Colonel Jack Gleeson - soldier, engineer

I never met my grandfather. He died 2 years before I was born. I would have liked to though - we were born on the same day. And it is that shared birthday that has always made me feel a certain affinity to him.

John Gleeson was born on 18th June 1898 in Stratford-on-Slaney, Co. Wicklow. Nowadays it is a small village, almost forgotten, (the population is only 241) but 200 years ago it was a bustling market town with a thriving cotton, linen and calico printing industry employing over 1000 people. Stratford (as the locals call it) was built by the Earl of Aldborough, one of the ten wealthiest men in Ireland (back in 1774). It was fashioned after the popular resort town of Bath in Somerset with the aim of attracting the textile industry to the area, which it did. Stratford employed large numbers of migrant workers from Paisley (in Scotland) & Hillsborough (in Co. Down). Catholic, Presbyterian & Anglican churches sprung up to address the spiritual needs of the community, as well as 13 pubs.

The first Fever Hospital in Wicklow was built here. And no doubt it was put to extensive use during the Great Famine of 1845-1848. This marked the beginning of a great decline in Stratford's fortunes. Migrant workers returned to their homes, the textile industry petered out, and emigration caused the population to fall from 2833 in 1837 to a few hundred in 1901.

So by the time that John Gleeson was born in Stratford, it was a village in decline.

Stratford-on-Slaney (about 1880)
(click to enlarge)

His parents were the teachers in the local National School. Martin M Gleeson had met Mary Nora Walsh while they were in Teacher Training College and they got married in January 1897. John was born 18 months later.

He was baptised in Baltinglass, 2.5 miles up the road from Stratford. We had always thought his godfather was Paddy Gleeson, his father's younger brother, but this is not true (see baptism record below). In fact, all of John's uncles and aunts had emigrated by the time he was 5 years old so he never knew them - his father Martin was the only one of 8 siblings to stay in Ireland. The rest ended up in Australia or America.

Baptism record
(click to enlarge)

John became known as Jack. He was the first of Martin & Mary's children. Anne Mary (Ciss) followed in 1901, Martin Maurice in 1902, and Lucy (Baby) in 1904.

Jack spent his childhood in Stratford, being educated in the local school by his father (his mother would have educated the girls). The 1911 census  shows that they lived in an 8-roomed house and had a servant girl to look after domestic duties. Interestingly, only the males were recorded as speaking both Irish & English.

Jack's father Martin owned a bit of land where he kept a cow, a horse (Tim) and possibly a few other animals. Tim the Horse used to pull the "pony and trap" around the village and was driven to Sunday Mass each week. One of the rooms in the house was referred to as "the Dairy" and this is where they made their own butter. Martin would later sell the land to pay the medical bills for his wife and daughter, who died in 1932 and 1940. Martin himself also died in 1940.

1911 Census
(click to enlarge)

In 1913, Jack started boarding school in Rockwell College in Cashel, Tipperary. His letters from this time record a "strike by the Juniors" in March 1914. His brother Martin joined him in 1915. Both Jack and Martin later became Presidents of the Rockwell College Past Pupils Union and Martin also served a term as Treasurer (probably in the late 1920’s).

Having left Rockwell in 1916, Jack entered UCD (University College Dublin) on a scholarship (he won first place in Mathematics in all of Ireland - we still have the medal). In those days, the UCD campus was based in Earlsfort Terrace, right in the centre of Dublin. Jack would have seen first-hand the damage and destruction that befell the city during the Easter Rising and the barrage of shelling that followed it. It was during his time in Earlsfort Terrace that he would have been recruited to the IRA (about October 1917). He served as a volunteer in C Company, 3rd Battalion, Dublin Brigade.

News of Jack's scholarship
(click to enlarge)

At some time during his sojourn in UCD, Jack was struck down by the Spanish Flu. This killed some 3-5% of the Irish population, accounting for over 22,000 deaths between 1917 and 1920. Jack regained his health thanks to the medical attention of Dr Stafford Johnson.

