Although the post is now over five years old I thought I might comment on it.
I find it very interesting. I am one of the younger grandchildren of Robert Thompson of Larne (d 1949). My mother, mona Thompson, (b 1906)was his youngest child. Interestingly, his eldest child, also Robert Thompson, had a daughter who was some months older than my mother. As a child I was intrigued that my mother had a niece older than herself!
I remember my grandfather very well as I was fourteen when he died. In fact he spend a little while with us shortly before he died. Looking back he was very much a Victorian. He did not shave himself and went to the barber to be shaved no matter where he was. His dress was formal with pocket watch and chain. Robert Thompson was a man of deep religious belief, a faithful member of the Methodist Church for most of his life.
He and his family lived in Larne, probably because his wife, Margaret Barbour's family was well established there (although many of the Barbours, including Margaret, were born in Scotland). He worked at Inglis's bakery in Belfast spending the week there coming home each weekend.
He was a man of principle and discipline. It is much to his credit that he managed to own his own house at Old Glenarm Road, Larne together with other houses in larne which he rented out. His nine children all had reasonably successful lives, although Ruth died young in childbirth. There were twenty grandchildren of which seven are still alive. My sister Mona, brother Peter and myself make up three of them.
An aspect of what I have leaned concerns the families of my grandfather's sister and half sisters. I well remember my mother speaking of the McSeveneys, the Closes and the McQuoids. I wish now I had paid a bit more attention.
Although I was born in Larne, I have not lived there since 1943. Currently I live in Wales and about to enter my ninth decade.
