3) Information from Gerry Daly, about the children listed above, written May 2021
Daly Family in Ballyshea in the 19th Century
Michael Daly was born circa 1831-32 and he died on 17-12-1893
from Influenza.
His death cert states that he was 61 when he died and his
headstone states that he was 63 – these types of discrepancies were common in
the 19th century in Ireland.
On 17-01-1867 he married Bridget Hynes from Carramore
when she was only 19.
Bridget died from cancer on 20-03-1926 aged 80 – she
would have been born circa 1846-48 during the Great Famine. In her will she
left £105-16-2 to her son, Mike - my grandfather.
It was Bridget who erected the family headstone in
Killogilleen.
She would have been getting the pension for 10 years (approx).
As a young boy my father would bring herself and two
other ladies from Ballyshea to Kilchreest P.O. in the pony and trap every
Friday to collect their pension and they never came home without having
some refreshments even during the Tan war.
Michael and Bridget had 7 children, listed in the table above:
All of them attended Ballymana National School.
1. Mike
(1868 – 1956) married Brigid Kelly (1880? – 1958) of Sonnagh Old on 05-02-1908
and they farmed 30 acres in Ballyshea and Emlagh.
Their lives have been fairly
well documented. They had 9 children.
2. John
Daly, known as Jack, was born on 06-08-1870 and worked as a stone mason.
He built the barn, which is
still used, beside the old homestead before he emigrated to America.
He spent
much of his life working on the construction of the Hoover Dam. He returned to
Ballyshea in advanced years sometime in the 1940’s.
By all accounts he was a
difficult man, fond of the drink and he slept in a settle bed in a cosy shed.
He died in the County Home in Loughrea on 06-10-1948 at the age of 78 from
cerebral thrombosis.
He is buried in Killogilleen.
Sometime in the 1950’s when
Uncle Mick was living in New Britain a lady rang him up and she said that she
wanted to talk to him about his late uncle.
She called around but Mick did
not entertain her.
Had Jack been married in the
States?
3. Mary
Anne, also known as Maria or Mary, was born in Ballyshea on 17-04-1872 and she had emigrated to the
States
long before the turn of the century. Little is known about her except
that
according to folklore she made money looking after old people during
the
Spanish Flu epidemic (1918 – 1920). This was a pandemic and we are now
going through the next pandemic about 100 years later - Covid 19.
She never married and returned
to live with her sister, Winnie and Winnies’s husband, John Stevens, at
Coolusty, Athleague, Co. Roscommon, where she died aged 65 on 03-12-1937.
Uncle Mick often said that she
left £750 in her will to his father which was enough to buy a small farm in those
days but the old man had other ideas about the money. In her will she actually
left £2,247-18-9. It was probably divided evenly among Mike, Winnie and John
Stevens. Mary A. is buried in Killogilleen.
4. Pat
Daly (nicknamed Anchor Daly) was born on 29-08-1874.
As a young man he served his
time as a blacksmith with the Cahill family from Kilchreest, who had a house
and forge in Ballyshea at the time. Old people (me !) can still point out the
site.
When his daughter, Mary
Broderick, visited us (circa 1985) accompanied by her daughter, Joan, my father
showed them the sheep branding iron which Pat made and which we still use.
Pat had emigrated to Australia
before 1900. To the best of my knowledge he was twice married and had a large
family. My father recalls him coming home on a short holiday.
My aunt, Maria Brennan,
maintained correspondence with his daughter, Eileen, for a number of years.
His daughter, Teresa, who was a
nun visited Ireland in the 1990’s and she also visited Aunt Kathleen, in
Wisconsin. She sometimes talked about her brother, Bernard and her sister, Sr.
Bernardine.
5. Thomas
Daly was born on 17-08-1877 and he was still living in Ballyshea in 1901.
He later emigrated to
Australia, probably to join his brother, Pat.
Aunt Maria often said that
Thomas had once been hit on the head with a shovel by a local man and that he
was never right afterwards.
