Genealogy Saturday: The Rattys of Baldoyle

When I first located my suspected fifth great-grandfather, Thomas Ratty, in Baldoyle, it was surprising to find a second man with the same name in the parish. Ratty was a nickname for Radcliffe, an English surname, and rare among the Catholic population of county Dublin. The odds on finding two men of the same name in the small rural village were long – unless, of course, they were related.

While ‘our’ Thomas Ratty married Mary Cullen in 1790, his namesake married Agnes Durneen, probably between 1801 and 1805, coinciding with a gap in the parish registers. According to those same patchy registers, both couples then bore children, concurrently, until at least about 1810.[1]  

So, the second Thomas was seemingly younger, though not young enough for them to have been father and son. Perhaps he was a nephew or a first cousin, someone that might one day help extend our pedigree back even further. Initially though, as I learnt to distinguish one from the other, he only hindered the progress – especially when it transpired the younger Thomas was the more prominent of the two.

It was the ‘other’ Thomas who was buried in Sutton graveyard. His headstone, erected by his son Patrick, showed his wife Agnes died, aged thirty-six, in 1819. Thomas lived to be eighty, not joining her until 1857, while their son Thomas followed in 1858 and Patrick lived until 1887.[2] Throughout the nineteenth century in Ireland, headstones were normally the preserve of the better-off families.

Griffith’s Valuation, a property tax listing dated 1848, listed a Thomas Radcliffe senior as occupying a house and garden, with Thomas junior occupying the house and yard next door. Thomas senior also leased the local forge.  It's even more likely now this was the other Radcliffe family, since our discovery last week that our Thomas was probably a painter.

The only other Radcliffe Griffith's listed in Baldoyle was an Alice Radcliffe, whoever she was.[3] Our Thomas and Mary might have died by then, or perhaps they were living with a married daughter. The last time Mary’s name was found mentioned in the records was in 1809 when her daughter Margaret was baptised.

On 1 January 1841, the inhabitants of Howth, Baldoyle and Kinsealy called a meeting at 2 p.m. in Howth, to be attended by the famous Catholic emancipator, Daniel O’Connell. There, they all signed a petition calling for the repeal of the Act of Union between Ireland and Great Britain. The 'other' Thomas senior, Thomas junior and Patrick were among the men listed, their surname being misquoted as Batty.  Thomas Ratty, probably my fifth great-grandfather, was also named as a petitioner, suggesting he was still living in 1841.[4] None of his sons signed the petition.

So where did the rest of our Radcliffe family go? 

A clue might be held in a government survey published in the mid-1830s suggested living standards in Baldoyle were poor. According to the Parish Priest, Revd Young, the labouring class lived on potatoes, herrings and milk, with bacon on Sundays, occasionally.

But, in periods of unemployment – i.e. the long winter months - conditions became ‘wretched’. Some parishioners even resorted to begging, while others were forced to eat cockles collected from the shore. Shell fish was known as poor mans' food then, a prejudice that lasted in Ireland until recently. They all considered themselves ‘well-off’ to have potatoes.[5]

So, it's easy to understand why the sons of Thomas Ratty, all left Baldoyle to earn their living elsewhere - Mark in the city of Dublin and Peter in Yellow Walls, Malahide, five miles along the coast.

Malahide was a small rural village then too, but, in the 1820s and 1830s, Lord Talbot commenced a program of extensive repairs and renovations to the Castle. There was probably a plentiful supply of painting work for Peter Ratty, my fourth great-grandfather, as he came of age.

Malahide Castle, c.1840

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1 Baldoyle (Archdiocese of Dublin), Catholic Parish Registers at the National Library Ireland.  

2 Kilbarrack Cemetery, Sutton, County Dublin, Cemetery records online at Interment.net.

3 Radcliffe, Baldoyle, Co. Dublin, Griffith’s Valuation, Ask about Ireland. 

4 Freeman’s Journal, 1 January 1841, p. 1.

5 Poor Inquiry (Ireland), pt i, Reports on the state of the poor, with supplements containing answers to queries, H.C. 1836, first report, supplements to appendix D, p. 53.

Image Credit: Irish Penny Journal, 14 November 1840. 

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© 2015 Black Raven Genealogy

Genealogy Saturday: The story of Mark Radcliffe

From before his marriage in 1825, my fourth great-grandfather, Peter Radcliffe, lived in Malahide, Co. Dublin, where he plied his trade as a painter-cum-plasterer.  I suspect his parents were Thomas Ratty and Mary Cullen from the nearby parish of Baldoyle.

Thomas and Mary had a son Peter born in November 1798, around the same time as our Peter, so, to help ‘prove’ their son and my ancestor was one and the same man, I’m investigating their other children.  And this week, I’m on the trail of Mark Radcliffe (nickname Ratty), my would-be fourth great-granduncle, born in Baldoyle in January 1797.

No further record of Mark was found in Baldoyle, apart from in 1838, when he sponsored the baptism of his niece, Mary Harford.  

But he turned up in St Michan's parish in Dublin city in February 1825, when he married Anne Broderick. The names of their children followed a similar naming pattern to those chosen in our Radcliffe family, though in Mark's branch, Thomas and Christopher both died as infants. They also had a son John, born in 1835, the same name as my third great-grandfather. 

Mark's first wife Anne died, at the age of thirty-six years, in 1837. It was many years before he remarried, but in May 1850, he married Mary Anne Callaghan. Mary Anne was seemingly of the Protestant faith, for the couple married in St Thomas, Church of Ireland parish. This turned out to be a truly lucky break for us!

