Jane Leahy – Curiously Absent from Everywhere

#52Ancestors Week 4 – Curious.

There are plenty of puzzles in my family tree. Despite all my efforts, Jane Leahy is still one of them.

Warning: this post is heavy on detail and more of a report than a general post.

Blackwater Castle near Castletownroche in Cork

Jane’s brief appearance in the records spans the seven years it took her to baptise five illegitimate children – 1839 to 1846.

The baptisms took place in the parish of Castletownroche. The father for all five was Henry Harrison Peard, and their address was given as Inchinapallas (aka Inchinapalace). Henry Peard’s death notice refers to him as ‘Henry H Peard of Inchinapallis’ so I think we can assume the two lived together.

That’s merely an assumption. Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps Jane lived in a cottage on the property.

She was Irish Catholic and he was Protestant, but that didn’t truly stop people from marrying. It wasn’t very common, but it happened often enough. They were public enough that Jane could name him as the father for all the baptisms.

That said, did he even know he was publicly named? Was he present at those baptisms?

Here’s some geography. The world of Jane Leahy was a rather small triangle.

These towns and directions are pretty much to scale. Mallow, Fermoy and Mitchelstown form a triangle, Castletownroche and the townland of Inchinapallas are towards the centre south.

The Peards settled at Castlelyons near Fermoy somewhere around the 1640s (see Richard Peard-Adventurer or Gentleman?) and the ancestral property of Coole Abbey was passed down from eldest son to eldest son. They were comfortably off, not excessively wealthy. They weren’t titled. But they were landed gentry. They were educated, they travelled, they married into equally good families.

At least, some of them returned to Cork. I’ve not managed to trace the whole family.

As far as I can tell, our Henry Harrison Peard did not marry at all. He did not even marry the woman who gave him five children.

Why not?

There’s no indication that Jane could read or write. Castletownroche is six and a half miles from his home in Inchinappalas. I’m guessing she was a servant in Henry’s household and her parents were at Castletownroche. Would that be reason enough for him to not marry her?

Henry was aged about 25 when the eldest child John was baptised in Castetownroche. John was baptised on 26th June 1839, the 23rd child to be baptised that month.

For a while I wondered if he really was the father, but enough DNA matches have surfaced to confirm that he was. At least, to confirm that a Peard of that particular family was the father.

Henry Peard was heavily involved in efforts to alleviate the impact of poverty on the Irish poor. The 1830s and 1840s were peak years of the Irish famine. Whole families were starving to death, fever was raging, misery was everywhere.

Henry’s family spent the 1820s in St Helier. Coming back to Cork from somewhere like the Channel Islands must have given the whole family a shock. The locals had grown gradually into the tragedy, but Henry and his siblings did not grow up here. They saw it in all its catastrophic rawness.

It might be because he lived elsewhere that a relationship developed between Henry and Jane. He didn’t have the local prejudices of religion, class and education. He exerted himself hugely to deliver food to the poor, to seek out medical help, to find them places to live.

But he still didn’t marry Jane, and when he died in 1847 of a fever probably caught from those he was helping, no trace of her remained. She just vanished.

I don’t know how old she was. All I know is that she was childbearing age from 1839 to 1846. She might have been 15 in 1839. She might have been 40. We can’t even be sure of her name. Yes, she was Jane Leahy, but was that by birth or marriage? Perhaps she was a widow?

Here’s that ‘map’ with a couple more places marked.

Castlelyons in the lower right is Peard homeland since circa 1640. It’s four miles from Fermoy. Ballyhooly is the nearest town to the townland of Inchinapallas, four miles from Castletownroche, 2.5 miles from where we think Henry Peard was living.

(Baptism of the second child, Richard Peard 1841)

Because we know so little about Jane, the best clue seems to be those baptism sponsors. Maybe they’re from Henry’s side, but if Henry’s family were happy to attend a local Catholic church for the baptism of Henry’s child among people who might have felt very bitter towards them with their good clothes and obvious health, then what possible impediment could there have been to the marriage??

(Baptism of third child, William Peard 1842)

At this point I’m puzzled that no child was named Henry.

It’s fairly common to name the first two boys after their grandfathers. We know that Henry Harrison Peard’s father was John Peard, so presumably young John was named after him. In that case, perhaps Jane’s father was Richard or William?

