RTÉ Press Centre

This is a story that has its roots spread between Fermanagh and Leitrim in Ireland, and South Africa.

As a child in South Africa, Rosemarie Gilchrist’s grandmother told her a story about an orphaned Irish boy, lost in Africa, who grew up in the bush, cared for by a local tribe until he was found by a man who then traced his family back to Ireland. Could this story be true? And if so, how could this happen?

The boy’s name was Cyril Barton, and he was Rosemarie’s cousin. He was born in South Africa in 1875 to Irish parents, Florence and Folliott Barton.
Cyril’s mother, née Florence Lyons Montgomery, came from an Anglo-Irish family who were landlords in Killargue, County Leitrim. She married Folliott Barton from Pettigo, County Fermanagh, who also came from a landed family.

Folliott, an engineer, set up a large scale mining enterprise in Belbulbin, County Sligo. However, things didn’t go to plan and the enterprise ended five years into a twenty-one year lease. He was then declared bankrupt, and a hurried escape to South Africa followed in search of better prospects.

The late 19th century was a time of colonial expansion in South Africa. The discovery of diamonds and gold led to expanding frontiers and large-scale immigration of people from all over the world. After a month long boat journey, the Bartons disembarked in Cape Town, and travelled upcountry where Folliott hoped to find engineering work in new towns and cities where harbours, breakwaters, bridges and dams were being built.
Florence was a graphic letter writer, and her letters written to her family back Ireland have survived, and document the birth of Cyril in Grahamstown in June 1875, along with the trials, tribulations of Florence, Folliott and Cyril and their travels through South Africa via ox-wagon. It was a day-by-day existence where they constantly struggled to make ends meet, and longed to return to Ireland.

After a number of years the letters stop. Rosemarie’s grandmother’s story has always fascinated her, and years later she came across some old family documents from Ireland which give an account of what happened next to Cyril and his parents.

It tells us that Florence died of malarial fever. After her death, eight-year-old Cyril and his father then moved onto the gold fields of the Northern Province. En route, Folliott had his possessions and wagon stolen, and was killed. The maid travelling with them grabbed the young boy, Cyril, and took him to her tribe in the mountains.

According to the family account, nothing more was heard of Cyril for many years although all enquiries were made as to what had become of him. Years afterwards, his grandmother, Mrs Barton, had a South African newspaper sent to her in which was an account of a white child having been found by a hunter in a wild tribal area far up country. She at once got into communication with the hunter and eventually Cyril was brought home to his father’s people in Ireland.

These documents point to a second account from South Africa, written in 1901 by the man who claimed to have found the lost boy. These accounts give varying details of what happened next.

We later find Cyril in Dublin in 1933, working as a clerk in the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. But what happened to him before and after? What became of him as a youngster and what effect did his strange upbringing have on him as a person? Rosemarie has heard this story about her cousin all her life, but is now piecing together what actually happened.

‘The Prospector’s Son’ goes in search of Cyril’s story – a trail that takes us from Fermanagh, Leitrim and Sligo, to the remote Highveld of the Mpumalanga region of South Africa, and back to Dublin.

Narrated by Sarah Blake