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More on the Meaghers/Mahers

10 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by Janet Maher in Book Excerpt, Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, History, Mahers, Meaghers, New Haven Irish Catholic Immigrants

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American Mahers, Early Irish History, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley, Irish Catholic History, Irish in Connecticut, Joseph Casimir O'Meagher, Meagher, Milesian Genealogy, New Haven County Mahers

O'Meagher Coat of Arms from original 1890 text of Joseph Casmir O'Meagher's Some Historical Notices of the O'Meaghers of Ikerrin, digitized and colorized, ©2006 Janet Maher

O’Meagher Coat of Arms from original 1890 text of Joseph Casmir O’Meagher’s Some Historical Notices of the O’Meaghers of Ikerrin, digitized and colorized, ©2006 Janet Maher

Although my initial research was primarily about the Meaghers/Mahers, when it came time to edit information to include in my book (From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley: Early Irish Catholics in New Haven County, Connecticut) I chose to keep the content more generally broad. Maher details are sprinkled throughout the history of Ireland and early Connecticut chapters, however, leading to a focus on the nineteenth century in America.

I find myself repeatedly refering to Joseph Casimir O’Meagher’s 1890 text, Some Historical Notices of the O’Meaghers of Ikerrin, which I consider essential for beginning research about the Mahers. It provided most of the earliest Maher details in my book, and I included several instances of historic Mahers from his book in a previous post here (August 20, 2012), Some Notable Meaghers/Mahers and other spellings, cited SHN.

Excerpts from O’Meagher’s text occur verbatum in many different places, and are, unfortunately, usually not attributed to him. I have been singing his praises online since at least 2006 and am happy to see that a Google search on him now brings up many hits, including his full text. Although not perfectly scanned, an inexpensive reprint of Some Historical Notices is also available from Amazon.

A member of the Royal Irish Academy and Fellow of the Royal Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland, O’Meagher was able to cite his lineage directly from John O’Meagher, who with his mother, Anne, had been among those ordered to transplant to Connaught after the conquest of Oliver Cromwell. John O’Hart’s pedigree of O’Meagher drew Joseph Casimir’s Heber line out from Fionnachta, second son of Conla, “No. 88 on the O’Carroll (Ely) pedigree.” As noted in my previous post, (Our Mileasian Origins) Conla was son of Cian, who was a son of King Olliol Olum. O’Hart considered the O’Meagher pedigree in his book as the ancestral line of O’Meachair, chiefs of Ikerrin. From Fionnachta (No. 88) O’Hart listed Joseph Casimir O’Meagher, born 1831, living in Dublin in 1887, as the son of John T. O’Meagher (No. 127). The line then extended to Joseph’s children: Joseph Dermod (1864), John Kevin (1866), Donn Casimir (1872), Malachy Marie (1873), Fergal Thaddeus (1876) and Mary Nuala (no date given). Joseph Casimir O’Meagher himself, however, cited additional pedigrees that extended Meaghers from other points in the Cian branch, including Teige or Thaddeus (No. 38) and John (No. 39).

O’Meagher provided immense background that led to my further research about such pivotal events in Ireland as: the development of ancient Irish Catholicism and communities of ecclesiastical families, the arrival of the Vikings and Normans, the interest of the English monarchy in Irish lands and sequences of sanctions and acts of “land grabbing” over the centuries, the change in the official religion of England from Catholic to Protestant with Henry VIII, the Penal Laws, continual rebellion on the part of the native Irish and those aligned with Catholic subjects of England who became equally disenfranchised due to adherence to their religion, the Statutes of Kilkenny, the Flight of the Earls, Civil War, arrival of Oliver Cromwell, the Act of Settlement, Oath of Allegiance, Act of Union, Wild Geese, Catholic Relief Acts, Rebellion of 1798, various uprising groups and key figures among them, the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, Tithe Defaulters, Catholic middleman landlords, and mass emigrations before, during and after the Great Famine. Here, long before the Irish War of Independence and the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922, my story in From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley shifts to the arrival of the first Irish Catholic settlers in particular sections of New Haven County, Connecticut.