Whatever the naming system, we have three boys and none are named after their father. Why not???????????

Is there an elder child yet to find? Or did Henry perhaps already have a son named Henry with another woman?

(Baptisms of Ellen and Sarah Peard in 1846)

The final children were baptised together after a four year gap. This doesn’t make them twins. There’s no indication of their age at this time. I’m guessing Ellen was older than Sarah.

A Look at the Sponsors

I’m sorry. This gets convoluted.

I’ll add one more record here: the baptism of Patrick Sullivan in April 1839 with what has to be our Jane Leahy as sponsor. She would have been pregnant with John at the time, although maybe not showing if he was her first.

Here are my findings:

Digitised baptisms for Castletownroche begin in 1811. Older people might simply be absent from searchable records.

Thomas Donovan – no baptism located in Castletownroche. A couple in the further reaches of the diocese of Cloyne. Two babies of this name were baptised in Castletownroche in the late 1820s, perhaps suggesting they had a common grandfather of that name?? But those two are too young to be sponsors for an 1839 baptism.

Margaret Leahy – many possibilities. There is a possible 1819 baptism in Castlelyons (Peard home ground) with parents John Leahy and Ellen Cosgrave who also have a daughter Jane baptised 1816. This couple is a hot contender as parents of our Jane, but the surname Cosgrave does not show AT ALL among the trees of my DNA matches so I can confirm nothing. It’s possible that Henry hired his servants from his home town to Inchinapallas and their whole extended families moved with them, hence the switch from Castlelyons church to Castletownroche. But this is purely conjecture. There are several Margaret Leahy’s showing as mothers to baptised babies in Castletownroche through the 1820s, 1830s and 1840s.

Eugene Mahoney – no baptism found in Castletownroche but a candidate located in Castlelyons, baptised 1820 the son of Denis Mahoney and Ellen Mara(?), sponsors John Eagan and Ann Kenny.

Margaret Donovan – A possible baptism in Castletownroche in 1813, daughter of John Donovan and Mary Scannel with sponsors Patrick Mahoney and Mary Keefe. There’s a marriage in 1840 in Castletownroche between Margaret Donovan and Denis Sullivan. Witnesses look to be Daniel Sullivan and Owen Donovan, but the handwriting is a bit hard to read.

Daniel Neill – two options: there’s a marriage in Castletownroche in 1822 between Daniel Neill and Margaret Buckley. There’s a baptism in Castlelyons 1814, to Michael Neill and Honora Sullivan. The person on the scene is always the most likely.

Bridget Hickey – this is very likely the wife of Bartholomew Connell of Castletownroche. Her children were born concurrently with Henry and Jane’s.

David Gay – Two generations, son David baptised 1822 in Castletownroche to David Gay and Mary Nagle (sponsors Andrew Casey and Catherine Neill). In 1840 a baby David Gay was baptised in Castletownroche to William Gay and Julia Sullivan of Inchinapallas. William seems to be another son of the earlier David and Mary.

Catherine Culnane – There are a spattering of Culnanes in the Castletownroche search results but nothing conclusive.

Michael Flahavan – baptised 10 Oct 1819, son of Martin Flahavin and Jane Casey of Inchinapallas. There’s no doubt about this one. Sponsors to the birth were Ned Mahoney and Catherine Hickey. I can’t find a marriage, but from 1841, a Martin Flahavin and Margaret Donovan of Inchinapallas were baptizing children, including a daughter Johanna.

Margaret Sullivan – many possibilities, none certain.

Michael Sullivan – Michael Sullivan and Mary Sheahan lived at Inchinapallas. Their son Denis was baptised in 1834 and one of his sponsors was Michael Flahavan. I can’t find a marriage.

Patrick Sheahan – I think this Patrick might be the one baptised 08 Oct 1815 to William Shehan and Jane Keefe, living at Templenoe. Several of the Mary Sheahans that I looked at were in Templenoe. But I really am not sure.

Conclusions

This hasn’t helped me locate Jane, but it has shown a community.

The place was obscure, even by Cork standards. It rarely appears on 19th century maps or travel guides. The closest I’ve found is Ballyhooly which is equally obscure.