She maintained that he married
in Australia but that he had no family.
6. Celia
Daly, also known as Sarah, was a twin sister of Thomas and she had emigrated to America before 1901.
She joined a Religious Order and died in New Haven circa 1948.
This was the year that Uncle
Mick emigrated to Connecticut and when he got settled he went to visit her but,
sadly, he was just 3 weeks too late.
Like her brother, Tom, our
knowledge of her is minimal.
7. Winifred
Daly was born on 06-09-1882 and was still living in Ballyshea in 1901.
According to family folklore
her mother wanted to make a match for her with a local man but she was not
agreeable.
One day while the rest of the
family were sowing potatoes she was left at home to make the dinner. She took
some money from the tin box which was hidden up the chimney and made her way to
America. She married John Stevens from Tremane in south Roscommon and they
later returned to Coolusty near Athleague where they inherited or purchased a
small farm. She established a successful poultry station and at different
stages both Patrick and Maria worked there. Her sister, Mary A. also returned
to live with them.
John Stevens died at Castle
Street in Athlone on 02-03-1953 at the age of 73.
He must have been in a home
for a while.
Winnie had previously offered
the place to her nephew, Patrick, who declined, as he was by then established
with a young family in London.
Both Maria(Brennan) and
Bridie(Killian) kept contact with Winnie and she died in the County Home in
Roscommon on 28-02-1959 at the age of
78.
It seems that things went
downhill after John’s death and a local family befriended her and got her land and whatever
money was left.
Winnie and John are probably
buried in Athleague.
Thus ends the saga of the 19th
century Daly family in 1,000 words.
Gerry Daly - May 2021
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4) Information from John Daly, about the children listed above, and the Australian branch of the Daly family tree, written 2021
Summary
Patrick Joseph Daly (29-08-1874 to 10-03-1952)
Emigrated to Australia in 1898.
Found work initially as a labourer before marrying his first wife Mary Ann Gertrude Rohan in 1901.
Had 5 children before Mary died young in 1913. During that time, they
lived in an inland mining town and an agricultural town in Western
Australia.
He ran a thriving blacksmith/forge business for many years in the agricultural town.
After Mary's death, he brought his family to the capital city of
Western Australia, Perth and established a new blacksmithing business.
He married his second wife, Alice Kate Berry, in 1916 and had another 7 children.
He passed away in 1952 aged 77.
Thomas Daly (16-08-1877 to 3-04-1942)
Emigrated to Western Australia sometime between 1901 and 1913 but probably closer to 1901.
Married his first and only wife, Elizabeth Leahy in 1917. They did not have children.
He lived in inland mining towns before and after marrying, working as a labourer and engine driver and probably other jobs.
They had moved to the capital, Perth by 1925 where they lived in the “burbs”.
Thomas died in 1942 aged 60.
Now the more detailed version
Patrick Joseph Daly (29-08-1874 to 10-03-1952)
Patrick arrived in Western Australia on 18 Mar 1898, aboard the steam
ship “Orizaba”. He disembarked at the port of Albany and would have had
to travel around 400 km by train to Perth after disembarking. The
passenger list records him as aged 23, occupation "ironmonger". He
seems to have travelled alone and boarded the ship in London. All the
ships from London to Australia in those days passed through multiple
countries and ports before completing the journey. The total trip time
was 75 days. When he arrived in WA, he wouldn’t have felt lonely
for the lack of Irish people and voices. In 1900, 30% of the population
of the state was of Irish descent. The state was very prosperous
by world standards and was about 8 yrs into a gold mining boom that
continued on for another decade before settling down, while agriculture
was also booming with huge areas of the inland being cleared for
farming.
