• About

Maher Matters

~ Ancestry Maher/Meagher/Meachair

Maher Matters

Tag Archives: Ireland

Home Is A Web of Connections

14 Sunday Jul 2019

Posted by Janet Maher in Connecticut Irish, Ireland Pilgrimage, Kilkenny Mahers, Naugatuck

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Ireland, Irish Ancestry, Irish-American

My long hiatus in writing may be over, if only to share in stages some glimpses of my fifth pilgrimage/journey to Ireland. Although so much of my scholarship in relation to this place did not neatly fit into a conventional academic trajectory, it nonetheless led directly to teaching for one month in this most special and beautiful place. My science colleague/friend and I began a new study abroad program! Since life does not always wrap up chapters of our lives fluidly, I am especially grateful that my sense of true north that prevailed over the years transitioned me in this way to a point of great change.

Returning to Ballyvaughan, not as an artist-in-residence this time, but as a professor bringing students to share experiences and learn in a deeply meaningful way felt somewhat to me not like being in Ireland initially. We group of Americans doing a certain kind of work, albeit in a different place, seemed strangely familiar, as every new semester is accompanied by its own sets of uncertainties. Without benefit of a car or solitude I needed to be in this familiar area in a new way and dispel the transformative memories that continually arose seeking attention I could not afford to give them. It was necessary to pare down my expectations and become utterly patient. Perhaps after another very intense year of work this was what all of us needed. Extraordinary leaders of our field trips, however, revealed in their own ways aspects of the magic that wasn’t perceptible to me at first, and allowed my friend and me to share new and direct experiences along with our students. I so appreciated the time and poetic, eloquent sharing of information that many individuals, especially Patrick McCormack, Gordan D’Arcy and Eddie Lenihan offered us.

I explained to my friend, who was visiting Ireland for the first time, that when in this place I tend to feel as if I am a character in a fairy tale. Practical difficulties must be dealt with at first as I search for my bearings. I must shed much of the drive and focus that brought me to the first leg of the journey. Once begun, it then takes on a life of its own. I must ask directions, follow instructions strangers provide and pass through one challenge after another, each seemingly more complex and unexpected. There is a learning or re-learning of even simple things—bus and train systems, denominations of money, making it through a shortcut path in the woods without getting lost and figuring out SIM cards and hotspots. With each challenge passed the reward seems greater, the emotional impact is stronger and eventually it becomes possible to feel present and comfortable. This time it was necessary to perform a role within the unanticipated restrictions and complexities that, thankfully, came to a truly satisfying and successful result. Four weeks went by very quickly and a new group of individuals were embraced by the resident community, experiencing more and different things than any of us might have imagined.

During one week more my friend and I became tourists and transitioned into the kind of free-form wandering that I love best to do. This is how I feel most spiritually at home in Ireland. My cells and soul had recognized a deep connection to the midlands from my first visit. My intellect finally caught up with emotions and sensations about all of Ireland and her history. All of myself now works together there. I have walked and driven over so many miles that I can envision a web created over years that a tracking device might have been able to illuminate. (Perhaps someday I will draw some version of this, like delicate crochet.)

Deep and wide research, digging, seeking multiple sources for every fact, acknowledging doors that might never wish to open was necessary in exploring my mysterious ancestral history with its many Irish surnames. Being in contact with living people has been utterly necessary in order to fully perceive what my quest has been about. With each detail of the possible stories that have come into focus a calm, settled feeling has taken hold in me—and even miracles have occurred! I have felt that the ancestors dropped sequential clues, made themselves slightly more clear in stages as if acknowledging my effort paid forward while trying to learn about them. With this visit my visible and invisible teachers provided a true treasure!

With only two days left, my friend and I found ourselves driving along a winding road in Kilkenny that led higher and higher up a mountain to what we expected would reveal the small townland in which one of my great-great grandmothers had lived pre-immigration. Before leaving America someone had already confirmed my research. The Internet had provided the location of the ancient cemetery associated with her parish. The road, however, led instead to a farm at the top of the world, looking out over the other counties between which my questions had continually been weaving back and forth. Suddenly we were being invited into my ancestor’s former home! The joy of the current owner’s family regarding an American relative’s return deepened this gift exponentially, and my friend’s presence allowed me to fully feel the profundity of our visit. She had the wherewithal to take notes and snap photos while I was overcome and could only concentrate upon conversing with these gracious individuals as best as I could manage. Feeling entirely blessed by them it appeared that this portion of my quest had come to an actual fairy tale ending. I am thrilled to know that I now have a new family of friends to add to the dear ones we also visited on this trip.

It is about the people with whom and within the places in which I’ve had soulful experiences that my interior world has been created. As with friends and relatives in America, the return to a person and a place is a constant. What we do together, combined with our solitary explorations, continues to build upon the truths we’ve shared. When apart a psychic web remains.

Ireland is no longer a foreign place to me. I continue to study her history and pose new questions about her with as much curiosity and excitement as ever. Actual friends are there, even if I do not see them often. One has visited me in America. I hope that others will. Through my immersion in the homeland of my ancestors my experience of the world has grown and deepened. The awareness of connections held in energetic space has made it more possible for me to trust that the Universe provides what I need, moment after moment. I feel that our last week in Ireland provided the firm grounding from which the rest of my life will proceed.