In about June 1919 he finished his degree and achieved a BE in Civil Engineering. After qualifying, he worked for Wicklow County Council for 15 months, a job he got possibly due to the influence of his father who was a county councillor. The job involved cycling around the county measuring gravel heaps intended for road building. He would measure the width and height of the conical heap and then calculate the volume and hence estimate the weight and adequacy of the amount of the gravel for the jobs intended.

He subsequently worked for PJ Foley, Engineer, Grafton Chambers for 6 months (about April 1920 to Oct 1920).

Extract of records from the Military Archives, Cathal Brugha Barracks, Dublin

During this time, the War of Independence raged around him. How and what he contributed to the war effort as an IRA volunteer is the subject of much family speculation. One theory is that as an engineer he may have made bombs which may have been used to blow up military barracks so that the volunteers could get access to weapons. However, Jack never spoke about his time in the IRA. "A closed mouth catches no flies" was one of his favourite sayings.

However, whatever he did eventually came to the attention of the authorities, and family rumours speak of him being on "the Igoe List" - this was a hit list of known Republicans, and for the people on the list, the risk of being assassinated by the authorities was quite high. However, this cannot be true as the Igoe Gang only came into operation after 1920 and at that stage Jack was in America. It seems more likely that if Jack had been placed on any hit list it would have been the one being prepared by the Cairo Gang. This was a group of about 20 ex-army officers put together by the British Army Intelligence Centre with the aim of conducting clandestine operations which probably would have included assassinations of known IRA volunteers. They lived unobtrusively as plainclothes detectives in boarding houses and hotels across Dublin, gathering information where they could get it. But IRA counter-intelligence was one step ahead and on the morning of Sunday 21st November 1920, 14 of them were assassinated.

One week prior to this, Jack Gleeson was on a boat to New York City. He had been tipped off that he might be "on the list". Here's how it happened (according to Jack's brother Martin): the father of a schoolfriend of Jack's was in the Dublin Metropolitan Police. One evening he came home and, within his son's hearing, he (deliberately?) said "That Jack Gleeson better watch himself" (or words to that effect). After Jack was told this story by his friend, he quickly went home to Stratford where his mother gave him some savings so that he could effect an escape. He probably went down to Cobh where he boarded the S.S. New York sailing from Southampton (leaving on Oct 30th) to New York (arriving on Nov 13th).

Ship's Manifest showing Jack Gleeson (line 26)
(click to enlarge)

Jack stayed in New York for 21 months, working for much of the time in Western Electric Company (a company which later became part of General Electric Company or GEC). Not much is known about his time in New York. His aunt Nora lived there and he stayed with her. There were also quite a few first cousins there so he probably spent quite a lot of time with them. From a photograph that was taken at the City College of New York, it would appear that he went to hear a lecture by Albert Einstein in Spring 1921. He returned to Liverpool on 20th August 1922 and made his way back to Stratford, arriving there on the day of Michael Collin's funeral (28th August).

His first job back in Ireland was as Clerk of Works, apparently for the restoration or renovation of some church (it is difficult to make out from the old records - see previous image above). This was towards the end of 1922 and lasted for 4 months.

Then in February 1923, he joined the newly formed Irish Army as an Engineer Officer in the Works Corps (later to become the Corps of Engineers). He gained his commission as Captain in the Irish Army on 1 Oct 1924. The document (signed by Liam T MacCosgrave) has been framed and hangs in the sitting room at home in Blackrock.  After a steady rise through the ranks he achieved the rank of Colonel and was appointed Director of Engineering. His appointments were as follows:

• Lieutenant 12/2/1923
• Capt 18/4/1923
• a/Comdt 1/6/1928
• Comdt 1/9/1931
• Major after 21/4/1939
• a/Colonel 2/4/1942
• Colonel 1/4/1947

Cartoon in the humorous magazine Barrack Variety.
It apparently was also in the Irish News.
(click to enlarge)

When Dad (then 13 or 14 years old) first saw the above cartoon (which he says was in a copy of An Cosantóir which was lying around the house), he exclaimed to his father "I didn't know you were in the IRA", to which his father replied (wagging his finger): "Nothing to do with you. You can forget it."

