The Lost Children of The Carricks

Filmed on location in the Gaspé and in Ireland, Lost Children of the Carricks traces the 1847 journey of Patrick Kaveney, Sarah MacDonald and their six children from their clachán in Cross, near Ballymote, County Sligo, on a two-mast brig, Carricks of Whitehaven, to Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula, and the remarkable return of their Francophone descendants to Ireland five generations and 168 years later. On April 28, 1847, the Brig Carricks encountered a severe storm in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence which wrecked the ship and scattered debris and survivors along the coast just four miles east of Cape Rosier. Of the 173 passengers who were being transported on the Carricks, only 48 survived the journey, including Patrick, Sarah and one son. Over time, their surname Kaveney (Ó Caomhánaigh) evolved to Kavanagh in rural Quebec. The film places the Canadian experience of the Irish-speaking Kaveneys into historical context, their integration and adaptation to the frozen wilderness of rural Quebec and how they kept their Gaelic language and culture alive in a foreign land. Finally, the film follows Georges Kavanagh, their French speaking descendant who has dedicated his life to preserving the family’s oral history. In 2015, Georges triumphantly reversed the journey returning with six Kavanaghs to Ireland from the Gaspé to reunite with long lost relatives, who had always assumed that all the Kaveney's had perished in the shipwreck.

Celtic Crossings Productions

2019

Documentary

70 min.

en, Irish, fr