The search for our Boyle ancestors in Benmore/Ballyduff

The search for our Boyle ancestors in Benmore/Ballyduff

Based on just Benmore and Ballyduff entries in the Causeway parish register I have searched for Juliana’s siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews and other possible connections.  Listing the references provides me with target names and relationships.  There are generally many more Boyles in the Causeway register than Donoghues, so much harder task.

Recall

James Donoghue and Juliana Boyle (my generation’s ggggrandparents)

Thomas Donoghue and Ellen Connor (my generation’s gggrandparents)

Generation One

Juliana Boyle (b.1780s), wife of James Donoghue as above:

1819 – sponsor at baptism of Honora, dau. of John Connor and Ellen Donohue (probable mother of our Ellen Connor above).

1823 – sponsor at baptism of Ellen, dau. of Bartholomew Donohue (James’s brother) and Bridget Ferris

Possible brother - Daniel Boyle (b.1780s) married to Catherine Tuite:

1809 – baptism of dau. Ellen, sponsor Catherine Gunn; Gunn family known to be friendly with Juliana

1814 – baptism of dau. Margaret, sponsor Patrick Boyle, another possible brother

1810 - possible sister, Joanna Boyle marriage to Denis Kearney, sponsor John Boyle, another possible brother

            1818 – marriage of John Boyle & Margaret Leehy, brother as above

1812 - possible sister – Catherine Boyle, sponsor at baptism of Ellen, dau. of Thomas Chute & Dorothy Birch

In summary, Juliana’s siblings may have included Daniel, Patrick, Joanna, John and Catherine.

Generation Two: Juliana’s (and James’s) further children or nieces and nephews

1838 - Joanna Boyle, sponsor at baptism of Denis, son of Denis Hanifan & Eliza Connor; Ellen’s (see below) sister as other sponsor was James Connor, a probable brother

            1839 – Joanna Boyle married John Donoghue (Thomas’s brother)

            1841 – Joanna Boyle, sponsor at baptism of John, son of Thomas Donoghue and             Ellen Connor as above

            1842 – Jude Boyle (Jude short for Joanna) sponsor at baptism of Michael son of             Thomas Ryle and Mary Donoghue (Thomas’s sister)

1836+ – Baptisms of James Donoghue (Thomas’s brother) & Elizabeth Boyle’s children: Juliana (1836), Ellen (1839), Honora (1842), Mary (1844) with sponsor Julia Boyle (seems rather late for this to be our Juliana?), Patrick (1847)

1840 – Brian Boyle and Ellen Boyle, sponsors at baptism of Juliana, dau of John Donoghue and Joanna Boyle

1844 – Anastasia Boyle married to Patrick Donnoghue (probably son of Patrick Donoghue (son of James and Juliana) and Catherine Dee) had a dau. Mary for whom the sponsors were John Boyle and Jude Boyle

            1847 – Catherine Boyle sponsor at baptism of James, son of Anastasia and Patrick

            above

1850 – Mary Boyle and Simon Halloran had a son Samuel for whom the sponsors were John Boyle and Catherine Boyle

So we have Boyle names of Joanna (Jude), Elizabeth, Julia (Julia and Joanna were both derivations of Sibán in Irish so could be same person), John, Brian, Ellen, Anastasia, Catherine, Mary.

The degree of intermarriage between Donoghues and Boyles seems extraordinary in today’s terms, but one must remember that the social circle was very narrow in the first half of the 19^th century.

The next step will be to look at the nearby townlands and see if other Boyle families might be offer alternative theories.

Our extended family in Ballyduff 1782-1852: The O'Donoghue male line

OUR EXTENDED FAMILY IN BALLYDUFF 1782-1852

THE O’DONOGHUE MALE LINE 
(to go to family tree click here)

I have now searched all the Causeway parish records from 1782-1852 for the Donoghue and Boyle names and analysed them by townland.  The records for 1787 to late 1806 are not available.  The Connor name is just too extensive to cover in the same way.  I will look at the other adjacent RC parishes and townlands in due course.