Jack married Lily O'Carroll in November 1927 and their first child (Maurice, my father and namesake) was born 18 months later. Lily's father was H.T. O'Carroll who came from a long line of pawnbrokers. His name still hangs over 114 Main Street, Bray where he had his Pawnbroker's Sales Shop.

Jack & Lily on their engagement

They had four children in all - Maurice, Gerard, Anne Marie, and Jacqueline. Anne Marie had Down's Syndrome and died 2 months shy of her fourth birthday.

The family moved around a lot, following the locations of Jack's different appointments:

• 1928 - Lambay Road, Marino, Dublin
• 1932 - Riverside Cottage, beside the Dargle in Bray, Co. Wicklow
• 1933 - Ceadaoin, Putland Rd, Bray
• 1936 - The Bungalow, Curragh Camp, Co. Kildare
• 1939 - Staff House, Curragh Camp, Co. Kildare
• 1940 - Officers' Quarters, McKee Barracks, Dublin
• 1941 - 27 Green Rd, Blackrock, Co. Dublin
• 1947 - 2 Eaton Square, Terenure, Dublin

L to R: Mary Nora Gleeson (nee Walsh), Maurice Gleeson (senior, aged 2), Martin M Gleeson,
Jack Gleeson, Lily Gleeson (nee O'Carroll). The photo was taken about 1930.

Jack took a keen interest in rugby and played for both Blackrock College and UCD. He was President of the Leinster Branch of the IRFU (Irish Rugby Football Union) and enjoyed refereeing. As a member of the Irish "Five", he would pick the players for the All-Ireland rugby team from a list of suggestions submitted by the IRFU branch from each of the four provinces.

IRFU 1935
(click to enlarge)

Jack retired from the army in 1956 and died in April 1959 from heart failure. His wife Lily died 3 months later from breast cancer. They both rest in peace in Mount Jerome Cemetery.

Jack's coffin was draped in a tricolour, placed on a gun carriage, and given a full military funeral accompanied by the army band.

He is fondly remembered by his children and grandchildren.

Maurice Gleeson (junior)

Sep 2019

Obituary

Captain Jack Gleeson

Colonel Jack Gleeson

Portrait of Colonel Jack Gleeson (hangs in the TV room in Blackrock)

Lt Gen Dan McKenna (Chief of Staff), Col J Gleeson (Dir Corps of Engineers), Colonel Egan (Quartermaster General)

Our direct connection to JP Morgan, Princess Diana, and a bottle of rum.

One of the main reasons for using DNA as a genealogical tool is to help you break through Brick Walls in your family tree research - those dead ends or roadblocks where you are currently stuck and can't go back any further. Only this year DNA helped me achieve a major breakthrough on one of my ancestral lines which has taken me on a wild adventure that is continuing to shock and surprise. This particular breakthrough throws new light on the Early Limerick Spierin's and the social circles in which they moved. And it also reveals that some of us within the project may have ties to the English monarchy.

The most useful of the three tests for genealogical purposes is the autosomal DNA test. We each have 46 chromosomes in every cell in our body and the autosomal DNA test assesses all 46 of these in women and 45 out of the 46 in men. (The remaining 46th chromosome in men is the Y chromosome and the Y-DNA test is the primary focus of the Spearin Surname Project).

