Thursday, June 24, 2021

My Ancestor's Switzer's Dublin Department Store (and medico-hydropathic institute) is mentioned in James Joyce's tome "Finnegan's Wake" - Switzer misspelled by the English as Schweitzer!?

 Dublin department store Brown Thomas owned by Canadian multi-millionaire Galen Weston, is to purchase the Switzer Group. The Switzers department store, located on Dublin's Grafton Street, is owned by the Al Fayed brothers, who also own Harrod's of London.

So we just got the Palatine Association newsletter and our ancestors arrived from Palatine area of Germany into London - because they were in the middle of the War of the Roses between France and Germany and so arrived in London in 1709....

And the English listed our ancestors as Schweitzer but my great grandmother always spelled her name Switzer and sure enough that is how it is spelled in Ireland. So the Switzer family lived in Ireland for over 100 years and then at the famine went to Canada. My great grandmother married a horse-back minister and they moved into a dirt floor "parish" in North Dakota - in 1898 or 1899!! Devil's Lake North Dakota.


 Castle Matrix.... Mom says the "lords" were very good to work for at this Castle. But I pointed out they probably were not good to the Catholics... http://www.limerickcity.ie/media/rat10.pdf

 

So when my mother was in Ireland just outside the Matrix Castle - where our Switzer brothers had lived - the museum curator emphasized that OUR line (from Michael Switzer) was NOT the same line as his brother, Christopher Switzer (who started the department store!!).

Here is Finnegan's Wake mentioning Switzer Department Store 

I find this to be hilarious because no one in the U.S. would point out such a discrepancy from the early 1700s to 1992!! So almost 300 years ago!!

 Rev. John Wesley, founder of Methodism visited the Palatine settlers in this area. Following is an entry from his diary dated Wednesday 9th July 1760: 

“I rode over to Killeheen, a German settlement, near twenty miles south of Limerick. It rained all the way, but the earnestness of the poor people made us quite forget it.”

The English Methodists complained their founder spent too much time in Ireland - 5 1/2 years!!  

  Methodism had not then become a separate denomination. The gentry therefore encouraged their tenants to join Methodist societies, though only a few of them became members themselves. Wesley failed to appreciate the value of the Irish language, and Irish Methodists did not begin to take the Irish language seriously until 1799. By the time of Wesley's death in 1791 there were more than 14,000 Methodists in Ireland, and the number rose to 60,000 in the 20th century.

 Many early trade unions had Methodists as their principal organisers, and some of their language is of Methodist origin. Printing unions still call branches "chapels", and the use of the term "brother" is another example.

fascinating - kind of a Freemason society? 

To the Anglican criteria of scripture, tradition and reason, Wesley added experience. Human experience cannot always be fitted into a logical system, and it is now being argued that Wesley's experiential approach may offer a more effective way for the Christian church to communicate with those outside.

So then my great grandmother was a proud staunch Methodist because one of the Wesley brothers arrived outside the Matrix Castle and since the Lutherans were not attending any church in Ireland then they converted. Very cool. I now remember reading my Great Grandfather's preaching notes or something and they were definitely "experiential."


OH so the Switzer spelling is the IRISH variation of the surname!!? Fascinating.

WOW I just proved something about my own ancestors!! The Switzer name was the "Irish" variant of the German surname.

So when they arrived as Schweitzer into London in 1709 they CAMPED OUT in London until they went to Ireland... And they got scammed in London so they were very happy to work at Castle Matrix....

 JUST as I suspected!!


Wow!!

Wow - the Southwells (sounds like SUZL-ELL) are the family that our ancestors worked for at Castle Matrix - and looks like we were invaders and the Irish were trying to kick us out!! Amazing.

journal article
Switzer's of Grafton Street
D. A. Levistone Cooney
Dublin Historical Record
Vol. 55, No. 2 (Autumn, 2002), pp. 154-165 (12 pages)
Published By: Old Dublin Society

So my distant cousin's wife somehow discovered our original Schweitzer family name that MOVED from Switzerland to the Palatine region (that was NOT even Germany yet) in the 1400s!!!!

Oh I was thinking we lived in the castle. Cool - so they were wheat farmers in Ireland (potatoes)...

So... there are Switzers still in Ireland but they are now IRISH. 

OH wait - that article states that the Switzer spelling is found way back in the Lower Palatinate in the 1400s!!! So that Irish spelling is the CORRECT spelling indeed.

 Switzer's in the Irish Dublin Museum - vid on youtube!!

OH they pronounced it SWIT as in TWIT-zer. hilarious. We pronounce it SWHYt-zer.

 OH so it was the Christopher side of the family but not in the 1700s...

Registration number:

Company name: Switzer & Co Ltd
Dates in business: 1838-

Type of business: Department store retailers

Type of company: Partnership 1838/1890

OH our side moved to Canada in the 1840s...

https://www.housefraserarchive.ac.uk/company/?id=c2656

Page 155 of Switzer's of Grafton Street


OK so this proves that it was NOT Michael Switzer (our ancestor) but his brother Christopher who arrived in London in 1709 and then - OH wait - it says they do NOT KNOW which Switzer fathered the "John Switzer" of 1773.

Fascinating....

So it was already probably a couple generations removed? Or maybe a direct son...

https://www.jstor.org/page-scan-delivery/get-page-scan/30101347/4


a medico-hydropathic institute


??

https://www.dib.ie/biography/switzer-john-wright-a8422

 Switzer, John Wright (1806–91), department store founder, was born in Newpark, Co. Tipperary, eldest son among three sons and two daughters of Christopher Switzer, small farmer and descendant of immigrants from the Palatine, Germany, and his wife Esther, daughter of Bamlet Wright, a Swiss émigré.

During this period he also moved his residence to Moyvalley House, Co. Kildare, which had previously been a hotel for passengers on the Royal Canal. At this time curiosity about the medicinal properties of water was at its height and spas had become fashionable. John Wright Switzer had developed a keen interest in hydropathical medicine, and his new residence afforded him the space to found an institute devoted to the discipline.

sweet.

Wow 250 people worked at the Department store - that's HUGE - and he was a "Justice of the Peace" in Dublin....

Frederick Switzer a Keen Cyclist - was threatened by the IRA!!

OK so the Cafe was put into the 2nd floor in the 1920s. Hilarious.

The last Switzer involved in the department store - died in 1946...

The Politics of Healing - in the 20th century  - google preview









































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