Family history is all about creating hypotheses and then trying to prove or disprove them.  It is time to try to come to some conclusions as to our extended family and their friends in Ballyduff and Poplar.  I will deal first with the O’Donoghue male line and in later blogs with the female lines.

Witnesses or sponsors are a key influence in trying to pin down who was ours and who not.  They are the closest relationships to the folk whose major event (marriage or birth) is shown in the parish register.  This note will show who I think were of our family and why.  I have used the ratings of strong, medium and weak to describe my level of assurance.

If in doubt, my working assumption is that sponsors (godparents/witnesses) would not have been chosen later than age 30-35 as 40 was average life expectancy at that time.  This might help me separate siblings from uncles and aunts.  A confusion in the consideration of sponsors is that they seem to vary in their use of maiden vs married names.

I have used the surname spellings as recorded in the register in the detailed comments but they are all the same as Donoghue really.

It is clear that the recording practices of the parish priests could be very random as to who finished up in the register.  The priest would very often carry out the services at the homes of the people involved, wrote the details on a piece of paper and might or might not have remembered to make an entry.  It seems very few marriages were recorded.  In fact I have been told that religious practice itself was not very strong prior to the famine.

This was a very close community with a lot of intermarriage within a quite limited area.  Marriage between cousins seems to have been quite common.

So many names, so confusing!  Simultaneously with this piece, I have put up a genealogical tree on the blog which summarises all that I have found so far.  Or at least I will do when I can work out how to publish in Landscape!  I suggest you print it out when reading this article to help with identification. 

The male O’Donoghue line

Generation One (parents not known):  James Donoghue and Juliana Boyle

Their children: Thomas (1806: Generation Two below), Patrick (pre-1806), James (pre-1806), Mary (pre-1806), John (pre-1806)

Generation Two: Thomas Donoghue (b.1806) and Ellen Connor (b.1808)

Their children: Juliana (1834), James (1836), Catherine (1839), John (1841), Thomas (1844), Ellen (1847), Mary Ann (Poplar 1852)

Ellen Connor’s parents are thought to have been John Connor and Ellen Donoghue.  Their children were Ellen (1808), Daniel (1814), Mary (1815), Honora (1819), John (1822), James (1824), Margaret (1832?).  I would give this relationship a Medium rating for reasons quoted in an earlier blog.

Generation Three: Thomas O’Donoghue (b.1844) and Mary Sullivan (married in London in 1865, when O’ was put back on certificate)

Their children: Mary (1866), Catherine (1867), Thomas William (1869), Margaret (1872), James (1874), my grandfather, Mary Ann (1877), Gwendoline Anastasia Celina (1880)

James and Julia’s other possible children - Patrick, James, Mary, John and Catherine - are not found in parish records but can be elicited from the parish records.

Patrick: James and Julia are shown as sponsors to Patrick Donohue and Catherine Dee’s child, Mary, in 1823 in adjacent Knoppoge townland.  This implies that Patrick was an older brother to Thomas. Strong

In 1841 a Patrick Donohue was sponsor at the baptism of Thomas and Ellen’s John.  In 1844 Patrick Donnoghue and Anastasia Boyle married with sponsors John and Jude Boyle; Jude is a short form of both Julia and Joanna.  This Patrick may have been the son of Patrick and Catherine above, but see later in Poplar.

James: James Donoghue and Elizabeth Boyle had a daughter Juliana (1836), as the first, she was named after her paternal grandmother.  Their other children were Ellen (1839), Honora (1842), Mary (1844), Patrick (1847). Strong

Mary: Mary Donoghue was a sponsor for James and Elizabeth’s Ellen (1839).  Strong

John: John Donoghue and Joanna Boyle’s first daughter was named Juliana and first son, James, so after paternal grandparents.  Strong

Catherine: In 1812, Catherine Donohue was a sponsor at the baptism of Matthew Ryan and Ellen Callinane’s child, Patrick.  The reason for suspecting a relationship with James is that the other sponsor was George Gunn and we know that Juliana had a connection with the Gunn family.