I did my first autosomal DNA testing with FamilyTreeDNA back in 2010. I tested myself, my father and my maternal aunt. We each had several hundred matches, most of them distant relatives with no obvious common ancestor despite comparing respective family trees. This is what it was like in the early days of autosomal DNA testing - the various company databases were small and close matches were not common. That has all changed in recent years with currently about 9 million customers in the top three company databases (Ancestry 6 million, 23andMe 2 million, FamilyTreeDNA 1 million). This number is set to reach about 25 million by 2020 and more and more people will find close matches in the databases. By a close match I mean someone with whom you share a common ancestor in the relatively recent past, say up to a third cousin (and therefore common great great grandparents).

As time moved on, I tested several other family members, including more distant cousins. And several other distant cousins became interested in DNA testing and they paid for their own tests (all with FamilyTreeDNA). Then, about 2 years ago, it came to my notice that four of my family members who had tested all descended from the same ancestral couple - Patrick Spierin (PS) and Mary Morgan (MM), my great great great grandparents, and one of my Brick Walls. This is illustrated in the diagram below. The four family members were my Dad (MHG), his paternal first cousin (COC), his 2nd cousin once removed (KS), and his 2nd cousin twice removed (EW). The line of ascent from my Dad to PS & MM is indicated by the green rimmed boxes. It occurred to me that any matches that they shared in common with each other were likely to be related via PS & MM. And by contacting these shared matches, one of them might hold the clue that allowed me to break through the Brick Wall I had at that level and allow me to push my family tree back an extra generation.

Triangulating on Patrick Spierin & Mary Morgan

That was the theory at least. But could I prove it?

So as an experiment, I compared their respective lists of matches (each had about 1000 matches at this stage) and extracted those matches that any two of the four family members shared with each other. This was relatively easy to do as FamilyTreeDNA allows you to identify such Shared Matches and download them into a spreadsheet as an Excel or csv file. You can see the actual numbers of Shared Matches shared among the four family members in the diagram above. I ended up with a spreadsheet of 135 Shared Matches and after removing duplicates, I was left with 100 people.

I next wrote 100 individual emails to all the people on the list, explaining that they match two or more of my four family members, all of whom were descended from PS & MM and asking them if they had any Spierin or Morgan ancestors in their family tree.

The response rate to this exercise was pretty good and over the next several weeks I received 49 replies, trickling in slowly and tantalisingly. Each email reply was eagerly opened. Would this be the one that held the treasure? And each reply was a polite no. No Spierin ancestors, no Morgan ancestors. I quickly learnt to expect disappointment.

And then came the 50th reply. From Tony in Arizona.

"YES!! We have Morgan ancestors!"

I was thrilled. Had the experiment worked? I quickly sent Tony a link to my online family tree so that he could see what information I had about Patrick Spierin & Mary Morgan. I knew that they were married in Tipperary in 1828 but I had no date or place of birth for either of them. Presumably they would have been born sometime between 1800-1810. They had several children and the baptism records revealed that Patrick Spierin was variously a Police Constable and a "Sargent at Arms". I searched for him in the records of the Royal Irish Constabulary but he was not there. It is probable that he served in the Peace Preservation Force (PPF, an armed militia) but sadly there are no surviving records related to the PPF. However I found mention of him on several occasions in local newspapers of the period. Apparently on one occasion he was involved in a riot and shot someone. And on another occasion (in 1838) he was the arresting officer in the notorious murder case of Wayland and Cooper, two local landlords who were set upon by the Whiteboys, a local vigilante gang that intimidated landlords who evicted tenants, for this was the time of many "agrarian outrages". Four men were charged with the murder and the case made constant headlines in the papers. Two of the men escaped, one died in prison, and one was hanged outside Clonmel gaol. The case sparked the Devon Commission enquiry into land ownership in Ireland.

But by 1845, Constable Patrick Spierin had had enough. He next appears in Dublin as a porter for the Great Southern and Western Railway. It may be that Tipperary was getting too hot for him. Maybe people singled him out as "the man who got Con Hickey hung", and so he left with his family and moved them to the relative safety of Ireland's capitol. And that is where they lived out their days. He died in 1872 and Mary in 1878.

