Dublin Floods of 1954

I’m sitting here looking out at our sodden paddock, where the ponies Sam and Charlie, excited at being back together on terra (semi-)firma, chase each other with uninhibited delight. Many in Ireland are still struggling to recover from the storms that recently wreaked havoc across the country and I’m reading a piece about another relentless storm our family once faced.[1] 

Just over sixty-one years ago, on 9 December 1954, my mother woke up for school as usual, having spent the night with her Aunty Kay, in their home at number 80 Leinster Avenue. The rest of the family slept at Aunty Kay’s cottage in Lower Jane Place, further along the North Strand, closer to Dublin city. This was all quite normal. As Mam came down the stairs that morning, she noticed the floor below shimmering in the sunshine. Can you imagine her shock, when she reached the second from last step and freezing-cold ‘shimmering’ river-water filled her shoes?

She raced back upstairs to call Aunty Kay and together they opened the front door to a vast scene of chaos spreading out all across North Dublin. Mam and Aunty Kay somehow managed to sleep soundly, not only though the battering winds and torrential rain, but also through the sound of their neighbours banging on their door the previous night. The neighbours had tried in vain to alert them to the rising flood waters, as the River Tolka, then normally a foot-deep rivulet, burst its banks.

Many householders in the North Strand, East Wall and Fairview suburbs were marooned in upstairs bedrooms and in some cases the water levels even reached ceiling height. Hundreds of people were evacuated in rowboats. Truckloads of evacuees were taken to hospital and comforted with blankets and hot drinks.  Five acres in Dublin were under water and a state of emergency was declared as many were left homeless.  

Yet, a major disaster causing significant loss of life was narrowly avoided.  Within hours of the 9 p.m. Belfast passenger train arriving safely at Amiens Street Station, the railway bridge over the River Tolka collapsed. The railway lines were left hanging in situ and all trains were immediately cancelled.

The solid stone pillars, each four or five feet in width and erected over 100 years earlier, were washed away by the raging river. My grandfather, Kevin Wynne, had long predicted the bridge was unsafe. He had often warned his family to never linger beneath it for shelter as they chatted to friends, but to hurry on by to safety. 

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Alderman Alfie Byrne, started a relief fund, raising thousands of pounds to help those worst affected by the floods. Our family did not submit a claim, but everyone in the area put to good use the £10 voucher received for Guiney’s Department Store.

I think the below photo shows children standing on the railway embankment, looking down Stoney Road, towards the River Tolka and number 80 Leinster Avenue is one of the corner houses facing the camera - maybe someone with a better memory than mine can pin-point which house it is exactly? 

North Strand Floods, Stoney Road, 1954

For more remarkable footage of the North Strand floods, see also this British Pathé film on Youtube.

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[1] East Wall History Group, Facebook page, 8 Jan 2016 and blog.  

Image credit: same.

© Black Raven Genealogy

My genealogy highlights of 2015

As 2016 begins, it poses an ideal opportunity to reflect on the year just passed. Wendy, one of my blogging pals, writing at Jollette Etc., recently shared her ‘Five top Five’ achievements, which got me thinking. Looking back, 2015 was a difficult year for my family; nevertheless, for Black Raven Genealogy there were many highlights.

Best Discoveries
While I’ve known for quite some time my second great-grandmother was Maryanne Donovan, I had trouble proving her maiden name was Coyle.  Oh, I had my suspicions, except no solid connection could be found. So, last summer I began a genealogy quest, retracing my footsteps and following up on all potential leads, no matter how small.

I was just about to admit defeat, once again, when I struck gold and found the long-sought after ‘evidence’. A burial register in Glasnevin Cemetery contained the names of fifteen people interred in a family plot and helped prove Maryanne Coyle was my ancestor.

This unexpected discovery gave me renewed hope that someday my other elusive ancestors might make themselves known too.

Another significant discovery I made was finding the death register for Jane (Daly) Byrne, who died in New York in 1901.  This led to her obituary, her gravesite, and even more amazingly provided the names of my third great-grandparents, William and Hannah Daly. Some further research on William and Hannah back in Dublin revealed Hannah’s maiden name was probably Dillon.

It was also fun to find our show-biz cousins – The Martell Sisters – those juggling colleens who performed circus acts.  No doubt, my great-grandfather, Patrick Wynne, who was a bit of a snob by some accounts, thought he had the antics of these nieces well and truly brushed under the carpet.  Just shows, the truth will come out, eventually!

