Surnames mentioned in this post: Barry, O'Donnell, Sheahan [Sheehan], Blake, Hennessy, Quaid, Graham, Shelton, Mahoney, Fitzgibbon. More examples of house and tenure books. Ah, Jane - your reply is very interesting for two different reasons... (1) The Barrys of Cloncagh - I know them well. Or at least I feel like I do, thanks to an unpublished manuscript handwritten in the early 1900s by an Australian descendant named Nicholas O'Donnell, a well known physician living in Melbourne, Victoria. His manuscript reveals much about the Barrys of Cloncagh, who were his mother's people. [See a short biography of Nicholas O'Donnell, and also one of his brother David (a famous Australian detective), in the online version of the Australian Dictionary of National Biography at http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110065b.htm .] Nicholas O'Donnell was also a Gaelic scholar and staunch supporter of Irish nationalism, although he never set foot in Ireland himself. He had a great desire to preserve the oral traditions and culture of Irish families of the diaspora. That seems to be why he began to compile his own family history, before the knowledge of living family members was lost. In the early 1900s, O'Donnell interviewed his Barry relatives, many of whom lived in Australia by that time. He also corresponded with his aunt Honora Hickey (nee Barry) and various distant cousins who still lived in Ireland. The information from those interviews and correspondence forms the basis of the manuscript. At one point O'Donnell suggests that research should be done on the families in repositories in Ireland, but he never followed up on that himself - which is a shame, given the later destruction of the Four Courts in Dublin. He also mentions writing to the parish priest of Ballingarry, who informed him of the same unfortunate gap in Ballingarry parish records (in the 1830s and 1840s) with which I am only too familiar! Nicholas O'Donnell's mother was Johanna nee Barry. Her particular branch of the Barrys had left the Cloncagh area after the death of her grandfather (David Barry, the progenitor in this manuscript) and settled in the townland of Graigacurragh, Ballingarry civil parish (east of Ballingarry Town). There, Johanna's father George Barry, at a young age, had married the older "Widow Sheahan" [Honora nee Blake] on 23 July 1829 [extraction by my husband from Microfilm P 2421, Ballingarry Catholic parish register, at National Library in Dublin, in July 2006]. After his marriage, George Barry settled on his wife's farm in the neighboring townland of Liskennett, also in Ballingarry civil parish. At least eight children were born to them, including a daughter Johanna Barry. She emigrated to Australia, where in 1858 she married Michael O'Donnell of Camas (near Bruff), a fellow emigrant from Limerick. They were the parents of the manuscript author Nicholas O'Donnell. Johanna's sister Ellen Barry married Nicholas O'Donnell (brother of Michael) in 1866, also in Australia. I had already traced many of the Barrys in the areas around Cloncagh, Rathkeale, Liskennett / Graigacurragh / Kilmacow, etc. and suspected some connection between them. This manuscript, which someone in Australia shared with me earlier this summer, has made many of those connections very concrete. It has also introduced a few new mysteries - but isn't that always the case in genealogy research? The earliest Barry in the line is David Barry "of Ballymorrisheen" (on the N21 between Newcastle West and Rathkeale), the progenitor of the Barrys who are the subject of the manuscript. David Barry is described as a substantial farmer "milking 60 cows". His first wife was said to be a "Miss Hennessy", and his second was Ellen "Muddy" Quaid of Ardagh. It was David Barry's second wife who moved the family from Cloncagh to Graigacurragh after her husband's death - in time to be listed there in 1827 as "Widow Barry" paying tithes on 3 parcels of land totaling over 50 acres . When "Muddy" died about 1854, she was buried at Cloncagh, the Barry family's traditional burial place. Jane, have you ever visited the old graveyard at Cloncagh? Do you know if your family members were buried there? Unfortunately I see no mention of a Hanora Barry who married a Fitzgibbon in the manuscript. And no Hanora Barry is mentioned as a daughter of David Barry by either wife. Would that be about the right generation for your Hanora Fitzgibbon, nee Barry? The children by the first wife were born roughly 1790-1800, while those by Ellen "Muddy" Quaid were born beginning sometime between 1795 and 1805. The manuscript does not give exact dates of birth for this early generation, and later records (if they exist) for these people give conflicting ages, a common problem in Irish research. Jane, do you know about when your Honora Barry was born? What were some of the first names used in naming the children of Hanora Barry and J. [James? John?] Fitzgibbon? Did any Barrys serve as baptismal sponsors or marriage witnesses for your family? Perhaps I can identify them in the manuscript. All but one of the siblings of O'Donnell's mother Johanna Barry eventually ended up in Australia. The only one who remained behind in Ireland and died there was Honora Barry (b. abt 1838-1842), who married James Hickey of Kilmacow (Ballingarry civil parish). An interesting twist to the story: Hickey's mother was also a Barry - but "not related" in the Barry line, according to the manuscript. The Cloncagh-Liskennett-Graigacurragh Barrys were said to be from West Limerick (family burial place at