And that was all the information I had on them. And this is what I shared with Tony from Arizona. I also asked if I could see where his Morgan line appeared in his tree. And that is where we hit a problem. Tony knew there was a Morgan connection but nobody in the family knew where it fitted in. But it was plainly written for all to see on the gravestone of the wife of John Morgan in St Laurence's Cemetery in Limerick.

The gravestone erected by John Morgan

The gravestone states that John Morgan's wife had died in 1879 (aged 78) and he had erected the stone in her memory. But also buried in the gave is John Morgan's great nephew, John O'Dwyer who tragically died in World War One on 23rd Feb 1917. Now Tony's family knew this great nephew well, and knew where he fitted into the more recent family tree, but nobody had any idea who John Morgan was nor how he was related to John O'Dwyer. Assuming that John Morgan was roughly the same age as his wife, he would have been born about 1800, which is around about the same time I estimated that my great great great grandmother Mary Morgan was born. Could it be possible that John and Mary were brother and sister?

Another member of Tony's family agreed to do a DNA test (Tony's first cousin) and she too came back as a match to some of my four family members. This certainly supported a family connection via the Morgan's but it was a distant match and we could never be sure that there wasn't some second connection on some other ancestral line in either of our respective family trees. And despite an exhaustive search of the usual genealogical records, we could not precisely place John Morgan in Tony's family tree.

Sadly, after several months of flurried activity, we were going nowhere and we put the research aside.

Two years later, I received the 51st response.

In fact, this was a new match, someone who had recently done an autosomal DNA test. And Andrew informed me that he too had a Morgan ancestor - Patrick Morgan, born about 1812. And he had served for many years in the Royal Irish Constabulary. Bells started going off. My Patrick Spierin had been in the Peace Preservation Force. Were the two men associated with some sort of traditional family occupation?

Andrew sent me Patrick's picture, taken in the 1860s, in all his fine regalia, including a wonderful ceremonial sword. Could Andrew's Patrick Morgan have been a brother to my Mary Morgan and Tony's John Morgan?

Photo of Patrick Morgan (c. 1867)

I took out all the old research and started emailing back and forth with Andrew. I searched online for new clues. I searched on Ancestry for records and other family trees containing Andrew's Patrick Morgan. No luck. I googled Patrick Morgan RIC and generated pages of search results. And then one of them caught my eye. It was a family tree on GENI (www.geni.com). And sure enough, there was a family tree that contained Andrew's Patrick Morgan. But wait ... it also had his parents! Oh wow, I thought, this could be a breakthrough for Andrew! And it also had siblings for Patrick Morgan, and sure enough one of them was a John Morgan, who was married to a Mary! Hey, that could be Tony's ancestor - that could be a real breakthrough for Tony! Two for the price of one! And then as I looked further along the line of siblings, I came to someone called Patrick Spierin, married to a Mary Morgan! Hey! Those are mine! What are you doing with my ancestors in your tree?!

The Morgan family tree on Geni ... with all the key players therein!
(click to enlarge)

After the initial shock, I searched desperately for sources. Where did this information come from? What wonderful records had I missed in my own research? But there were no sources. It was just a tree with names. I could not verify any of the information against independent primary sources. This was disappointing because this meant that the only way I could access the sources would be to contact the owner and the tree had been created in June 2009, eight years previously. I had severe doubts that any email I sent to the author of the tree might take another 8 years to be answered. I was disappointed and feared the worst. I wrote a brief email making gentle enquiries about the source of the information and sent off the email into the ether with few hopes of receiving an early response.

And how wrong I was! A few days later I received a wonderful reply from George. "You ask what my sources were" he said. "Quite simply, the notebooks of Professor Wardell". "Who was he?" I asked. The reply: "Professor of Military History in Trinity College Dublin at the turn of the century. He undertook a study of the Morgan surname in Ireland and had access to all the records that went up in smoke in the Public Records Office fire of 1922. And he recorded everything in his notebook. And I have his notebook."

