The O'Beirne Family Journal

Issue 5 April 2001

The Story of Brian O'Beirne

DEDICATION

    This issue of our Journal is dedicated to the memory of Maureen O’Beirne Nugent (September 9, 1941 - January 13, 2001). Maureen spent much of her last decade raising funds for many charitable organizations in Ireland and Albania and doing volunteer work in both countries. Among other places that benefited from her efforts, and intrepid travel, was the little country of Lesotho for which she raised donations for a school and visited in the mid 1990s. She was my sister. R.I.P. 

John E. (Sean) O'Beirne, Editor

A SPECIAL ISSUE

    Freetown, Sierra Leone was established as a land of settlement for freed Black slaves from North America. Laws prohibiting the slave trade had been passed in 1807 in both Britain and the United States, but enforcement was poor. African Chiefs and Kings were active participants in capturing, enslaving and trading their fellow beings. Attempts were made by the Governors of Sierra Leone to establish commercial trade; one of these was with the Fula of Timbo. Brian O’Beirne, Assistant Staff Surgeon, made an eventful trip from Freetown to Timbo in 1821. He recorded his journey in an extraordinary Journal, now in the Colonial Records Office in London. Along with two others, it was published in the United States in “Guinea Journals: Journeys into Guinea—Conakry During the Sierra Leone Phase, 1800  – 1821,” (1979) and Edited by Bruce L. Mouser now  Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, who has kindly given his permission to reproduce Brian’s Journal in ours. Dr. Mouser, called Brian O’Beirne’s Journal “the best first-hand description of the political roles of the Fula elites in the Timbo area available in the English language.”

    Brian O’Beirne occasionally recalls his home country while pursuing his mission. At one point he overlooks some bogs and wonders if the natives cut Turf as in his homeland. On March 17, 1821, St. Patrick’s Day, he regrets the lack of a little wine to celebrate his patron saint’s day. Nevertheless, this intrepid traveler, whose favorite beverage is fresh milk, managed to celebrate to some extent as he records his lack of well-being the following day.