Church of St Thomas, Marlborough Street, Dublin, c. 1890

From 1845 onward, non-Catholic marriages were required to be registered in Ireland. So, additional details, not normally kept for Catholic marriages, are now available – i.e. the names and occupations of the couple's fathers.

Mark's father was confirmed as being Thomas Radcliffe. Thomas was said to have been a painter by trade – just like our Peter Radcliffe. Trades were often passed down from father to son, so this is certainly yet another point in favour of the proposition that Thomas was Peter's father. 

Mark and his new wife moved to 9 Little Strand Street, a tenement home on the north shores of the River Liffey, and there they began their family. Their son Mark was born in 1853, and daughters Catherine, Elizabeth and Margaret followed in 1856, 1858 and 1860. The children were baptised in the Roman Catholic faith, at St Mary's Pro-Cathedral.

In 1862, Mark, suffering from bronchitis, was admitted to the infirmary in the North Dublin Union Workhouse. His appearance at the time was described as being ‘tolerably good and clean’. He spent six months in the infirmary before being deemed fit for release.

Sadly, this was not Mark's sole stay at the workhouse. On his second visit, his appearance had deteriorated somewhat and he was said to have had ‘scanty and bad clothes’. This time, Mark was not released from the workhouse. Nearly five months later, on 12 November 1865, Mark died. 

Mark's story, while not overlapping with our Peter Radcliffe's, does not rule out his relationship to our family. On balance, it tends to increase the probability Thomas Ratty, the painter, was my fifth great-grandfather.

Sources: Church Records, IrishGenelaogy.ie; North Dublin Union Workhouse, Dublin Workhouses Admission & Discharge Registers 1840-1919, Findmypast.ie (subscription required).

Image Credit: St Thomas Church, Dublin, Wikimedia Commons.  

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© 2015 Black Raven Genealogy  

Seeking my Ancestors in the Irish Catholic Parish Registers

No doubt, you’ve all heard our National Library recently published the historic ‘Catholic Parish Registers’ online, for all the world to view. Well, like other genealogists, I too have been enjoying the fruits of their labour.

Granted, transcriptions of most of these registers have long been available on the RootsIreland.ie web-site. And, as I live near Dublin, it has always been reasonably easy to validate these transcripts against copies of the registers held at the Library. Now though, not only can I do this from home, but I'm finding records seemingly missed or completely mis-transcribed, by RootsIreland.ie.

And, one such record was the long-sought marriage of my fourth great-grandparents, Peter Radcliffe and Anne Sarsfield, from Malahide, Co. Dublin. We already know quite a lot about Peter. He was a plasterer-cum-painter, who worked for Lord Talbot at Malahide Castle, and lived to the ripe-old age of about ninety years. But, until the copy registers became available, the earliest record relating to this family was dated May 1826, when their son Peter was baptised.

Then, I found, on 3 July 1825, exactly when and where expected, Peter Ratty (a common nickname for Radcliffe) married Anne Sarsfield, in Swords Roman Catholic church. Their witnesses were Thomas Tully and Catherine Ratty.

Swords, Co. Dublin, 1825, Marriage of Peter Ratty & Anne Sarsfield

Unfortunately however, as was customary in the parish at that time, their parents’ names were not recorded. 

So, we’ll probably never find anything to directly link this Peter to the baptism of Peter Ratty in the neighbouring parish of Baldoyle, in November 1798.  Hence, there is likely no surviving document to confirm his parents were Thomas Ratty and Mary Cullen.  

Yet, I strongly suspect these were his parents, and not only because the surname was fairly uncommon in Dublin, or because of their proximity to Malahide, but also because our Peter named his third son Thomas and his only daughter Mary. But, that's not quite 'proof'.

Thomas and Mary’s marriage was likewise discovered in the newly released registers. They married in Baldoyle, on 29 June 1790, making this the very earliest record ever found for one of my ancestors (if indeed, Thomas and Mary were Peter’s parents). The witnesses to the marriage were Barney Cullen, Barney Barrett and Rose Doyle.

Baldoyle, Co. Dublin, 1790, Marriage of Thomas Ratty & Mary Cullen

The Baldoyle parish registers also reveal the names of Thomas and Mary’s children - John, born in 1791, Thomas in 1792, another John in 1794, Mark in 1797, Peter in 1798, Ellen in 1806 and finally, Margaret, who was born in 1809. A gap in the records between December 1800 and August 1806 probably conceals the names of some more, one of whom might have been Catherine, the witness to Peter and Anne’s marriage.

Nearly everything I know about Thomas and Mary, my would-be fifth great-grandparents, is here, in the baptisms of their children. So, this is where I’ll concentrate the search to ‘prove’ our relationship.

And, it was their daughter Ellen who I found first. Named as Ellenor Radcliffe, she married Michael Harford in Baldoyle, in June 1835. This was ten years after Peter had established himself, five miles up the coast, at Malahide. Michael and Ellen had five children baptised in Baldoyle before 1844, and then their names ceased to appear in the church registers.

Sadly, nothing was found to link Ellen’s family back to our Peter and Anne. The only known family connection I recognised was Mark Radcliffe, Ellen’s elder brother. He sponsored the baptism of Mary, their second child, thus, confirming he survived childhood, and opening up another avenue for research.

Sources: Parishes of Swords and Baldoyle, Catholic Parish Registers, National Library or Ireland; Church records, RootsIreland.ie. 

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© 2015 Black Raven Genealogy