(Picturesque Views of the Antiquities of Ireland 1840)

Several families lived at Inchinapallas. These included the Sullivans, the Gays, the Mahoneys and the Flahavens, as well as our Jane Leahy and Henry Harrison Peard. There’s no indication that the sponsors of Henry and Jane’s children were family; they were probably just the other families in the same location. Friends.

The same surnames are scattered throughout the diocese, so there’s nothing to be learned there, and many records are illegible. It’s probably worth the time it would take to scour the parish records by hand and pluck out all the families of Inchinapallas – that’s a project I might undertake one day. But for now I’ll continue to explore the possibilites of DNA matching.

Through looking at the families of Inchinapallas I can see who Jane’s children played with; who their neighbours were. I don’t know if they continued in that place after Henry’s untimely death in 1847. I don’t know what his death meant to all the families there.

And so concludes this post: the curious absence of facts about Jane Leahy continues unabated.

(Leigh’s New Pocket Road-Book of Ireland 1835)

Beryl Reading – A Baby on a Postcard

#52Ancestors Week 3 – Favourite Photo

It was something they used to do in our state in the first half of the twentieth century- take a photo and turn it into a postcard that you could stick a stamp onto and send through the mail.

We have very few surviving photographs in our family. This is my grandmother Beryl, born January 1918 in Kempton, Tasmania. My grandmother handed it to me one day when I was visiting and said “Can you guess who this is?”

I couldn’t. I’ve never been good at recognising people.

She then let me turn it over to read the back, and said I could keep it if I wanted it.

Of course I did!

On the back it says:

“Dear Sarah
Beryl when she was 3 months old we could not get her to look up. I remain
E Reading”

It’s a true blast from the past because that’s exactly how they all talked, everyone around me. Running sentences together, switching where the pauses go. And the valediction also, which doesn’t make much sense alone but they were taught to say it at school. Not the whole “I remain your [servant, friend etc]. Just ‘I remain’.

This is my great grandmother’s handwriting. Esther was Beryl’s mother. Esther had a younger sister named Sarah, I’m guessing she was the recipient of the postcard. And at some point down the track the postcard was returned to Esther and passed on to Beryl, who then passed it on to me. I notice there’s no stamp, it may have been placed in a parcel with other items.

Beryl was the seventh child in her family. It’s lovely to see them still taking pleasure in a new addition, enough to have her dressed up in a clean frock and lacy bib. They were a very poor family, they all lived in a two bedroomed house with the males in one room, the females in the other. Beryl’s father was a share farmer, mostly of pigs, and they had some very tough years. Through it all they were united and loving.

Beryl grew up in the now vanished town of Apsley in Central Tasmania and went to the very small Apsley school. Her father died unexpectedly on 27th December 1931. The following year was her final at school.

She met her future husband when he came through her town as a laborer working on a new rail line. They were married in the registry office in Hobart in 1939.

It’s a shame she didn’t get a proper wedding, but the war was on and nobody had money. Plus, he came from Cygnet in the southern Huon Valley, a place of hills and dense forests and treacherous winding roads, while she was miles away in Central Tasmania. How could they ask their families to travel all that way? By modern standards the journey is manageable and Hobart was halfway between the two, but it was far slower in those days.

All the same, I think she’d have liked it: the gathering of family, and of feeling beautiful in a pretty dress. But she never said anything about that.

And speaking of weddings, here is Beryl and I at my wedding. I’ve cut the others out of the photo because I haven’t gained their permission to post the photo, not because there’s any kind of rift.

Beryl and myself at my wedding. She was aged about seventy at that time.

Beryl passed away in Franklin Aged Care on 9th February 2011. Due to family commitments and finances I was unable to attend her funeral which I will forever regret, but every time I visit the state of Tasmania I stop by her grave to say hello.

Beryl’s headstone, truncated to protect the privacy of living persons in the list of her children.

The photograph of Beryl as a baby now sits in a frame on my bookcase. I see it every day.

(1) “EMPIRE DAY” The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 – 1954) 18 May 1932: 10. Web. 16 Jan 2022 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article29955723>

Patrick Dillon of Dublin

#52Ancestors Week 2-Favourite Find

This week’s prompt for 52 Ancestors is ‘Favourite Find’. I have many, but I’ve not yet written about this family. It’s definitely time. Finding Patrick Dillon broke down a very persistent brick wall.