James Donoghue’s siblings or possibly cousins

Rattoo and Killury civil parishes contain virtually all of the townlands covered by Causeway RC parish. 

I need a way to show where the greater preponderance of O’Donoghues were from 1782-1852.  I have counted the number of parish register references with first time for parents counting once, every time counting for sponsors. 

In Rattoo civil parish, the O’Donoghues are concentrated (more than 5 references) in

Benmore/Ballyduff (26), Drommartin (21), Knoppoge (14), Ballincrossig (8) and Ardagh (6) townlands.  In Killury civil parish the concentration is in Dromnacarra (22) and Kilmore (18).

All bar Dromnacarra (4 miles) are within 2 miles of Ballyduff.

For Generation One, a number of theories can be set up around Sylvester, Bartholomew, Ellen, Catherine and John as siblings of James.  Nearly all of these are based on records for Benmore/Ballyduff. 

Sylvester Donohue and his family

• Sylvester is an unusual name in Causeway parish.
• Sylvester Donohue and Mary Flahive had children, Ellen and John, in 1784 and 1786 and this suggests he was born in the 1760s. 
• In 1812 a Sylvester Donohue was sponsor at the baptism of Anastasia Mahony, daughter of Thomas Mahony and Margaret Sullivan in a townland recorded as Knockanehigue.  I am unable to find this townland, but suspect it is an extension of a Knockane in either Listowel or Ballyheigue, probably the former.  The interesting thought, however, is that in Generation Three in Poplar, Mary Sullivan was the daughter of John Sullivan and Margaret Mahony, and Thomas and Mary gave this name, Anastasia, to their last child born in 1880.  Intriguing but not in any way conclusive, as these surnames are relatively common.
• Sylvester was a sponsor at the birth of Daniel, John Connor and Ellen Donoghue’s second child, in 1814.  As he would have been in his late 40s this Sylvester may have been his son.  Juliana Boyle was a sponsor of their fourth child, Honora, in 1819 suggesting strong family connections of a similar generation.  Similar age considerations apply but I have not found another Juliana Boyle to fulfil this role.
• In 1820 Sylvester Donoghue had an altar tomb or mausoleum built in Rattoo churchyard.  It is placed just below a Boyle one.
• In 1821 Bartholomew Donohue and Bridget Ferris had a first child, Sylvester (named after paternal grandfather), so Bartholomew must have been his son.  In 1823 Juliana Boyle was sponsor to their second recorded child, Ellen, connecting him to James.  In 1832 a Sylvester was sponsor to their third child, James; he was probably Bartholomew’s brother.
• In 1824 the Tithe Applotment Books show a Silay and Bat Donoghue holding land in Chapel Land which would have adjacent to the church in Ballyduff.  These are nicknames for Sylvester (I think) and Bartholomew and confirms their relationship.  Another Bat is shown in East Benmore and this may have been Sylvester and James’s brother.

It is my current opinion that Sylvester and Bartholomew Senior were James’s brothers, but I can only give this and what follows a Medium confidence rating at this stage. 

In 1784, Ellen Donohue, was a sponsor at the baptism of Sylvester and Mary’s first child, Ellen, which suggests she was his sister and therefore also James’s.  She married Maurice Nelan and had a child, Mary, baptised in 1786.  It seems probable that the 1784 child, Ellen, is the wife of John Connor described above, and the mother of Ellen Connor who married James’s son Thomas.  Ellen was, therefore, Thomas’s first cousin once removed, being his uncle’s grandchild.  I have been told that first cousin marriages were quite common.

In 1812, Catherine Donohue was a sponsor at the baptism of Matthew Ryan and Ellen Callinane child, Patrick.  The reason for suspecting a relationship with James is that the other sponsor was George Gunn and we know that Juliana had a connection with the Gunns. 

A sponsor at Ellen and Maurice Nelan’s child, Mary, was John Donohue, which suggests he was her brother.  In the Tithe Applotment Books of 1824, a John Donohue is shown to be on land in Bishopscourt which is adjacent to Benmore.  But John is a well-used name.