Patrick married Mary Rohan on 12 Oct 1901 at Southern Cross, Western
Australia. Southern Cross was an inland town just outside the limits of
the agricultural belt where the rainfall was too low, but it was on the
highway to the epicentre of the WA gold boom at Kalgoorlie. So Patrick
probably made plenty of money repairing and making iron goods for the
gold miners. This is the marriage notice from The West Australian
newspaper:
The
West Australian 12 Oct 1901 - DALY-ROHAN.-At Southern Cross, by the
Rev. Fr Hampson, Roman Catholic priest, Patrick Joseph Daly, third son
of Michael Daly of County Galway, Ireland, to Mary Gertrude Rohan,
third daughter of Patrick Rohan of Ballarat.
Mary was also of Irish descent but was born in Ballarat in the
Australian state of Victoria. Ballarat had been the epicentre of
Australia’s first gold mining boom which started in the 1850s, so she
would have been very familiar with the mining industry.
Somewhere between 1906 and 1909, Patrick and family moved to
Kellberberrin, a town in the wheatbelt of WA. Patrick continued
blacksmithing running a business employing several people. Among other
things, they built large drays, presumably for sale to farmers. He was
active in the community and in 1911 was elected to the local Board of
Health which oversaw the local regional hospital. He was also a man of
faith and there are various reports of his activities supporting the
Catholic church including fundraising and making significant donations
to the church building fund.
Sometime around 1912, Mary became ill with a long term illness and the
family travelled to Victoria where Mary’s family lived. Some of the
children were cared for by aunts or uncles. Mary passed away in a
hospital in a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria on 17 May 1913. I
haven’t been able to establish what illness Mary suffered from.
After Mary’s death, Patrick moved the family back to the city of Perth,
probably because he needed family support to take care of the children.
In 1916, Patrick married his second wife, Alice Kate Berry. Alice was
also an immigrant, but from Essex in England. She had emigrated to
Australia somewhere between 1911 and 1915, but probably before the
outbreak of WW1. Alice was a devout Catholic even though her father was
Anglican. She travelled to Australia with at least 2 of her brothers
and her parents followed a few years later.
After marrying, Patrick and Alice lived in the city in Perth and had 7
children. Patrick continued blacksmithing until he retired. In 1923,
Patrick and Alice took the family back to the UK to visit her family in
Essex. During that time, Patrick travelled on by himself to Galway to
visit the family at Ballyshea. He only stayed for a short time before
returning to Essex. All up the family stayed in England for a
year and had one more child while there. The total trip time including
time aboard ship was 18 mths.
Patrick passed away in March 1952 aged 77 and Alice passed away 9 months later from cancer in Dec 1952 aged 67.
Patricks children
Spouse – Mary Ann Gertrude Rohan
Catherine Cecilia Daly - 1902 to 13 Dec 1975
Leo Patrick Daly - 1904 to 1906
Mary Dorothy Daly - 5 Aug 1906 to 1 Dec 1986
Eileen Winifred Daly – 1909 to 30 Aug 1989
John Thomas Daly – 1912 to 20 Oct 1930
Spouse – Alice Kate Berry
Cyril Michael Daly – 20 May 1917 to 28 Apr 1991 (my father)
Wilfred Herbert Aloysius Daly - 21 June 1918 to 7 Feb 1944 (killed WW2)
Patricia Agnes E. (Sr Bernardine) Daly - 11 July 1920 to 6 May 2016 (Sister of Mercy)
Terence Joseph Daly – 11 May 1922 to 31 Jan 1973
Bernard Francis Daly – 19 Aug 1923 to 12 Nov 2016
Teresa Monica Daly – 1925 to living (Sister of Mercy)
Rita Joan Daly – 1930 – living
Thomas Daly (16-08-1877 to 3-04-1942)
Thomas is a bit of a mystery man. I didn’t even know he existed until I
began ancestry research, but that is probably reflective of the fact
that he died well before I was born, didn’t have children and my father
developed serious illness when I was a child so didn’t pass on much
family information.