Having not mentioned “Maher” at all yet, I’ll share that when handing over my passport and answering the airline worker’s questions before our departure, I habitually spelled out my always mispronounced and unfamiliar last name, then my friend’s. The attendant smiled and pleasantly replied, “There’s no need to spell those names here!” Laughter and joy, we belonged!

©2019 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

17 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by Janet Maher in Connecticut Irish, History, Kilkenny Mahers, New Haven Irish Catholic Immigrants, Origins, Pilgrimage, Tombstone Transcriptions

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

American Mahers, Ancient Ireland, Ancient Irish Art & Artifacts, Catholicism, Connecticut, Ireland, Irish diaspora, Naugatuck Connecticut, Tombstone Transcriptions

Coming Soon!

Beginning from an interest in her own family’s history, with From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley Janet Maher shares a deeply textured journey through a fascinating corner of the Irish Catholic diaspora. She explores the history of Ireland through the perspective of Catholicism, bridging it to the origins of Catholicism in Connecticut generally, then to several Irish families whose personal stories extend to the present.

Mapping and thoroughly transcribing the oldest Catholic cemetery in Naugatuck, Saint Francis, Maher has made connections between generations of families and friends. The book includes selected marriage, baptism and death records throughout the nineteenth century and excerpts from rare letters between Irish immigrants and individuals still in Ireland. It is replete with photographs from Ireland and Connecticut, and restored personal photographs selected from families’ collections, including her own, from materials safeguarded in scrapbooks and albums for years. In many ways Maher has made the people whose graves she encountered in cemeteries come alive again.

Creatively overcoming the limited existence of early genealogical records, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley draws a colorful, intimate multi-layered vision of a generation of immigrants and their descendants who shaped the character of southern Connecticut. Its fusion with family histories brings to the foreground a captivating thread in the tapestry called America.

Janet Maher has been a professional artist for more than thirty years. Her drawings, prints, artist books, mixed media works and collaborative projects have been exhibited widely and are in numerous private and public collections. A native of Connecticut, she also lived and worked in New Mexico before settling in Baltimore, where she is an Associate Professor of Visual Arts at Loyola University Maryland. This is her first scholarly book.

©2011 Janet Maher/Sinéad Ní Mheachair

All Rights Reserved

The Mahers of Kilkenny

09 Tuesday Aug 2011

Posted by Janet Maher in Kilkenny Mahers

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

County Kilkenny, Ireland, New Haven County Mahers, Patrick Maher

Freshford Cemetery

Freshford Cemetery, July 2011

Mary, Freshford Church

Inside Freshford Church, July 2011

The Mahers of Kilkenny are of particular interest to me, as this is one of the places around which my personal research revolves. Joseph Casimir O’Meagher contributed a pedigree of this group (pp. 201, 202), which I have organized in a way that I hope is easier to follow. I believe that Adelaide Maher, daughter of John Maher and Alicia Murray, who married John Quigley in 1839 in Freshford, Kilkenny, (FHL#926192) is very likely the same Adelaide J. Maher Quigley who emigrated to the small town of my great great grandparents (Patrick Maher and Anne Butler) in Naugatuck, Connecticut, 1864, and is buried in their cemetery, Saint Francis. I have done a great deal of research about her as well as about the other four Maher family grave sites there (and about other Mahers in New Haven County).

Adelaide J. Maher

Adelaide J. Maher, Saint Francis Cemetery, 2009

William Meagher, County Kilkenny (1697, Nicholastown – 1836, Freshford); was a member of the 87th Royal Irish Fusileers and fought in Portugal.  He married Mary Dunne, aunt of a Bishop of Ossory. Their children: John, William, Thomas, and three daughters (Mrs. Byrne, Mrs. Lalor and another). 1. John (born 1728, married Catherine Kearney of Tipperary; their children: William, Elizabeth and Richard: William, born 1756, died 1803, married Catherine Brennan of Shralee and had Major Maher, 87th Regiment, who died 1836 unmarried; Elizabeth married Dr. J. Cullinane; Dr. Richard, of Waterford, married Anna Bowers, no children); 2. William (of Tennylenton, see below.) [NOTE: here, confusingly, O’Meagher included an additional John, placed Thomas as the fourth child, then added four more children other than the daughters he first listed.] 3. John (of Ballyragget, married Phelan; their children: Ellen, Catherine, Anne, others, none married); 4. Thomas (involved in the uprisings of 1798, fled to America and died there, was married to “Beauty Kavanagh;” their son John, 1793 -1850/1855, was an attorney; also a daughter Joanna who emigrated to and died in America); 5. James, apothecary in Dublin, died unmarried; 6. Pierce; 7. Dennis (died in America); 8. Catherine (married Garrett Brennan of Eden Hall). [Nicholastown is on R432, a road leading directly north to Ballinakill, Co. Laois and directly south to Ballyragget.]