At the 1814 baptism of John Connor and Ellen Donohue’s second child, Daniel, the sponsors were Sylvester and Honora Donohough.  As described above it seems unlikely that they would have been of Generation One on the basis of age, so for the moment we will assume that they were Sylvester and Mary Flahive’s children.

In Poplar in 1851

After the famine (1845-51) the incidence of Donoghue events in Causeway reduces to very little.  So what happened to all our ancestors?  They might have died during the famine, left Causeway for another parish looking for work or emigrated to UK, North America or Australasia.

We know that Thomas and Ellen Connor brought their family to London sometime between March 1851 and March 1852 when Mary Ann was born.

I have checked all the Donoghues in Poplar in the 1851 UK census.  Families sent members ahead to recce the proposed new settlement area and there were two possible for our family in 5 Sophia Street.  Honoria Donaghua (b.c.1835, and described as the sister of a Joanna Connell) and John Donohou (b.c.1820, a visitor) were amongst many people living in this one building.  Other names were Fitzgerald, Flaherty, Hayes, Healy, Murphy and these all crop up in the Causeway Donoghue records.  I have not identified birth events in Causeway for these two but the names are common in our family (but also in many others).  At the time of Mary Ann’s birth in 1852 our family was living at 3 Sophia Street which does suggest a relationship.

There is also a Patrick Donohue, wife Ann and child Juliana, living as lodgers with a Dee family in 8 Salters Buildings, Poplar.  He was born around 1821.  Earlier in this note I identified a son of our James and Juliana of this name married to a Catherine Dee; two children are recorded in 1823 and 1826.  It is as yet unclear to me who this Poplar Patrick is, but I feel he is probably one of ours.

How common is the name Juliana Donoghue?  There are only 13 in the whole of Kerry in the period 1784-1852 and 8 of those are in Causeway.  There are however hundreds of Julias, but only a handful in Causeway so Juliana is a very singular name for our part of north Kerry and is a very clear indication that this Patrick probably came from Causeway. 

There is a lot of work yet to be done in Poplar and surrounding districts.

Irish naming practices and our O'Donoghues

Irish naming practices and our O’Donoghues

By Rod O’Donoghue

The practice

The old Irish Catholic custom of naming children was as follows:

First born male child named after the father’s father
First born female child named after the father’s mother
Second born male child named after the mother’s father
Second born female child named after the mother’s mother
Third born male child named after father
Third born female child named after mother.

It does not always run true but it can be a very good guide for investigating further possibilities.

Repetition evidence

The evidence for this practice is certainly visible in many families in the nineteenth century where they tended to marry within a fairly narrow community.  The same names are repeated within the same area and appear across family groups.  The practice began to fade as people emigrated and married outside of their Irish community. 

Our family in Ballyduff

My ggggrandparents were James Donoghue and Julia(na) Boyle.  Their son Thomas (born 1806) was my gggrandfather.

He married Ellen Connor, who I think, but as you will see I have doubts, was born in 1808 to John Connor and Ellen Donoghue.  The parish register shows that they had five children: Ellen (b.1808), Daniel (b.1814), Mary (b.1815), Honora (b.1819), John (b.1822), James (b.1824), Margaret (b.1832).  Daniel and Honora do not recur in our family.

In the list above it seems unlikely that there would have been a six-year gap between John and Ellen’s first and second children, so some may be missing. 

Thomas and Ellen’s children were named as follows

Julia (b.1834): after her paternal grandmother

James (b.1836): after his paternal grandfather

John (b.1839): after his maternal grandfather

Catherine (b.1841): not after her maternal grandmother!

Thomas, my ggrandfather (b.1844): after his father

Ellen (b.1847): after her mother and maternal grandmother

A local historian has said to me that children were sometimes named after a deceased sibling, people to be impressed, a saint and that there were many other reasons to deviate.   Perhaps in this case because both mother and maternal grandmother were Ellens, they saved the name for later.

