Hello Francis

Sorry for the delay - I was diverted from my emails and bulletin boards by a problem with another app.

I too wondered if the Gorrys originated in Ireland, possibly from the seaboard counties of Antrim & Down in the North, or from Louth, Meath & Dublin in the South, but am constrained by a crude analysis of the Gorry events in the British Isles section of the IGI where Gorry events (73 after deleting duplications) occured overwhelmingly in the inner counties; there are only 7 in Meath & Dublin, 1 in Antrim, none at all in Down and Louth.

Also, Gorry forenames in the IoM are not obviously Irish but more 'generic' with a hint of Scottishness by the use of the form 'Allan', and the recurrence of 'William'. As far as I know, the IoM Gorrys are predominately Protestant. Could we then be talking of Scottish settlers in Ulster moving in to the Island?

But, I know IoM Gorrys moved to Cumberland and Lancashire, so there could have been two-way traffic for the distance from Cumberland, at least, is much less than that from the Dublin area. On the other hand, there are only 10 IGI events for these two counties.

The Scottish counties of Wigtown & Kirkcudbright are no further than the coast of Northern Ireland so here's another possible migrant route but, as with Ireland, the Scottish Gorrys in the IGI (236 - more numerous than Ireland, England & the Isle of Man combined) are very much in the inner counties - mostly in Perth but stretching up to the Orkneys. There are only 2 in the SW counties, both in Ayr.

I think that I've convinced myself that, as a best fit, the IoM Gorrys came from Scottish settler stock in Northern Ireland. Is there no one out there who really, really knows the truth

regards

Alan