.

The house itself bore the marks of age and endurance. Its massive stone walls, built in the old broken-range style, seemed as though they might withstand even the rougher days of long ago. The worn stone steps spoke of generations who had passed over them, and though the windows were small, they served well enough beneath a sturdy, tiled roof.

This was the home from which our McGill line is said to descend. How long the family held it is not certain, though it may have been in their possession since the early 1600s. As tenants under long-standing leases—rights often passed from father to eldest son—it is likely that the McGills themselves built and maintained the homestead over many generations.

And so we picture them there still, by the waters of Belfast Bay—rooted deep in the land, their story beginning long before it ever crossed the sea.

Before the Journey: The McGill Home by Belfast Bay

Source: All details in this post are drawn directly from The McGills: Celts, Scots, Ulstermen and American Pioneers—History, Heraldry and Tradition, written by Capt. Augustus McGill and published in Saint Paul by McGill-Warner Company, 1910.