George's source for the family tree was Prof Wardell's notebooks from the early 1900s

It is not very often that I stare at my computer in complete astonishment but this was one of those times. Could we actually have solved the mystery, united the three Morgan's as siblings, and pushed back the family tree one extra generation?

In fact we did much more than that.

George, Andrew and I started exchanging emails left, right and centre. Suddenly huge amounts of information started flooding in, not just from the notebooks of Prof Wardell that George had in his possession but from a whole array of associated records. And in fact Prof Wardell's notebooks not only established that our three Morgan ancestors were siblings, but it pushed the Morgan family tree back five generations to the Morgan's of Dunmoylan and Old Abbey. You see our Morgan's were landed gentry and went all the way back to Limerick in the 1600s. All the way back to Lieutenant Edward Morgan who in 1716 (or thereabouts) married Alice Spierin, daughter of Luke Spierin!

The Morgan's of Old Abbey - note the Luke Spierin connection

Not only that, but they claimed descent from the Morgan's of Tredegar in Wales, who have a pedigree that goes back to 1089.

Not only that, but on a recent visit to the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City, I discovered an old pedigree that states that the Morgan's of Tredegar are descended from "six Kings, five Lords, and a Ducke". And during that visit I met Jim who informed me that he too is descended from the Tredegar Morgan's (making us something like 13th cousins) and that some of our Morgan relatives (fellow Morgan descendants) include somebody called JP Morgan, someone else called Princess Diana, and someone else who was a Captain in the Caribbean and gave his name to a bottle of rum.

And because the first Morgan settler in Ireland married the daughter of Luke Spierin, any of her descendants will automatically tie in to the Morgan's of Tredegar and their connections to the English monarchy.

So I am still reeling. And suddenly we have an awful lot of fact-checking to do. And lots more blog posts to write!

But what incredible adventures await us!

Maurice Gleeson

Nov 2017

What happened to the Widow Anne Gleeson?

On Wed Oct 17th 2012, Dad and I drove down to Killoscully, stopped in Moneygall at the Obama Cafe for lunch, took a photo with Barack, and then continued on to Killoscully where we met John "Rocky" McGrath, who had sent us John Ryan’s book “Playing with the Hill” in the post. This book documents the early days of Martin M Gleeson who founded the Ballinahinch Killoscully GAA Club in 1886 before heading over to Baltinglass. Rocky was very generous with his time and drove us around the area, introducing us to various local residents and showing us where Anne Gleeson lived before and after her marriage to Paddy Ryan Soldier.

Summary of Family History

The 1865 church marriage record of my great great grandparents indicates that John Gleeson was living in Shallee but there is no record of the address of Anne Gleeson. However, they were married in Ballinahinch, presumably the bride’s parish. All the children were born in Shallee, Longstone, or Killoscully (neighbouring townlands).

After John died in 1885, Martin founded the GAA Club by 1886 (possibly 1884 in Killoscully) and then left for Baltinglass in June 1888 (the date of his first diary). No year is known for the emigration of the other siblings, but in 1885 they would have been the following ages: Martin 19, Catherine 17, Bridget 14, Timothy 12, Winifred 8, Nora 6, Paddy ~4, and Mary 1. In the 1901 Census, Mary is living with Martin in Stratford-on-Slaney, and there is a Patrick Gleeson aged 21 living with Anne Gleeson and Paddy Ryan Soldier in Ballyhourigan. Presumably the other siblings had emigrated at that point.

In 1895, widow Anne Gleeson married Paddy Ryan Soldier who had previously been married to Catherine Hayes and had 5 young children of his own – Martin 13, Mary 10, Thomas 8, Patrick 6, and Annie or Hannie 4. On their church marriage record, Paddy’s address is given as Ballyhourigan and Anne’s as Barnabaun. In his earlier marriage record to Catherine Hayes, Paddy’s father is named as Martin Ryan (this is in keeping with the Valuation Office Cancelled Books from 1886 onwards – see below). It seems that after the death of her first husband, Anne Gleeson moved from “Shallee” to Barnabaun, but we don’t know when.