It also returned a lost surname to the tree. My paternal line is ‘Dillon’ and for decades we accepted that we had Dillon ancestry. Actually we didn’t – the paternal line is ‘Dillane’ morphed into Dillon quite recently. So after losing ‘Dillon’, a bit of research in a different line has brought Dillon back in a different place in the tree.

This is partly a post, partly a scrapbook of quotes by others about the world of Patrick Dillon, partly a historical account of Ireland from 1770-1800. I’ve done this to fill out his world where we don’t know about him personally. He lived in violent times and this is not a gentle history, but it’s accurate to his world.

Patrick was probably born in the 1770s, maybe in Dublin. He was Irish Catholic, which makes him hard to find, plus his name is very common. He was married in Dublin in 1803 and six children were born to him there. My ancestor is a seventh child to the family and there is no baptism record for her.

Dublin was a difficult place for an Irish Catholic to live. This post describes the events of the time, and how I think Patrick was impacted by them.

Irish Catholics in Ireland were into their third century of demonization by the time of Patrick’s birth. It’s hard to imagine what that does to a society, with successive generations stripped of dignity, respectability and hope. The goalposts changed regularly, they could never form a plan to pull the family together, no new way of life lasted more than two generations. And by the late 18th century they were seeing the effects of abuse on the land by the English overlords. Absent landlords ordered the planting of crops not suited to their soil, wars had resulted in the deliberate despoiling and salting of Irish owned land, as punishment. Whole forests were burned to the ground to prevent Irish soldiers and civilians from hiding.

It’s a grim picture, amidst which the Irish Catholic families fought for survival and justice, but also did what they could to lead stable, safe and happy lives. We still have remnants of their very hidden inner lives in songs, fabrics and devotions.

Plus there were wealthier Dillons: they were a major force a few centuries earlier and had found common ground with England. Many of them even became protestant. It’s possible that my Patrick came from Protestant origins, but in 1803 he was married in a Catholic church in Dublin and there’s no indication that he was comfortably off. He was most likely a quiet honest working man in the middle of difficult times.

Historian and journalist Philip Harwood describes Ireland this way:

(Philip Harwood ‘History of the 1798 Irish Rebellion’ 1849)

The situation was different across Ireland. Organised action against the tyranny of the British in the southern half of Ireland tended to start in Munster – that is, Cork, Waterford, Limerick and Kerry.

Dublin was far more English controlled. This meant fewer privileges for the native Irish, but conversely more stable employment on English properties so more family security. If you could put up with the subjugation, living conditions were much better. And maybe the English officials here were able to relax a little and give the Irish tenants some of the perks of a free people.

A man named Dr Thomas Campbell described Dublin in 1777 as an expansive city, about a quarter the size of London in area but with more empty spaces between the houses. A beautiful bay of blue water, a scenic coastline. He was surprised since England viewed Dublin as a smaller place, but noted that many Irish Catholics lived in Dublin who were not counted in any records.

Dr Thomas Campbell ‘A Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland in Letters’ 1777

Campbell describes Dublin beautifully, both the good and the bad. This is Dublin as Patrick would have known it.

Campbell visited Dublin University and wasn’t impressed at all. Then he spent a few days exploring Dublin beyond the main squares and began to see how people were living.

Campbell described the hospital in some detail, and how it was a centre of social life since the hospital actually held music nights and dinners and concerts and dances which were attended by many. They were, of course, for Protestants only.

He then tells us about the Dublin people and here we get a glimpse of Patrick Dillon’s cohort. (canaille is a French word referring to the beggars and homeless and downtrodden poor).

It’s inevitable that the Irish people would be like this, given their past and their present treatment and the complete inaccessibility of any infrastructure to assist them.

Campbell clearly understood this. He shows himself to be a very understanding man.

Alcohol was probably the only recourse for medication, for entertainment, for warmth, even for sustenance. It’s also the one thing the British people supplied very freely to the Irish folk. And in those days they didn’t realise it was addictive. But drinking was common among the Protestants too, with every daily occasion involving drinks. No wonder Thomas Campbell was disturbed by what he saw.

Not all Irish folk were alcoholics: just the ones who had given up.