O’Meagher explained that Ikerrin (Ui Cairin) “was anciently one of the eight tuathas in Ely, which got its name from Eile, one of its kings in the fifth century.” Ger Dunphy and Christy O’Shea, in their work, Ballinakill, A Journey Through Time, explained the formation of King and Queen’s Counties, carved from Ely O’Carroll, which was primarily the area known then as Offaly. Quoting from my own book: “Throughout the centuries clan jurisdictions changed many times as the ownership of the land was continually disputed and compromised. In 1556 Queen Mary I renamed Offaly as King’s County, and named Leix (Laoighois/Laois), which had been part of Offaly, as Queen’s County. These were the first of the Irish counties to be intentionally planted with Protestant English residents. In this region the plantation was an attempt to make it difficult for the major Irish clan of the area, the O’Moores, to easily connect with their nearby allies.”

“According to Irish authors Ger Dunphy and Christy O’Shea, the extensive area of Ballenekyll in Queen’s County was awarded in 1570 to the English couple Alexander Cosby and Dorcas Sydney and was incorporated by King James I in 1613…the royal charter tightened the Irish recusancy laws that fined anyone who did not attend mass at the Anglican church, the official Church of England and Ireland.”

In O’Meagher’s explanation, eventually Ely O’Carroll was comprised of the baronies Ballybritt and Clonlisk, which became King’s County. Ikerrin and Eliogarty were part of Tipperary.  He wrote, “for many centuries Ely O’Carroll is confined to that portion of it now in the Kings County, and at the time Ely O’Carroll was reduced to shire ground, the barony of Ikerrin was not considered part of it.”

For those of us who know that our families were among the many who had already dispersed from the ancient homeland before they emigrated it is interesting to note that even O’Meagher’s group, with several of his sons attending university in Dublin, were no longer based in the Roscrea (Ikerrin) area of Tipperary by the late 1800s. In 1659 Sir William Petty’s census had already showed Meaghers in several neighboring areas of Ireland (Our Mileasian Origins).

We do well to read the very helpful 1993 article by William J. Hayes, O Meagher, Meagher and Maher – and their dispersal in Tipperary, which can be purchased from the Tipperary Historical Society. He explained the tendency for many of the Meaghers to have aligned with the powerful Normans, particularly the Butlers who remained Catholic, and thus retain much of their property over centuries of struggle, at least into the seventeenth century. After Cromwell, however, all bets were off. Excerpts from this article are archived on RootsWeb. O’Meagher also chronicled the dispersion from northeast Tipperary through his accumulation of data, including details of many eighteenth and nineteenth century Meaghers/Mahers who left to join foreign military units or settle in America.

If we find that our relatives had traveled over the Slieve Bloom Mountains into Laois or Offaly, scattered throughout the rest of Tipperary or crossed the borders into Kilkenny and Carlow, we wonder what led them there and how many generations had roots in those places. Did they choose to leave as so many of us change locations throughout our own lives? Was survival through farming too difficult to maintain in their family? Did the inheritance laws make it impossible for most of the children to remain within their original neighborhoods? Did they marry someone from another county? Anciently, were at least some of them among those who had once taken to the hills to hide out and to fight? O’Meagher accounted multiple occurrances of Meagher/Maher rebel action and the need for pardons of one kind or another. He noted the caveat in King Henry VIII’s issuing of pardons, “Provided that if any of those persons be of the Nation or Sept of the O’Meaghers, who were proclaimed traitors and rebels, the pardons to be of no effect in favour of such.”