I wasn’t able to find when Thomas emigrated to Australia, but it seems
to have been some time from 1902 to 1908. He first appears in electoral
roll data in 1913 at Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, working as a
labourer. He then moved through a number of small mining towns in the
goldfields. In 1917, he married Elizabeth Leahy in Perth before
returning to the bush living at various mining and agricultural
locations. By 1925, the couple had settled in the city (i.e. Perth)
where they lived until Thomas died on 3 Apr 1942 aged 60. Elizabeth
lived until 1961. I haven’t been able to find out anything further
about Elizabeth or her family so cant tell you anything else about
them. I’m hoping at some point to be able to spend some time with my
aunts Teresa Daly and Rita Murphy (nee Daly) who may be able to recall
more details that might lead to more discoveries about Thomas and his
life.
John Daly - 2021
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5)
Another Daly family
in Ballyshea.
The
next house in Ballyshea was also
inhabited by a Daly family, unrelated to the above Daly family.
Below are the children of Michael Daly
and Bridget Shaughnessy, of Ballyshea, Galway,
Ireland.
Information, from Kilchreest Church records, Galway,
Ireland.
|
CHILD
|
D.O.B.
|
SPONSOR
|
SPONSOR
|
ENROLLED IN BALLAMANA NATIONAL
SCHOOL
|
1901 CENSUS
|
COMMENT
|
| John Daly |
21-4-1872 |
Denis Shaughnessy |
Eliza Gl |
July 1878 |
Not shown |
|
| Patrick Daly |
11-1-1877 |
John Roland |
Eliza Cannon |
May 1882 |
At home |
Married N. Furey February 1920. |
| Elizabeth Daly |
4-6-1879 |
Stephen Roland |
Mary Neilan |
Probably January 1888 |
Not shown |
|
| Michael Daly |
11-11-1882 |
James Cannon |
Catherine Murphy |
May 1887 |
At home |
Lived in Ballyshea. |
| Mary Daly |
29-6-1884 |
John Shaughnessy |
Brigid Shaughnessy |
August 1889 |
At home |
Married T. Raftery 1917. |
| James Daly |
8-9-1886 |
James Mooney |
Catherine Mooney |
1891 |
At home |
Remained at home. |
| Martin Daly |
13-6-1889 |
John Healy |
Bridget Healy |
November 1897 |
At home |
|
There
was even a third Daly family there in
the late 19th century.
Information from Gerry Daly:
As regards the third Daly
family in Ballyshea the last surviving member of this family was Mary Daly, a
widow, who died on 06-12-1896 at the age of 76.
This Daly family had some
land in Emlagh and Ballyshea and Bridget Daly (great grandmother) bought some
of this land in 1895.
Mary Daly was known in Ballyshea
by her Irish name – Máire Ní Dhálaigh.
Mattie Daly always maintained
that Mary had a son who went away to some unknown destination.
Thomas Daly, who had a house
in Ballyshea in 1855 at the time of Griffith’s valuation, may have been her
husband but there does not seem to be any record of his death.
6)
Tithe Book circa
1825, showing a John Daly.
7)
Griffiths Evaluation
of Tenements circa 1855. The total value of the huge amount
of land and
several farm buildings leased by the various Dalys in Ballyshea at that
time was
£32 6s 0d.
8)
The 1901 Census, showing
members of the Daly family still living in Ballyshea at that time,
including Tom
Daly's grandmother Bridget (aged 62) and father, Michael (aged 30).
The family were Catholic farmers, all able to read and write.
9) A
fictionalised poem written in 2001, by Lizzie Ware, née Eileen Daly,
about Paddy and Tom
Daly.
Starting Out
Paddy on his way to
Dublin
In
his shoddy farmers’ boots
His brother Tom, his one companion,
Both ripped away from Galway roots.
Huddled
third-class on the mailboat
Throwing-up
for all they’re worth,
Pat comforts Tom under the one coat,
Sick jokes are all they have for mirth.
Five
AM in Holyhead,
Two Irish boys on foreign land,
Shivering from their mailboat bed
Each
holds one small case in his hand.
On
mainland Europe, a storm is gathering
The madman Hitler, his flags unfurled,
With plans outrageous in conception
To swallow up the entire world.