Cloncagh), while the Kilmacow Barrys had come there from East Limerick. Several Barrys are buried in the graveyard at Kilmacow. [Honora Barry and James Hickey were, however, related through the Quaids, with Johanna Barry's paternal grandmother "Muddy" Quaid being a first cousin of James Hickey's maternal grandmother, who married a Barry.] The manuscript mentions only a little about the Kilmacow Barrys, who intrigue me. The implication is that they might have been related to some Barrys who lived in the same area as the family of Nicholas O'Donnell's father - near Camas, Bruff. I have traced Barrys in that area also, some of whom later went to Chicago, Illinois. The connection probably predates parish registers, so discovering it will be a challenge. (Of course, if male descendants from these Barry lines would consent to a yDNA test for genealogical purposes, that could provide an answer! We would love to compare those results to my husband's... who has some interesting yDNA matches to descendants of Berrys who lived in Kentucky in the 1700s - obviously an earlier wave of emigration from my husband's family.) The Barrys seem to have been at Kilmacow House from the mid-1700s until James Hickey's father bought the lease on the property about 1850 (as shown in the tenure books - I can provide details to those who are interested). In the case of Kilmacow (Ballingarry civil parish), the tenure books were compiled in 24 Nov 1848 and revised 24-25 Sept 1850, while Griffith's Valuation for Kilmacow was printed 10 February 1852. So we see the evolution in tenure over a 4-year period during the height of the Famine. Very revealing... many names crossed out and either eliminated or replaced by other names. But apparently the Barrys of Kilmacow had to sell out to Hickey due to financial problems rather than death from famine or disease. At least that is what the manuscript implies. Here is a quote from the O'Donnell manuscript (p. 121), attributed to James Joyce of Kilmallock, who was a grandson of Johanna Barry (daughter of David Barry and Ellen Quaid). Johanna Barry married Michael Wallace of the parish of Adare. The couple first lived in Rathkeale, but in about 1878, went to live in Kilmallock. Their daughter was the mother of James Joyce of Kilmallock, who wrote to Nicholas O'Donnell (in 1909?): "All the Barry family (our relatives) of former generations had their origin between here and Newcastle. The Barrys of Knockaderry (all dead except Michael) Liskinnett Graiguecurrah and Coolanoran are all one and their burial place is Clouncagh." There is much more. If you think you might be related to this group of Barrys, please contact me. (2) You also mentioned Ballyhahil, Jane. That is only about 2 miles WNW of the townland of Rossmore, where Martin Barry, the brother of my husband's ancestor Edward Barry, lived in 1849 -1850. We know he was there those two years because that was his residence as listed on the record of his marriage to Lydia Graham (a member of the Church of Ireland) and on the record of the christening of their daughter Jane (also in the COI). We suspect that Martin worked as a woodranger (occupation from marriage record) at Rossmore House, the estate of Rev. Grantley Shelton, the local Church of Ireland minister who married them. Despite the fact that Martin Barry lived at Rossmore during the period when the house books, etc. were compiled, his name does not appear in those records. Just last month, however, I found mention of Lydia's father John Graham occupying the gate house on the Shelton estate (again in the house books). Grantley Shelton was paying the tax on this property, and it is very unusual for a tenant to be listed by name if he was not responsible for the tax. Usually in the house books, there is just some comment like herd's house or gate house, with no mention of the person living there if it is part of an estate or larger farm, since the valuators were really only interested in who was responsible for the tax. So in this case, I was very lucky to find John Graham mentioned. That is the only evidence I have for John Graham in the area other than in the marriage record of his daughter Lydia Graham, where John is listed as her father and also appears as a witness to the marriage (Lydia was underage). Martin Barry's family left Ireland for the US in the Fall of 1850, settling first in Oswego, New York, before moving west to Chicago, where Lydia died in 1858 and Martin quickly married his second wife (a Catholic) Hanora Mahoney. The children of the first marriage were baptized as Catholics one month after Lydia's death and one month before Martin's second marriage [records from Old St. Pat's in Chicago, on microfilm from the FHL]. The family then moved south of Chicago to Livingston County, and later to Grundy County, Illinois (with a brief sojourn in Chase County, Kansas in between). Geralyn Wood Barry in Oregon On 11/3/2010 7:33 PM, Jane McDonnell wrote: > I found your post about the house and tenure books fascinating. I > never knew about them! > > I am a Limerick Barry descendent, also. In 1818 0ur family was just > down the road from Kilfinny in Cloncagh parish (Fitzgibbon in > Ballyhahil townland). I believe they were there the remainder of their > stay in Limerick. My ggggrandmother was Hanora Barry, married to J. > Fitzgibbon. She died (1846) just before the family began to emmigrate > to America (1847 - 1850). Her daughter Hanora lived in PA and then > Minnesota. And HER daughter Hanora married a McDonnell. > > Jane McDonnell > Fascinated with this section of Ireland! >