An Unexpected Prisoner

This week, as we were watching the mid-week movie on television, I was also entering the names of my Wynne ancestors, one by one, into the search field of the genealogy website, FindMyPast. I was doodling really, only half paying attention, just to see if anything new turned up. 

Well, you are never going to believe who I found in their Irish prison registers! 

I started with Grandad Kevin, born in 1909, but found only a few BMD (birth, marriage and death) indexes and a census index, all readily available elsewhere. Next, I entered the name of Kevin's father, Patrick Wynne, remembered as being a bit of a Fenian, so it would not have come as a major surprise to find him mentioned in the prison registers. However, Patrick migrated to England about 1915, before getting into trouble, and his name only appeared as next-of-kin to his elder brother Joseph, discussed previously here. 

It seemed opportune to search, yet again, for Kevin's grandfather, my elusive ‘brick-wall’ ancestor, John Wynne, born about 1820, but I found nothing new. I entered the name of John's wife, Bridget Wynne, certainly not expecting to find anything on her – after all, married women were notoriously absent from the official records of the nineteenth century. At least, most married women were.  Yet, the prison registers are full of women - prostitutes and drunkards and vagrants - all signs of the widespread destitution of the era. 

I stumbled upon a record for a Bridget Wynne, aged fifty. She was imprisoned for ten days, in Grangegorman Female Prison, on 27 March 1884 - the charge was ‘Abusive and threatening language.’ I was merely going through the motions, not expecting it to be my ancestor, so you can imagine my surprise when it transpired this Bridget lived at ‘4 Christ C. Place’. My great-great-grandmother, of the same name, resided at 4 Christ Church Place at the time of her death in 1895. Her daughter Mary Wynne lived there too, when she married Michael Finnegan in 1885.

This was hardly a coincidence.

What did we already know about our Bridget? She was said to have been born Bridget Hynes, from Co. Limerick. She was remembered as having been a midwife, though no proof of this has been found. Her marriage to John Wynne, in 1849, was listed in the register for St Catherine’s Parish, Meath Street.  She was named as the mother of ten Wynne children, all born in the Liberties area of Dublin, between 1850 and 1877. Her father was John Hynes, with an address in Limerick City, named when her sister Catherine married James Tucker, in 1857. Her mother, Margaret Hynes, died on 20 November 1884, the widow of a carpenter and shared Catherine’s grave in Glasnevin Cemetery. When Bridget died from phthisis in 1895, her youngest daughter Agnes Wynne registered her death and estimated Bridget’s birth as having been about 1831. Her baptism record has not so far been identified. 

So, now we also know Bridget was no shrinking violet!

The prison records provide, previously unknown, details about her physical appearance: In 1884, in her fifties, she was 5 feet, 2 inches tall, with black hair, grey eyes and a sallow complexion. Is this where our typical ‘Wynne-look’ comes from? 

Her birthplace was confirmed as Limerick.

This was not Bridget's only brush with the law.  She also served two short prison sentences in 1889. It was undoubtedly the same woman, although by 1889 her hair was described as being dark grey. Her weight was given as 106 Ibs. She still resided at 4 Christ Church Place, just across from the Cathedral, in the heart of what was once medieval Dublin. On the second offence her address was listed as ‘4 Church St.’, most probably in error. On 6 November 1889, Bridget was committed to serve seven days for being drunk. The following month, on 27 December, she was again sentenced to four days, for the same offence.

It's sad - poor Bridget - her life was obviously no picnic.

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