But
Pat and Tom know nothing of this
Two country boys from near Loughrea,
Awaiting
in the North Wales mist
The London train, third class again.
As
the gloom lifts, so the miles pass
Rattling southwards, on through Crewe.
Paddy sleeves the railway glass,
Remarks to Tom ‘Look at the view -
It’s
not so different from back home.
There’s
fields and farms the self-same green.’
The younger boy’s not one to roam,
He looks askance upon the scene.
As
London’s slums come into view,
An endless swathe of poverty,
The Irish boys exchange a look
No word is said of Ballyshea.
Journey’s
end is Euston Station
Grey, forbidding in the rain.
For these two boys the future’s vision
Will never take them home again.
22
January 2001
10) Some Family History - by Gerry Daly - May 2021
Some Family History - by Gerry Daly - May 2021
Much of the family history was lost over time and there
are certain things that we cannot verify. It is always difficult to distinguish
between history and folklore – particularly in Ballyshea.
According to tradition the family came to Ballyshea from
around Bellharbour Co. Clare - perhaps as early as the 17th century.
At any rate three branches of the family were tenant
farmers and were well established in Ballyshea by the mid 19th
century. Two of these Daly families still live in Ballyshea in 2021.
1. Michael
Daly belonged to our family – he was married circa 1830 but he was not around
in 1855. Perhaps he died during the famine years. We cannot trace his
relationship to the other two Daly families in Ballyshea.
Michael’s wife Eliza had a
house and land in Ballyshea in 1855 as well as land in Emlagh, where I
presently live. She was born circa 1804 and died from heart disease at the age
of 68 in 1872. I am now almost 68 and I have significant heart disease so I had
better watch out. We do not know who Eliza was, or where she came from, nor do
we know how many children she had. It is likely that both Eliza and Michael are
buried in Killogilleen, like all subsequent generations who remained at home on
the farm.
2. Eliza’s
son, Michael, born circa 1831, married Brigid Hynes of Carrowmore in 1867 when
Brigid was only 19. They farmed at Ballyshea.
In 1868 the first of their 7
children – our granddad, Mike, arrived.
We can
account for all 7 members of that generation.
5 of them left no descendants that we know of,
so only Mike and his brother, Pat, in Australia had families.
Michael died from influenza in
1893 but Brigid was a tough old broad and lived until 1926. She left a will
which can be accessed in the National Archives.
3. Our
granddad, Mike, married Brigid Kelly of Sonnagh Old in 1908 and my father,
James, the eldest, was born in 1909. They farmed at Ballyshea.
Mike died in 1956 at the age
of 88 and Brigid died in 1958 at the age of 78.
We can easily account for all 9 members of
their family.
4. Of
the 9 family members of this generation in Ballyshea, Winnie died in 1942 at
the age of 17 and neither Mick nor Kathleen, who both lived in the U.S.A. had
children so 6 members of this generation had families – Dalys, Brennans, Dervans
and Killians in Ireland and two Daly families in London.
5. This
is our generation, so we can let them figure out where they fit into the tree if
they are interested – Gerry Daly, Michael Brennan, Gerard Dervan, 5 Killians, 3
Dalys and 4 Dalys respectively.
6. This
is our children’s generation, so they too can figure out where they fit into the
web – there are quite a few of them – 37, I think.
7. This
is the 7th generation of Dalys and we have Esme Daly and Wren Daly
in London and Mikey Daly and Emma Daly in Ballyshea.
My daughter - Deirdre, also has
children - Ailbhe and Cara O’Donovan in Dublin and there are cousins on both
sides of the Irish Sea.
Gerry Daly – May 2021
This brings the picture fairly
well up to date and the only obvious gap is the Australian branch of the
family. We will have to get our cousin, John, working on this.
A potted history of one Daly
family from Ballyshea in 600 words but in reality it would fill books just like
all traditional Irish families.
Gerry Daly
May 2021
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