Best Connections

By far the best new connection I’ve made this year was with my mother’s first cousins, the grandchildren of said Patrick Wynne and his wife Teresa Carroll, via their daughter Nora. These new found cousins have promised to share with me their first-hand memories of my great-grandmother, as well as some Wynne family superstitions. Could it get any better? So, if you’re reading this – Hint, Hint!

It is also always a pleasure to meet other researchers and quite a few contacted me during the year to share information and memorabilia. The connection that stands out most though was a young father. He casually ‘googled’ his grandfather’s name and happened upon my blog. His grandfather played football with my great-grandfather in 1914. He was absolutely delighted to receive a photograph of the team and its intrinsic link to his past.

Best Blog Posts

The blog posts resonating most with readers in 2015 or, those that received the greatest number of hits and comments were:

1. Snippets from the life of a Grandfather I never knew
2. Three little vignettes: ghosts, apparitions and porter (which was actually mostly written by my Uncle Colm)
3. Cousin Violet
4. A day in the life of my great-grandda
5. The cartoonist, Bobby Pyke 

Thank you to everyone who reads my blog and provides feedback on the posts. It is very much appreciated. Here’s to 2016 being kind to us all and a year filled with many more genealogy highlights.

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© Black Raven Genealogy

Find A Grave ~ Jane Byrne’s Final Resting Place

Last month, I noticed a new (to me, at least) genealogy website, called Catholic Cemeteries, Diocese of Brooklyn. I’ve known for a while my third great-grandmother, Jane Byrne, was buried in St John’s Cemetery, New York. She died in December 1901. Now, I’ve found the exact coordinates of her grave. 

So, I thought I’d try to find her headstone. It’s not as if I have to go to all the way to New York, although that has a certain appeal. You see, there is now a website called Find A Grave where volunteers, who visit graveyards around the world, record details of the headstones they find. 

This way, descendants, who no longer remember where their ancestors are buried or, who live thousands of miles away, can find their graves. They can pay their respects and even leave a virtual bunch of flowers. Really!! They can request a photograph of the headstone in the hopes someone might visit the cemetery and oblige.

When I first checked Find A Grave for a memorial for Jane Byrne, I found one had already been created, but only with the information contained in her published obituary. Obviously, this did not have the grave coordinates, so, I couldn’t request a photograph of her headstone.

St John Cemetery is one of the oldest and largest Catholic cemeteries in New York, encompassing some 190 acres. No one would find the grave, without specific directions - imagine addressing a letter to ‘Jane Byrne, New York’ and expecting it to arrive at its intended destination.

But, when I found the grave coordinates, I requested the photograph and sat back to wait.

And, within two weeks, I received a reply. Fancy that!

Gravesite, Jane Byrne, St John Cemetery, Middle Village, Queens, NY. 

There is no headstone marking Jane's grave. Once, I may have been saddened to discover this. But, Jane Byrne’s grave is not so unusual. Until my great-grandparents’ generation, few of my direct ancestors had headstones. Their families saved their hard-earned cash to sustain the living, and prayed for the souls of the dead instead. Maybe, a wooden cross, now long since perished, once marked the spot where she was buried.

Who do you think planted the tree right at the head of Jane’s grave? It seems well established now. I’d like to think Jane’s family planted it at the time of her passing - a living monument to commemorate her life and mark her final resting place.  What do you think?

With many thanks to Find A Grave volunteer, JP Rayder, who took the time to visit Jane’s grave, said a few prayers and took this photograph to share with us. You can visit her virtual memorial, here. Go on - leave flowers! 

How we're related to Jane Byrne

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© Black Raven Genealogy

Jane Byrne’s Arrival in the United States

Tracing my ancestors with the common surname ‘Byrne’ is one of my biggest genealogy challenges and wading through line after line trying to track down the U.S. immigration of a woman named Jane Byrne was a big ask.  Any one of the numerous so-named records in the late nineteenth century might well relate to my third great-grandmother, but, telling which one, if any, was a near hopeless task.   

One proven way to increase the probability of discovering the right record is to find her with her immediate relatives – especially those with more unusual surnames.  So, when Jane Byrne’s daughter Hannah married John Comiskey in 1869, and Jane was later found living with the Comiskey family, it greatly increased the probability I’d found a true match. This was how I first located her in New York. 