I have searched for an Ellen born to a John Connor and a Catherine in the right timeframe, and the only possible is John Connor and Catherine Scollard from Knockawaddra, south of Tralee.  Their Ellen was born in 1802, four years before Thomas.  This townland is well outside of the normal social radius from Ballyduff of 4-5 miles.  Scollards are found around Ballyduff in this period but very few.  I rather doubt that this is our Ellen.

Having searched the parish registers extensively for Donoghues and Boyles it is clear that not all marriages or births were recorded and so there may have another couple altogether not shown in the records.  I may never resolve this issue unless I find people living today who are also descended from our ancestors and have a family record.

Our family in Poplar

To evidence how the practice eroded after leaving Ireland, I have shown the recorded children of Thomas (my ggrandfather) and Mary Sullivan. Mary was born in 1845 in London to John Sullivan (b.1808) and Margaret Mahoney (b.1814) both of whom may have been from Cork.

Mary (b. & d.1866): after mother?

Catherine (b.1867): after aunt?

Thomas William (b. 1869 & d. 1871): after father, but no evidence of a William in our family; it is an uncommon name in our part of Ireland.

Margaret (b.1872): after maternal grandmother

James (b.1874): after ggrandfather or uncle?

Mary Ann (b. 1877): after aunt?

Gwendoline Anastasia Celina (b. & d.1880): have no idea but Anastasia as a name is found in our part of Kerry, shortened sometimes to Ansty

Benmore and Ballyduff's landlords and the O'Donoghues

The O’Donoghues of Ballyduff, North Kerry

The landlords and our family

By Rod O’Donoghue (one of them)

My ggggrandmother was Julia Boyle who married James Donoghue sometime in the later part of the 18^th century.

There were three main landlords in the Benmore/Ballyduff area - Stoughton, Gun(n) and Rice.  In 1748 the commons of Benmore and Rattoo were divided between the Gun(n) and Stoughton families.

The Gun(n)s lived at Rattoo House (built in 1836 and shown left as it is today) and theirs was the big tomb inside Rattoo church in the burial ground of which lies my ggggrand uncle Sylvester's tomb.  The forename Wilson is distinctive in their line.  The Ballyduff Magazine Volume 1 had an article on Wilson Gun/Ratoo Landlord.

I am currently logging all references to our and the Boyle name in the Causeway parish registers.  On 17 June 1832 Catherine Gunn was born to Wilson Gunn and Catherine Rahilly of Rattoo Lodge.  The only sponsor (godparent) recorded was Julia Donoghue.  Our ggggrandmother would have been in her fifties and I have not found another candidate yet. The article says Wilson married Gertrude Allen in 1839 so Catherine Rahilly must have been an earlier marriage or ‘adventure’. This suggests Julia must have been quite a friend (or perhaps a nanny) and that the 'big house with horses' that my Uncle Len always talked about might have been Rattoo House.  As I reported in my first blog, ‘My O’Donoghue family from Ballyduff, North Kerry’, Julia stayed in Ballyduff when her children left for the East End of London in 1851, I wonder if she stayed in the village to tend to Catherine, who would have been 19, perhaps Catherine Rahilly had died.

At the baptism of Thomas and Ellen's last child Mary Ann in Poplar in 1852, one of the sponsors was Elizabeth Gunn. Wilson Gun(n)’s youngest sister was named Elizabeth.  Is it possible that she was there for this baptism out of respect for the family connection, even possibly to represent Julia who would have been too old to travel perhaps?

Wilson Gun(n)’s sister Emma married George Browne of Listowel.  One of the witnesses at my great grandparents, Thomas and Mary Sullivan’s wedding in Poplar in 1865 was Nicholas Browne.  Perhaps this is all coincidence but I don’t think so. 

The Gunn and Browne families did not fall so low as to finish up in mid-Victorian London’s East End, but it seems that the family connection was maintained.