Our Patrick hadn’t given up as he reached his adult years. He was young and most likely fit and hopeful. I think this because he got married and must have felt he was able to support a family.

Historian Philip Harwood describes Ireland in 1783 as a place ready for independence from England. Even the English colonists wanted this, so they could profit from exported produce, choose their own customers, set their own taxes and make adjustments that would help the population. Protestants and Catholics united more than ever before in this.

A lot of parliamentary changes made it seem imminent. England granted Ireland’s parliament it’s independance in 1782 and the whole country rejoiced that freedom was upon them.

Philip Harwood ‘History of the 1798 Irish Rebellion’

The world of Patrick Dillon was a tough one, full of angry people and escalating violence. Harwood wrote succinctly of the rise of Irish rebellion groups like the Whiteboys and the Defenders.

Most of this was still out in the rural areas. Dublin carried on much as it had before, with just a few brawls and minor riots. Until the French Revolution of 1789 set everything off in Ireland.

Native Ireland and France had a very long connection. France sent aid to assist them in earlier centuries against Protestant England, and right through the 18th century Irish Catholics had quietly slipped out of Ireland to go join the French armies. If an Irish Catholic felt any trust in a nation other than Ireland, it was France. It makes sense that this event would ignite a flame.

The result was war in Ireland.

It took a while to get going. The Irish people banded together, a delegate went to France to ask for assistance which was provided, but bad weather prevented the French fleet from landing. This alerted England to the danger and they sent troops.

A new powerful Irish army was ready. The plan was to take control of Dublin.

It all failed, and it failed very fast. England were clever at keeping Ireland down, and more experienced with the coast and currents than France, plus they were geared up for the Napoleonic wars already and had fresh troops straight across the channel.

The rebellion was crushed in 1798, martial law imposed and even stricter conditions placed on the Irish Catholics. Irish Catholics were rounded up, removed from their land and barred from gathering together. This was the time when hedge schools and surreptitious worship in dense thickets became a thing.

A lot of rural Catholic churches were closed down and the people banned from meeting together.

This is the social climate I wanted to describe here. A world of fear and deep suspicion, great disappointment and anger. A world full of displaced soldiers and rebels who had been stripped of their land.

In the aftermath of the 1798 rebellion, the young Patrick Dillon and Bridget Hayes were optimistic enough to envision a future together. The wedding ceremony was conducted at St. James Catholic Church in Dublin on 24th June 1803.

They settled in the parish of St Catherine’s, in the liberties, an area in the south of the city. Seven children were born to them over the next ten years.

This is all I’ve found so far. They may have moved, or perhaps one of the parents died.

John and James each married a girl surnamed Martin. Thomas married a Murphy. Those marriages took place in Dublin.

My ancestor is Mary and she married in Kildare, forty miles away from the others.

Why would she be so far from home? I still have moments of doubt that these are the same family, but the DNA matches are reasonably strong. They match on the same segments, there’s a paper trail for them all. It’s just a mystery yet to be solved. Maybe the whole family moved to Kildare and only the boys stayed in Dublin, perhaps because they had employment there?

Despite the questions, it’s a very helpful find and I’m sure to learn more as time goes on.

Where Does Anything Begin?

#52Ancestors Week One-Foundations

_{(Valdivia ancestor sculpture with two faces)}

This year I’m participating again in Amy Johnson Crow’s ’52 Ancestors’, which means I write a blog post every week about ancestry based on a supplied topic prompt.

The prompt for week one is ‘Foundations’.

Foundations have always challenged me because there is always a ‘before’. How do you draw the line? Where do you declare something a new entity, a new beginning?

It seems easy from a distance. It’s never straightforward when you get close.

When I started my family history, I drew boundary lines because I knew what a big project it was. First up, I wanted to identify the ancestor in each line who arrived in Australia. That first pioneer on every side. How simple can you get?

My great grandmother Alice Head is an excellent example. She emigrated from England in 1896, married Herbert Dunstall in Kalgoorlie, and they lived happily ever after in Western Australia. Simple!

Until I explored her ancestry and found her great grandfather George Devon Doo. He was born in Surrey, England, in 1794, joined the navy and served for several years in India, after which he was pensioned out as an invalid. He was also addicted to strong spirits and opium.

