Looking for Gault ancestors

My name is Ruth Vant, and I live in Canada. According to my mother (who passed away in January of this year just a few weeks before turning 99), my great-grandfather, John Gault, was born in Carrickfergus and left at the age of 17-19 because he could not find work and there were already too many mouths to feed. To the best of my knowledge, his parents were William Gault and Martha May Close. To the best of my knowledge, none of John Gault's descendents are currently living in Ireland.

I think John Gault was born in 1845, so he would have left Ireland about 1862-1864 (+/- 5 years). His ship was blown off course before reaching Canada and so he landed near Boston instead. He gradually made his way north to Canada, living near Toronto for a few years with his first wife, Catherine Henry. Together they had 3 children. Unfortunately, Catherine died at a relatively young age. John Gault, with his children, then moved east to Nova Scotia, where he married his second wife, Lavinia Geddes. They had another 6 children, the youngest of whom was my grandfather, Wilfred Albert Gault, who married Anita Pearl Gault and they had 13 children - the oldest was my mother, Albert Pearl Gault - and 43 grandchildren. I lost count of how many great-grandchildren they had, but my oldest child (now 37 years old) was their great-grandchild #25.

I will be travelling to Ireland with my husband in late summer this year, to help me get in touch with my roots. We plan to travel around the Emerald Isle, and will be spending a few days in Carrickfergus. I really want to "feel" where my great-grandfather once lived. If there are any other Gaults living in Carrickfergus and I could connect with them, that would be a big bonus for me. And if we discover we are related, that would be exceptional! I did find some information about Sam Gault who worked at the Gas Works Museum, but he passed away last year (I have no idea if we were related).

I have done some on-line searching, but I have been unable to find any information about John Gault's family other than the names of his parents. I'm fairly certain he had sibilings, but I have been unable to find any names or other connections. Any help in this direction would be gladly accepted and very much appreciated. I know the destruction of many censuses has made searching much more difficult.