So many Irish came to America as outlaws, slaves, or indentured servants and worked in obscurity, likely experiencing life in conditions worse than those which they left. Before the Famine, however, some were affluent enough to choose to make the trip across the sea and begin anew on equal footing in the Protestant communities of America, long populated by those still aligned to British sentiments about the Irish, in general, and about Catholics in particular. Had these Catholic immigrants been middlemen or related to one in Ireland? Had they married into families that had somehow retained a semblance of wealth or at least maintained some financial stability? Had their families been merchants, one trade allowed to Catholics? Had those from Kilkenny worked in the Ormond factory? What must it have been like to try to blend into a new world and assimilate as quickly as possible and still manage to help bring others over and begin the forbidden first Catholic churches?

When we wish to play the record of Irish history and locate our families amid it, where we drop the needle matters. We need to consider every fact in light of what else was going on at that point in time in Ireland and in the location into which they would emigrate. Much of that, sadly, revolves around religion, in ways similar to the major struggles between countries that exist today. Then, as today, there were open minds seeking peace on both sides of each conflict, and the fundamentalists on either side began quickly to resemble each other. We must study what we find, however, in its own context. With the Meaghers, history seems to center around land and religion.

Catastrophic events make significant changes from one century to the next, but the seemingly small details in the decades surrounding someone’s departure from Ireland may help to shed the most light. Having thoroughly scoured the “ground zero” of the place to which my ancestors relocated and their presence within it, I hope to still learn more about the events surrounding the time and area that they left in the Old Sod.

©2013 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ní Mheachair

All Rights Reserved

References:

Dunphy, Ger and Christy O’Shea, Ballinakill, A Journey Through Time, Freshford, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland: Barnaville Print and Graphics, 2002.

Hayes, William J., “O Meagher, Meagher and Maher – and their dispersal in Tipperary,” Tipperary Historical Journal, Thurles, Co. Tipperary, Ireland: Leinster Leader, Ltd., 1993. Excerpts online.

Maher, Janet, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley: Early Irish Catholics in New Haven County, Connecticut, Baltimore, MD: Apprentice House, 2012 [This book is 400 pages and includes 336 images. It may be obtained at: Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT; Naugatuck Historical Society, Naugatuck, CT; and Quinnipiac University Bookstore, Mount Carmel Branch, Hamden, CT. In Baltimore it may be purchased from Loyola University Bookstore and The Ivy Bookshop. Online it may be purchased from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Amazon UK, and from me via Paypal or by check (P.O. Box 40211, Baltimore, MD, 21212).]

O’Hart, John, Irish Pedigrees: or, The Origin and Stem of The Irish Nation, Fifth Edition in Two Volumes, Dublin, Ireland: James Duffy and Co., Ltd., 1892. Online.

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

New Haven’s First Catholic Cemetery, November, & Book Signing, October

28 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by Janet Maher in Christ Church Cemetery found beneath Yale New Haven Hospital, Connecticut Irish, Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, History, New Haven Irish Catholic Immigrants, Ordering From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley, Tombstone Transcriptions

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Tags

Ancient Ireland, Early Irish History, Irish Catholic Immigrants, Irish in Connecticut, Naugatuck Connecticut, New Haven County Mahers

On November 4 Connecticut’s State Archaeologist, Dr. Nick Bellantoni, will lead a panel discussion with Gary Aronson (Yale University), Sarah Brownlee (Peabody Museum), Dan DeLuca and Anthony Griego, about the discovery last year of the first Catholic Cemetery that surrounded Christ Church in the early nineteenth century. Their discussion will take place at New Haven Museum, 114 Whitney Ave., from 2 to 4 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Also, a reminder to come if you can to my talk, No Irish Need Apply: Early Irish Settlement in the Naugatuck Valley, at the Mattatuck Museum (144 West Main Street, Waterbury) on October 25, at 5:30, also free and open to the public. My book, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley: Early Irish Catholics in New Haven County, Connecticut, will be available for purchase. See Table of Contents here. Hope to see you there!