Julia’s landlord in 1853 was Thomas A Stoughton, who lived at Ballyhorgan House.  In 1813 Anthony Staughton married Mary Hackit in Beenduff, and one of the witnesses was William Boyle, perhaps one of Julia’s siblings.  I have assumed that Beenduff is some combination name for Benmore and Ballyduff because there is no other recognised townland of that name in Kerry, let alone Causeway parish, quite possibly erroneously.

The Rices lived at Bushmount House, Ballyduff and I have found no connection with them yet.

All this plus Sylvester's mausoleum and Julia's house in the village suggests our Irish family were a bit better off than finishing up in the pits of the mid-nineteenth century East End of London conjures up!

I will write more about the area in which they settled in a later blog.

Where did the O'Donoghues of North Kerry come from?

The O’Donoghues of North Kerry

Where did they come from?

By Rod O’Donoghue (one of them)

The question I am also asking myself is who were these O’Donoghues in North Kerry?  Where did they come from?  In Listowel and its vicinity by J Anthony Gaugan, 1973, I found that ‘the Broder or Broderick, Kennelly, O’Connor and Scanlan are probably the oldest in the district.  Close behind those are the McCarthy, Moriarty, O’Connell, O’Donoghue, O’Mahony, O’Shea and O’Sullivan families’.  O’Mahony and O’Sullivan also figure in our family tree.

Right next door to Ballyduff is the parish of Ballydonoghue (Baile Dhonnchú or Donoghue’s town or home).  The term baile means that the territory was occupied by an extended kin-group or family.  The parish used to be called Lisselton but, when asked what name they would like, the parishioners chose Ballydonoghue; this is the name of a local townland, which has nine rátha or circular forts in it showing that it was a place of some tribal importance long ago.  Further north and just over the border in Limerick is another townland called Ballydonoghue, and in the east of that county another one of the same name.  This suggests the presence of tribes of our name for many centuries.  Looking at the census of 1659 there were a lot of O’Donoghues in these three areas.

Local folklore states that Rattoo Tower was built to commemorate a battle against the Vikings at The Paddock, close to Ballyduff, which it is said that the O’Donoghues won.  In an article on Rattoo in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society in 1910 it says ‘It is recorded in The Wars of the Gaedhill with the Gaill (the Gaels with the Foreigners) supposed to have been written by an eye-witness of the famous battle of Clontarf that in 812 the Danes first began the devastation of Erin, and that in this year they landed in Munster from 120 ships, plundered the country, and burned Inis Labhrainn and Dairinis, but were defeated by the Eoghanacht (O’Donoghues) of Lough Léin, ie the Lakes of Killarney’.  O’Donoghues has, it appears, been inserted by the author, on what basis I cannot say. 

If they were involved, 812 is before the O’Donoghues Mór had arrived in Killarney and might suggest another tribe.  John O’Donovan in his Ordnance Survey Letters (1834-42) states that Inis Labhrainn (island with something to do with speaking?) is an island in the mouth of the Cashen river in the townland of Derryco (either Doire na gcath: wood of the battle or Doire Cua: possibly wood of the heroes, 2 miles from Ballyduff), where there is also an old church (see right).  Some locals surmise that the O’Donoghues built Rattoo tower and church.

The Annals of the Four Masters says for 807 (corrected to 812) that ‘A slaughter was made of the foreigners by Cobhthach, son of Maelduin, lord of Loch Lein’ but doesn’t say where.  This is repeated in Annals of Ulster for the year 811 with the added note that King of Loch-Lein was a bardic term for the King of West Munster.  Francis Byrne in Irish Kings and High Kings shows Cobhthach (d.833), son of Máel Dúin (d.786) as a king of Locha Léin.  As I can see no Donnchadh in the pedigree for the Eoghanacht Locha Léin I am left confused.

I am afraid all this poses more questions than it answers.  My genetic signature of the O’Donoghue Mór suggests that these North Kerry/Limerick O’Donoghues probably came up from Cork or Kerry but it could very well have been a long time ago or even as a separate branch of the Eoghanacht, the paramount tribal group of Munster.

