----- Original Message ----- From: Frank Murray To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2002 11:30 AM Subject: Markham ex Rathkaele Co. Limerick to Australia 1822 I understand you are researching the Markham family ex Co Clare. I believe the Markhams who made their way into Limerick, including beyond Limerick City came from Clare originally. So my own search for 'my' Markham's forbears would presumably take me to Clare.There weren't that many who came to west Co. Limerick - it seems there was only one Markham family in and around Rathkaele. Edmund Markham, born 1802 (date and place unknown - probably Co Limerick - Rathkaele or Croagh) 1802. Certainly had a sister Ann and possibly had (at least) two brothers Timothy and Patrick who lived there at the time. (These two were arrested under the Insurrection Act in 1824 and acquitted.) Parents were James Markham and Ellen(Surname?). Dates/ places of birth unknown. Both were said to be deceased in Ann's emigration papers to Australia in 1845. (Yet there was an Ellen Markham living in Rathkaele in the 1851 Griffiths Valuations). Ed was sent off to the Colony of New South Wales after being convicted under the Irish Insurrection Act 1822. He was the first person arrested after the promulgation of the Act. The crime was breaking the curfew (most such 'convicts' were sentenced for this,) and having two pistols hidden in his house. 43 of the 189 convicts on the ship Mangles were transported for Insurrection Act offences. Sent for "seven years"as were almost all Insurrection Act transportees. Now 500 descendents in Australia, including, ironically, the Chief Justice of an Australian State!! Incidentally, the Limerick Chronicle report (2.3.1822) of the trial named a John Markham of the 3rd Light Dragoons as one of the soldiers and police who gave evidence against the group at the trial. I have always assumed that he was not of the Rathkaele family and possibly from Clare. I would be interested to hear if you have any detail of him and/or of the 3rd Light dragoons. On the other hand a John Markham was a godparent to Catherine Markham (daughter of Timothy Markham /Helen White m. Rathkaele 2.1.1836) baptised in Rathkaele on 19.6.1839. All very complex. But I would very much like to exchange information in my search for when and why Markhams moved into Limerick, and their specific forbears in Clare,as part of the larger story. Frank Murray, Canberra Australia