Now with the Comiskey surname, you have to be prepared for its spelling variations. Inscribers and transcribers were far more inventive with this surname than they ever were with the name Byrne. As well as Comiskey, Cumiskey and Cuminskey, each with either one or two ‘m’s, it took far more determination to follow the family when they were documented as Conningbery. But, tracing their movements proved to be worthwhile.

Hannah’s husband, John Comiskey, arrived in New York on 9 June 1880, paving the way for Hannah and their three girls to follow a few years later. Presumably, the family did not have the money to pay for their passage all together and John went first to find work and save up enough money to enable the rest to follow.

In 1883, Hannah sailed with Rosanna, Jane and young Hannah, on board the SS Germanic, although there was no sign of the two boys. Michael and Francis would have been six and four years old at the time and were seemingly left behind with family in Ireland.

SS Germanic

During the past few months, I ‘met’ Angela, my third cousin once removed, who descends directly from John and Hannah Comiskey. Angela knew her grandfather Francis was eight years old when he came to the U.S. She had even found a record of his immigration - to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1887.

With this information, I found the record of Francis and Michael ‘Cuminsky’, both of the right age, arriving in Boston, from Liverpool, on 22 September 1887. The passenger list for the steamship ‘Marathon’ confirmed their intended destination was New York. They were accompanied by Jane Byrne, aged fifty-five years, and even though she was said to have been married, when our Jane was by then supposedly widowed, presumably she was the children’s grandmother.

Jane’s daughter and namesake Jane (Byrne) Cunningham died in Dublin earlier that same year.  Perhaps this was the reason my third great-grandmother followed her two other daughters to New York, or perhaps she had always intended to accompany the boys, as soon as funds allowed. One thing is sure, if Jane had not been travelling with her two Comiskey grandsons, I would never have identified this Jane Byrne as my ancestor. 

Jane Byrne’s connection to my grandmother

Sources: 'Massachusetts, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820 to 1963'; 'Passenger Lists of vessels arriving at New York, 1820-1897; ‘New York, Index to Petitions for Naturalization filed in New York City, 1792-1989’, Ancestry.com.

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© 2016 Black Raven Genealogy

Kathleen Wynne, a little angel

Had she not passed away at the devastatingly tender age of 'about' nine days, next week my Aunt Kathleen would have celebrated her 69th birthday. Kathleen was born prematurely on or about 23 December 1946, the fifth child of Kevin and Annie Wynne. She was named after her maternal aunt, Kathleen Byrne. However, she never made it home from the hospital, so she never got to meet her brother and sisters.

Virtually nothing remains today of Kathleen’s short life and the few official records of her existence contain numerous errors and conflicts, many probably unresolvable today.

Holles Street Hospital in Dublin registered her birth, incorrectly recording her birthdate as 26 December. But, Kathleen’s elder sister remembers her parents visiting the hospital that Christmas Day and knows Kathleen was born before Christmas.

Her date of death was registered as 31 December 1946, again by Holles Street Hospital. Here, she was said to have been seven days old, so born on 24th December.  The hospital omitted her Christian name on the register and incorrectly described her as ‘male’ - yet another error in the record of her life. She was said to have been the ‘son of a painter.’ My grandfather was indeed a painter, but it was his home address, 80 Leinster Avenue, which definitively confirmed the record related to our Aunt Kathleen. Her cause of death was certified as ‘internal obstruction’.

Kathleen’s family believed she was interred in the Old Angels Plot at Glasnevin Cemetery, where a section of consecrated ground was set aside for still-born babies and other children who died shortly after birth. Up to fifty babies share each unmarked grave, and in a strange way, it was comforting to know she was with all these other little children.

When Glasnevin Trust released the cemetery’s records online, I searched for Kathleen Wynne, buried in 1946-47, but did not find her.  When I contacted the graveyard, they advised I should search using ‘Newborn’ instead of Kathleen, as the hospital may not have provided her given name when they organised her burial.

And there she was, my little Aunt Kathleen, interred on 4 January 1947, again sadly unnamed in the register. The cemetery’s records show she died of ‘prematurity’ on New Year’s Day, 1947, aged one week and two days. This suggests her birthday was 23 December, two days before Christmas.  

Kathleen was laid to rest in the section known as St. Patrick’s in Glasnevin Cemetery, at grave UM 190, and not in the better known Old Angels Plot. There are a number of smaller unmarked ‘angels plots’ situated throughout the cemetery.

As Kathleen was born prematurely, it was quite probable her mother never got to hold her. Although her parents visited the hospital every day of her short life, they may not have been allowed in to see her. Her father may never have laid eyes on his baby girl. The hospital organised her burial and denied them the chance to attend her funeral.