In the Aran Isles an O’Donoghue family told me that they were descended from two or three brothers and a wife from Kerry who rowed up the coast in the eighteenth century and stopped at Inis Oírr.  So perhaps that happened here but centuries earlier.

There is much more work to do! 

My O'Donoghue family from Ballyduff, North Kerry

My O’Donoghue family from Ballyduff, North Kerry

By Rod O’Donoghue (rod@odonoghue.co.uk)

It is relatively recently, after over twenty years of research, that I discovered that my ggggrandparents were James Donoghue and Juliana Boyle from Ballyduff; my gggrandparents were Thomas Donoghue (b.1806) and Ellen Connor (b.1808).  In March I spent hours pulling all the references to Donoghue, Boyle and Connor in Ballyduff and the townland in which it lies, Benmore, off the online parish records on irelandgenealogy.ie.  I laid out the probable siblings for my ancestors and their related families.  The earliest records are for 1782 but they are missing for 1786 to 1806.  I have now learnt that the parish priest for those years had the habit of writing disparaging remarks against some of his parishioners, such as drunkard, layabout etc.  When he was leaving he regretted his actions and his solution was to burn the parish register!  I recorded all entries up to 1851 when Thomas and Ellen left for London.

In April my sister, two sons and I set off to follow the trail. 

One of the pilots for a new initiative called Ireland Reaching Out was North Kerry (see http://www.northkerryreachingout.com/).  I have firsthand experience of their excellent support.  They introduced me to two local Ballyduff historians, one of whom spent a whole day with us and the other half a day. 

Near Ballyduff at Rattoo (Ráth Magha Tuirscit or Fort of the Northern Plains, apparently derived from an earthen fort near which the church was built) is the finest round tower in Ireland and next to it is a ruined church dated at its earliest to the ninth century.  As you can see, when we visited, the tower was covered with scaffolding!  Close by is an old abbey said to have been built during the reign of King John (1199-1216), but originally dating as a monastic settlement to the sixth century.

The churchyard contains a number of very old tombs or mausoleums.  We walked round and my sister called out that there was one which said ‘Erected by Sylvester O’Donoghue for him and his posterity 1820’.  I am fairly certain that he was my ggggrandfather’s brother.  The mausoleum or altar tomb was in bad repair and some patching had been done.  Behind his tomb was one for which there was a later inscription for a Boyle family, with Connors round the corner.  It felt right. 

The Griffiths Valuation for 1853 showed a Julia Donohoe living in the village.  She must have been my ggggrandmother even though she would have been in her seventies.  

Julia’s landlord was Thomas A. Stoughton and it is probable that my farming ancestors leased their properties from him.  He was an English absentee landlord with a country estate in Gloucestershire, but is said to have been a good man who looked after his tenants.  In fact all three local landlords of the time, Stoughton, Gun and Rice are given a pretty good press.

There are very few Donoghue or Boyle entries in the parish register after the Famine and this suggests that most of my family group left Ballyduff.  Julia must have been just too old to go with them.  It is possible that Thomas and Ellen’s eldest son, James, aged fifteen, stayed with her; I like to think so.  In 1841 the population of the village was 331, dropping to 269 (19%) in 1851.  By 1861 it was down to 214 and by 1881 it had sunk to 101.  Actually Ballyduff was not as bad as many; Rattoo the civil parish within which it lies dropped by 44% between 1841 and 1851.

The main families I am interested in, with the period in which they were having children (first and last birth dates in brackets), are

1780s

Sylvester Donohue & Mary Flahive: Ellen (1784)

1790 - early 1830s

James Donoghue & Juliana Boyle: Thomas (1806)

John Connor & Ellen Donoghue: Ellen (1808), Daniel, Mary, Honora, John, James, Margaret (1832)

1820-40s

Bartholomew Donohue & Bridget Ferris: Sylvester (1821), Ellen, James, Thomas, Patrick, Michael, Mary, Catherine (1844)

Thomas Donoghue & Ellen Connor: Julia (1834), James, John, Catherine, Thomas, Ellen (1847)

There are many other Boyles and Connors who are clearly part of my family group but those are for later.