Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The saying goes, "Everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day." For the Culbert Family, it's true!

For our first St. Patrick's Day here on the Culbert Family History blog, we've chosen a face familiar to many of you...

Terry Culbert enjoying the water of life: Jameson Irish Whiskey.
Photo by Brian Little.

Terrence Patrick "Terry" Culbert (born 13 May 1942) is the great-great-grandson of John Culbert & Mary Ward (and he's my beloved big brother.)

Raised in Lucan, Ontario near the Culbert homestead, Terry is no stranger to his Irish roots. He's visited the Republic of Ireland twice and the same for Northern Ireland. 

Don't you agree he could be the poster boy for Tourism Ireland?

But enough about Terry. After all, we'll be hearing plenty more about him in future and right now, we've got some celebrating to do!

Join us in raising a glass on St. Patrick's Day to Culbert descendants near and far. Sláinte!

The Pluck of the Irish

Many who settled in Lucan-Biddulph, like John Culbert & Mary Ward, hailed from Ireland. 

Scuffles were not unusual occurences in the area, as observed in this incident from 1896 on the 3rd Concession. The Culbert homestead was not far away, on the 2nd Concession...

Source: Exeter Advocate. 26 March 1896.

Mr. Mountain was "an Irishman, and well up to collar and elbow." Collar-and-elbow is a style of wrestling native to Ireland. No doubt it came in handy for life in the New World when "seedy-looking tramps" could come knocking at your door at any time of day or night.

You had to be able to defend yourself in those days as it wasn't unusual for fights to break out. But I quote Terry Culbert, "Culberts are not fighters, they're lovers!"[1]

[1]Culbert, Terry. Lucan: Home of the Donnellys. Renfrew, Ontario: General Store Publishing House, 2005, page 16.