George Devon Doo made his way to Australia in 1838. He struggled for nearly thirty years and eventually died in Yass, New South Wales, in 1865: almost thirty years before Alice made her journey out.

So in my family tree, who is the pioneering ancestor in that line? Is it Alice Head or is it George Devon Doo? There’s an excellent chance that Alice lived her entire life not knowing anything of that great grandfather or his naval career.

Another example:

My great great grandfather William Morey died in Mannus near Tumbarumba, New South Wales. He’s a known pioneer of the district. For years we thought he was a pioneer to Australia.

William and his wife Fanny moved to Mannus with their nine surviving children in 1908 and built a home on one of eight share farming allotments in the new settlement. The place is full of history; every trip we made as children were full of memorials and tales of those first families. We went to see the houses they once lived in, the carefully preserved sulkies they drove, the dusty portraits on the walls of various great aunts and uncles’ homes. A glimpse into a shadowy past so distant it takes special care to preserve the memories.

1908! That’s barely the past at all!

I’ve recently written about William’s parents. They were shadowy figures who left no relics behind. They had their troubles – alcoholism, clashes with neighbours, court appearances for theft. In the end his mother even changed her name and became someone else entirely.

It’s taken a concerted effort by many descendants to locate them and put together their story, but they were in Australia too. Great great grandfather William Morey was a pioneer of Mannus (1908) with an untarnished reputation. But he was actually Australian born. His birth family was less than fifty miles away.

It was his never-referenced parents who were the pioneers – the ones who made poor choices, the ones who never found their place. The ones you couldn’t bring home to meet your new family or your neighbours.

Who founded the mighty dynasty of Morey in the Snowy Mountains district in New South Wales? Their descendants are numerous and respectable. Was it William Morey 1851-1814? Or his parents who came to Australia in 1848 but self-destructed and vanished from sight?

Of course, there’s no answer to my question.

Every generation is a rich combination of old influences and new. Nobody lives in a vaccuum. We are the sum of our experiences, our legacies, our opportunities and obstacles. All of that comes from what went before. George Devon Doo ended the way he did because of his past: his father died when he was little, his mother remarried and her new husband got him a place on a naval ship when he was just eleven years old. He was a child pushed into a savage adult world. The injured, opium-addled man we find sixty years later is the end result of that tragic beginning.

William Morey became the man he was because he married a respectable woman raised in an orphanage. She had a heart of gold but the concept of family dragging one down was alien to her. I’m quite sure she encouraged her new husband to step away from his dysfunctional origins, to look forward and do what was needed for his own children.

It was the only way. But what you’ve come from still has an impact. His past shaped his ideas, his fears. He did not travel, he encouraged all his adult children to stay nearby and live equally quiet lives, without telling them why. His views make a lot more sense when you know what went before.

I’ve been grappling with this issue recently because I was stuck for a Christmas present for my father. I decided the best thing I could do was write him a history of the paternal line. Nothing too complex – short chapters, each one about one ancestor. I decided to do it from earliest to latest to properly build the story.

My paternal lineage is Irish Catholic, so there are limits to how far back I can go. The earliest named ancestor is Edmond Dillane born circa 1760 in Kerry.

But there’s a bit of explanation to be done in talking about his world. DNA matches suggest that Edmond had two brothers, John and Matthew, and a sister Catherine, and they lived in the Listowel region of Kerry.

Looking at naming patterns for their children suggests that their parents were likely named John Dillane and Catherine. Y-DNA matches show several originating ancestors from Cork in the late 1600s, so it seems likely to me that our Dillanes were formerly in Cork and settled in Kerry sometime before 1750.

I’ve spent some time examining occurrences of the surname across Munster and further afield, and some time looking into the various wars of Ireland in that turbulent 17th century.

I became lost for a while in piecing together the geographical journey of our Y-DNA matches. I don’t think we’ve had the surname Dillane for very long. Sometime in the 1700s Dillane took over from Delane. That’s the spelling you find in earlier records.

I still haven’t written that history for my father. I’m now targeting his birthday. I need to draw the line somewhere and call something a beginning.

Foundations are every point really. We just have to pick the foundation for whatever story we are going to tell. Every event, every moment in time; they’re all the start of something.

I’ve used this prompt to get my head around that concept. It’s time to write.