Townlands and Families

Griffiths Valuation was conducted in 1850 in the Civil Parish of Killoscully, which incorporates various townlands including the various Shallee townlands (Shallee Coughlan, Shallee White, Shallee Upper and Lower) as well as Longstone, Ballyhourigan, Barnabaun, and Maryglen (see map below). In Griffith’s Primary Valuation, the main families in Maryglen are the Ryan’s (Ryan Dick’s and Ryan Johnnies, according to Rocky), in Ballyhourigan are the Mara’s (later O’Mara’s), and in Barnabaun are the Mara’s. In the subsequent Cancelled Books, Paddy Ryan Soldier’s cottage appears in Ballyhourigan suggesting it was built between 1850 and 1886. We haven’t examined the Cancelled Books for Barnabaun or Maryglen as yet.

Townlands around Shallee

In both Barnabaun and Ballyhourigan, large tracts of land were owned by the local landed gentry, the Bloomfields (and later the Kingscote’s), whose seat was Ciamaltha House in Gaurenbeg beside Maryglen. Rocky showed it to us from the car as we drove down to the widow Anne Gleeson’s old house. Apparently it was built by Lord Bloomfield in the late 1830’s and passed to his daughter Harriott who married Thomas Henry Kingscote of Gloucestershire in 1833. In the early 1900’s it was occupied by her grandson, Col. Randolph Kingscote, until 1922. Rocky pointed out a row of sandstone cottages that Lady Bloomfield built for her workers – she appears to have been quite progressive.

It may be that our John Gleeson was a “labourer’ on the Bloomfield/Kingscote estate and the Estate Papers (if they exist) might contain some info on him. It could be very helpful to view these as they may contain some useful additional information.

The House of Widow Anne Gleeson in Barnabaun

Rocky first took us to the house where Martin is supposed to have lived. John Ryan states in his book: "Martin Gleeson lived a short distance beyond Maunsell's cottage in Maryglen. His mother, who was widowed, later married Paddy Ryan (Soldier). Through this marriage he would be related to the O'Meara's of Bearnabawn." The house/cottage is now owned by a very industrious young woman from Belgium and her husband. The two of them have about an acre of land at the back which they have fashioned into a beautiful terraced garden (clearly visible on Google Maps) working mainly with their own hands! It is a delightful 2-storey white-washed cottage with red window frames and a slate roof.

Widow Anne Gleeson's cottage
(she probably lived here some time between 1885 and 1895)

The present owner was kind enough to exchange a few words with us and she told us that she and her husband had lived there for 10 years. She did not know much about the previous owners but apparently it was bought by Coillte (from whom they had bought it) so they may have records in their Limerick office (or the Land Registry Office). Coillte had boarded it up (bricked up the windows and put in a steel door and corrugated iron roof) because people used to steal the chainsaws. The roof used to have big stone slates before that, said Rocky. She recalled that there was a Mara or an O’Mara there previously but that might have been before the Gleeson’s. She said the name Gleeson Rabbit rang a bell. They had looked up OSI maps and these had a list of the people who had paid rent previously.

In Griffiths Valuation (1850 in Killoscully parish), there are 2 houses in Barnabaun, both owned by Mara’s (Denis & Dermott) and valued at £1 7s – these would have been substantial houses. From the 1880’s map it would appear that there are still only 2 dwellings in Barnabaun. By going thru the Valuation Office Cancelled Books for this townland, it will be possible to see if and when the widowed Anne Gleeson moved in there. The period of interest is 1885 to 1895 (from the death of her husband to her remarriage). 