©2012 Janet Maher/Sinéad Ní Mheachair

All Rights Reserved

Purchasing My Book

26 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by Janet Maher in Connecticut Irish, Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, History, Kilkenny Mahers, New Haven Irish Catholic Immigrants, Ordering From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley, Origins, Tombstone Transcriptions

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Tags

Amazon.com, American Mahers, Ancient Ireland, Early Irish History, Gaelic Ireland, Irish Catholic, Irish Catholic History, Irish Catholic Immigrants, Irish Genealogy, Irish History, Irish Meaghers, Naugatuck Connecticut, New Haven County Connecticut, New Haven County Mahers, Patrick Maher, Tombstone Transcriptions

Lynch’s Farm ©2010 Janet Maher, image from our family collection, digitized, restored and hand-colored by the author (pigmented ink on archival paper, 12 1/6″ x 18 3/4″, framed 18″ x 25″) included in From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley: Early Irish Catholics in New Haven County, Connecticut. 

After a bit of editing for unexpected typos that I found, I have reordered my book, From the Old Sod, Early Irish Catholics of New Haven County, Connecticut, which is now in its First Edition, revised, version. It is 399 pages and includes 336 images. It is now back in stock and available for sale. How to purchase my book:

1. From the author! The price is $65.95. I will pay for packing and shipping in the U.S. and will sign it if you’d like. I am offering a price break at three/four ($62) and five/six ($58) copies. You can order my book securely through this blog using PayPal (click below on correct number of copies to activate this feature) or send me a U.S. drawn check at this address: Janet Maher, Department of Fine Arts, Loyola University Maryland, 4501 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD, 21210.

Purchase One Copy Here;  Purchase Two Copies Here;   Purchase Three Copies Here;   Purchase Four Copies Here;   Purchase Five Copies Here;   Purchase Six Copies Here.

2. From Amazon.com. If you have purchased it this way and would like for me to sign it, you can mail it to me at the above address and include a self addressed stamped padded envelope for its return.

3. If you live outside the United States, it is possible to purchase my book here: Amazon.com Canada; Amazon.com UK; Waterstones.com. If you would like for me to sign it, please mail it to me at the above address and include a self addressed stamped padded envelope for its return.

I welcome reviews of my book. You can include yours in comment sections on this blog, and/or on the spaces for reviews on Amazon or Barnes and Noble sites.

To see the Table of Contents, please refer to my May 24, 2012 post here.

I hope that everyone who reads my book will enjoy it and will have found it helpful in their own quest to learn more about the earliest Irish Catholics of New Haven County and the Catholic history of Ireland. Thank you for your interest in my labor of love and thank you in advance for purchasing it!

©2012 Janet Maher/Sinéad Ní Mheachair

All Rights Reserved

From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley: Early Irish Catholics In New Haven County, Connecticut

11 Monday Jun 2012

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

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

American Mahers, Ancient Ireland, Brennan, Early Irish History, Irish Catholic History, Irish in Connecticut, Irish in the Civil War, Irish Meaghers, Irish pilgrimage, Milesian Genealogy, Naugatuck Connecticut, New Haven County Mahers, Patrick Maher, Saint Bernard Cemetery, Tombstone Transcriptions

©2012 Janet Maher, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley, books at home; image: Katherine Maher Martin and Eliza Maher, ca 1850s

©2012 Janet Maher, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley, books at home; image: Katherine Maher Martin and Eliza Maher, ca 1850s

First thing I did when I got the proof was to take pictures of it, then bring it into my department and show it to my colleagues, who then immediately got to hold it. Not exactly like having a baby, but pretty exciting, nonetheless.

The first mention in the press is out, on the Naugatuck Patch! The book is in the process of being offered on the Amazon website, and will also be available through Amazon.uk.

Hope to see some of you on June 21. Huge news is that Jane Lyons is flying all the way over from Ireland to be there! We’ll be going to the Irish Festival in New Haven that weekend too!

Wishing you all well,

Janet

©2012 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


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