Thanks for your help re my great grandfather John McFerran. His wife Harriet Foster told all her children (including my grandmother Annie who was the eldest) that their father had drowned at sea. My grandmother was 8 when he died and was deeply affected by his death for her entire life. She died in 1999 believing that her father was a ship's captain who had got on a boat at Larne and was not on the boat when it arrived at Scotland. 

 

My grandmother lived with us in Glynn, moving there with my parents in 1955 when they built the new council houses in Glenvale Park. She used to take me to the town park and the promenade, tell me about how her father had died and stare out to sea. Finding your mention of my grandfather in your book confirmed what I believed when I found his death certificate - that he died in Glynn in 1915. I don't know why Harriet Foster told her children this story, when I asked a McFerran relative about it he said the same as my grandmother - John McFerran had been lost at sea. Thank you. I hope I can find his grave.