William Meagher (of Tennylenton, second son of William Meagher of Nicholastown), born 1729, married Ellen Fitzpatrick of Gurteen. Their children: William Maher (Kileany, Queen’s County); John Maher (Freshford, 1769-1836); and daughters: Mrs. Cassin, Mrs. Ward, Mrs. Lalor, and Kate, a nun. [Thankfully, O’Meagher noted that Kileany was in Queen’s County (Laois), not in Kilkenny, where I could not find it. Kileany is east of Abbeyleix. My great great grandfather, Patrick was said to have been from Queen’s County, and his possible brother or cousin, Matthew, was from Ballinakill. Tennylenton may no longer exist, or may have been a typo on O’Meagher’s part. I have not found the town on a map nor a town that has a spelling close to it.]

William Maher of Kileany (son of William of Tennylenton) 1767-1830, married Catherine Hannell (heiress of Captain Hannell and Ann Scully, Lissaroon, County Tipperary). Their children: William, 1791-1867 (married twice, see below); James Hannell, 1798-1884, died unmarried; John, died unmarried 1829; Edward James (Littleton); Anne, married William J. Maher, no children; Mary, a nun; Frances, unmarried; Ellen, unmarried.

William Maher (1791-1867), son of William of Kileany, married Mary Byrne of Ballyspellan. Their children: Charles (emigrated to America); Mary Ann (married Jeremiah Scully of Freshford). William married a second time to Eliza Savage of Dublin. Their children: Catherine Hannell and James William (as of 1890 both were living in England.) [Ballyspellan Lower is north of Johnstown, on the west side of County Kilkenny, near the border of Tipperary.]

Edward James Maher (1813-1881), of Littlefield, Jenkinstown (son of William Meagher of Kileany) married Mary Ann Moffitt, daughter of Francis, of Raheen House, Queen’s County. Moffitt had been a Captain of the 14th Regiment. Their children: Mary (married Henry Loughnan, J.P., Crohill, Kilkenny); William (born 1855); Francis Edward (born 1856); Anne (married Michael Corcoran); Edward, C. E. (born 1860). [Littlefield is north of Kilkenny City, directly west of Freshford.]

John Maher (1769-1836), of Freshford, brother of William Maher of Kileany, married Alicia Murray, of Kilkenny, in 1792. Their children: William J. (1800-1875, married Anne Maher, no children); Emanuel Murray (born 1802, died unmarried); Mary, Ellen (a nun), Adelaide, and Michael (who died in America). John Maher married a second time to Jane Harold (Limerick). Their children were Kate, Margaret (a nun), Elizabeth (a nun), Jane (a nun), and Fanny (a nun).

NOTE: The stone of Adelaide Maher Quigley, who died in Naugatuck, Connecticut, placed her birth year as about 1808, slightly older than our Patrick, who was born in 1811. We know that women often shaved a few years off their ages, and that children did not always know the correct information when asked to fill out death records or provide information for tombstones. Adelaide Maher, daughter of John Maher and Alicia Murray, was baptized in Freshford on July 16, 1805. (Rothe House Trust Ltd./Irish Family History Foundation)

Interestingly, Griffiths Valuations for the parish of Freshford, Kilkenny, (printed in 1850) show many instances of the names William Maher, John Maher, Wm. John Maher, Esq., William J. Maher, Esq. (and other Mahers) and John Quigley, not only as tenants, but as individuals leasing land to others. In several occurrences they leased property from William de Montmorency Esq., the main landlord. (More about him later.) Surnames in the area, including others who subleased land, replicate closely the many early Anglo-Irish immigrant surnames that can be found in Saint Francis Cemetery, Naugatuck, Connecticut.* Many vacant properties in Freshford’s Griffiths Valuations appear to have been owned by William J. Maher, Esq., perhaps after individuals had already chosen to emigrate (such my great great grandparents who could have been living there after their marriage).

Microfilms of birth and marriage records for Kilkenny can be rented from the Family History Center, Utah, and Joseph Casimir O’Meagher’s notes should be further researched and clarified (as I am presently doing). Also, see Jane Lyon’s web site and her section on Kilkenny. A Google search on Kilkenny Genealogy will turn up many more resources online.

*My book about this cemetery will come out at the end of this year.

References:

Ask About Ireland – Griffith’s Valuation, http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml

O’Meagher, Joseph Casimir, Some Historical Notices of the O’Meaghers of Ikerrin, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., American Edition: NY, 1890

©2011 Sinéad Ní Mheachair (Janet Maher)

All Rights Reserved


Pages

  • About

Blog Stats

  • 88,847 hits

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 226 other subscribers

Archives

Recent Posts

  • Addendum and Transition
  • Earth Day in a Pandemic
  • Shine A Light
  • It’s Mask-Making Time
  • Time Out

Top Posts & Pages

  • The Mahers of Kilkenny
  • About
  • Howard Eckels, Rest In Peace
  • Transcriptions.2 - Old Kilcullen Graveyard, Kildare
  • O'Meagher Castles

From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley

From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Maher Matters
    • Join 226 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Maher Matters
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar