A short history of Troy

There is much debate at the moment about Englishness which I find interesting since I am not English - I am, since both my parents were born outside the UK, a second generation immigrant.

My ancestors were, in part, Norman and Celtic - the latter who got beaten up by the Anglo-Saxon invaders, probably using bad language when so doing. A good example of a famous Celt was Arthur, of round table fame from the West Country. The French ancestry bit dates back to one Hugo deTroyes who was a Knight from the French town of that name. Hugo was by all accounts held to ransom by the English during the Hundred Years War with the French. His fellow countrymen did not want to pay to get him back so he was sent off by his captors to live in HM Tower back in London. Sometime later he was freed, subsequently Knighted and lived out his days in middle England.

A descendent of Sir Hugo turns up as a General in Cromwell's army and was sent by the Lord Protector to Ireland to do some serious beating up. Choosing to settle in the emerald island permanently; his descendants had mixed fortunes. Prompted by the great potato famine of 1844 one Patrick Troy (my great great grandfather) a stonemason, arrived in Jersey, one of his grandsons, my grandfather married into a family of Norman decent.

There are incidentally two Troys recorded as army officers on both sides of the American Civil War; perhaps it was the same chap causing confusion - a family trait. There is Maltese influence on my immediate maternal side of my lineage; which probably accounts for my gesticulatory tendencies. Anyway my Father a Jerseyman and my Mother, born in Malta settled in southern England in the 1950's.

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Thus I am: 2/8 Irish 2/8 Norman French, 1/8 Maltese and 3/8 English.

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The reason for this short ramble around my ancestry is to illustrate that I am indeed not all English but a British European.

Anyway, Europe (the continent) is good, the EU ( a political project) is bad.

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PT