The House of Paddy Ryan Soldier – “Maunsell’s Cottage”

When she remarried to Paddy Ryan (Soldier), she moved up the road to his house in Ballyhourigan – the so-called Maunsell’s Cottage (below, from Google). In Griffith’s, it would appear this was not built at the time of the Primary Valuation in 1850 but was by 1886. The Cancelled Books from the Valuation Office (which I have from 1886 to 1968) show that Martin Ryan owned “House, Offices & Land” valued at £1 5s on site 4a (this valuation never changed, all the way up to 1968 – see below). This passed to Patrick Ryan between 1899 and 1902 who appears to have bought it in 1915 via LAP (Land Act Purchase). He is actually named as Paddy Ryan Soldier in an entry for 1924. Then in 1935 it passed to Martin Ryan, and in 1949 to Denis Maunsell (and hence, presumably, the name Maunsell’s Cottage).

Maunsell's Cottage today

The only other building in Ballyhourigan (a substantial dwelling, valued at £8 4s in the Primary Valuation and then downvalued to £6 13s by the subcommissioners on appeal – see below) was owned by Thadeus Mara (?related to the other Mara’s of Barnabaun). By 1886, this was valued at £5, and had passed to Johanna Mara who bought it via LAP in 1916 and remained there until 1924 when it passed to Tim O’Mara (note gaelicisation of name). Apparently the Mara’s of Ballyhourigan sold their farm to a man called Flaherty, and then the Land Commission took it over. Over the years, the Mara’s house fell into disrepair and was eventually flattened as it didn’t have a roof on it.

Paddy Ryan Soldier’s family

Rocky took us to meet a very sprightly Nonnie Healy and her equally sprightly new dog Oscar, a cocker spaniel. Before her marriage, Nonnie was Ryan Stack (a Ryan Stack was the head gardener to the local landed gentry, the Kingscote’s of Garaunbeg). She was also very good friends with Mary Doogue (nee Ryan). Mary’s siblings included Bree, Winnie, and several boys who all worked in Guinesses. There is a connection with botany.

Nonnie also told us that she didn’t know when Paddy Ryan Soldier died; but his eldest son Martin married a Kilkenny woman; his son Paddy never married; and his youngest daughter Hannah got married and lived over in Dollas. The Ryans are buried in Killoscully churchyard because Nonnie remembers that Mary put down a kind of a marker in the graveyard some years ago.

I later found the death notice of Mary Doogue on the Irish Times website. Sadly she passed away in 2005 and was survived by her husband Eamonn, sisters Bree (Hourihane) and Winnie (Hogan), brother Michael, daughter Marian (Coffey) and son Declan – the latter is a botanist and I was able to make email contact with him. He said he would ask his uncle and aunts if they remembered their step-grandmother Anne Ryan (nee Gleeson). The questions I posed are below. If anyone else has any information and can attempt to answer any of them that would be a great help:

• Anne Gleeson married Paddy Ryan Soldier - Soldier was the family nickname to differentiate one Ryan family from another. But does anyone know the nickname of Anne Gleeson's family? and what about that of her first husband John Gleeson? does the nickname Rabbit or Thaddy or McEvaddy ring any bells? How about Kitt or Cooper or Helper?
• Did Paddy Ryan have any other children apart from the 5 mentioned above? Did Paddy Ryan have any brothers and sisters? Perhaps a Daniel, Johanna, or Anne?
• We have the 1895 church marriage record of Paddy Ryan and Anne Gleeson but never found the Civil Registration Record - des anyone have it? it would contain the names of Anne's parents. Des anyone know who they are? Des anyone know if Anne had any brothers and sisters?
• Does anyone know where Anne is buried? Does she have a headstone? Does anyone know where her first husband John Gleeson is / or might be buried (ie which graveyard)?
• Did anyone ever receive any correspondence from any of the children from Anne's first marriage? does anyone know what happened to any of the children from Anne's first marriage? did anyone ever hear of Ruby Kathleen Gleeson?
• does anyone have any old photos of Anne or her children from her first marriage?