This sounds cruel today, but was considered ‘for the best’ in Ireland then. Any opportunity for attachment was thought to prolong the grieving process. Parents were told to forget their loss. They were advised to have another child and to move on as quickly as possible and not to look for sympathy.  There was no understanding of the need to grieve. 

And this is what Kathleen’s family tried to do. Her grave was not visited over the years. The family’s grief was a silent one, and yet she was never forgotten.  All my life, I’ve known about my Aunt Kathleen, the little angel who never made it home.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam / (R.I.P.)

Sources: Birth and death registers, General Register Office; Burial register, Glasnevin Cemetery. Image: courtesy of The Graphics Fairy.

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© 2015 Black Raven Genealogy

Another attempt to outfox an elusive great-grandfather

Michael Byrne was my great-grandfather, my Dad’s paternal grandfather. He is one hard fella to track down. And, I’ve tried! Really, I’ve tried!

According to his own assertions, he was born in county Dublin, about 1870. So, I obtained copy birth registrations for every Michael Byrne I could find in civil and church records, if the parents were named as John and Elisabeth Byrne. But, didn't find him!

And, when the ‘traditional’ records failed to yield a match, I tracked him through the local court records. I checked out his Fan (friends and neighbours) Club. I knew he kept greyhounds, so, I even attempted to trace his origins in the national dog licence registers. I found him there too, from March 1892, three months before his marriage to my great-grandmother in Malahide, Co. Dublin, but no earlier. The man left no clues behind.

Who was he?

Recently, I received some new information about him. This account came from a first cousin of my Dad – also Michael’s grandchild.  Her father had told her, Michael once had a brother. Granted it’s not the first time we’ve heard that ‘there were two of them’, but this time the brother came with a name – Tom – and a story. Sadly, young Tom died when he was a child. He was said to have fallen out of a tree, while at school in the neighbouring town of Swords, and died. Poor lad.

If he’d died as a child, it would certainly explain why I could find no trace of the rumoured brother in later marriage registers. But, some record of his tragic death should survive today, you’d think.

Well, there was no mention of the accident in the newspapers of the day, at least, none I could find.

So back I went to the civil indexes, searching for every child named Thomas Byrne, who might have died between 1864 and 1890. And, there were two potential deaths recorded in the Registrar's District of Balrothery. Balrothery represents the whole region of north county Dublin, including the town of Swords.

One was a child, only seven years old, who died in 1876. Was he too young to have been at school, climbing trees? – Maybe, maybe not.

The second was Thomas Clarke Byrne, aged fourteen years when he died in 1874. Except, this young Thomas was gentry.  I found a memorial inscription for him on a fancy tomb, in the parish of Ballyboghil, Co. Dublin. The tomb was ‘a large sarcophagus over a vault, with inscriptions on three sides’.[1] Interred were:

• Thomas Byrne, Esquire, Casino, Malahide, died 13 March 1851, aged 65.
• Anastasia (Relict [widow] of the late Thomas Byrne of Casino), died at 73 Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin, 25 May 1859, aged 63 years.
• Emily Frances Byrne, died 12 July 1864, aged 32 years.
• Thomas Clarke Byrne, son of Joseph Byrne, Esquire, Casino, Malahide, died 8 August 1875, aged 14 years.
• Morgan Joseph Byrne, son of John Byrne, Esquire, J.P., Gardener Place, Dublin, died 27 April 1879, aged 18 months. 

Now, my grandmother Lena, Michael’s daughter-in-law, once lived in ‘Casino’. It is a beautiful, large, thatched cottage in the village of Malahide. Lena was the housekeeper there, for the Dickie family, at the time of her marriage.

But, our Michael’s father was named as John, not Joseph, and in Michael’s marriage record, the only document ever found mentioning his father, he was said to have been a butler. A butler is a far cry from being a ‘J.P.’ [Justice of the Peace]!

Anyway, if we’d been part of this prestigious Byrne family, some rumour of that fact would have survived, and my grandfather would surely not have worked as a labourer.

Nevertheless, I’ve ordered copies of both death registers, and I’ll let you know if either one of these boys died of a broken neck.

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[1] Journal of the Association for the Preservation of the Memorials of the Dead in Ireland, 1894, accessed Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives. 

Continued further at: A glimpse over the brick wall.

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© 2015 Black Raven Genealogy

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