Showing posts with label house. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house. Show all posts

Monday, 27 January 2025

Full-Text images- Jeremiah Malone

The buzz in the genealogy world is all about Full-Text images, where for some record sets on the FamilySearch website you can now search through documents for specific words or phrases. Several people told me that it was possible now to search for Irish Deeds this way, so I thought I might have a 'quick look'. 

And a 'quick look' was all it took.  Jeremiah Malone, my great-grandfather, has a reasonably distinctive name, and a record turned up for a land conveyance to him in Ballynadrideen quite easily, in 1887.  https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSKS-2YN?view=fullText

Jeremiah was able to purchase the land at Ballynadrideen on which he was the tenant farmer, from the vendor Standish Henry Harrison Esquire, of Castle Harrison. The purchase, for £705, was made possible with an advance to Jeremiah from the Irish Land Commission. This happened under the provisions of the purchase of Land (Ireland) Act of 1885.


There is another document for Jeremiah Malone, dated April 1904 in which Maurice Malone (his son) is described as also being a subscriber to the deed. I don’t know enough about the legalities of this, but perhaps this was part of the process of Jeremiah passing his interest in the land over to his son more fully? https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSKS-2S2L-7?view=fullText

At this stage in April 1904 both parents of Maurice Malone were alive, though Margaret Malone née Riordan died a few months later on 11 July 1904. Jeremiah Malone himself died two years later on 22 July 1906, with probate being granted to his son Maurice Malone. Probate applied to his Effects, £143 5s 0d, and did not mention the land. 

 I don’t understand all the complexities of the history, but in the 1870s/1880s in Ireland, there were legal moves made to help tenant farmers take ownership of their land from the large landlords who had had control of them. In 1870 a Land Act was passed that gave tenants some very basic rights including a right to compensation for improvements in case of eviction. In 1871 in Cullane, John Riordan became one of the tenant farmers facing eviction when the landlord hugely increased the rents. Cullane became a test case for the power of the new Land Act.

By the way, I tried a similar Deeds search for John or James Riordan in Ballylanders/ Cullane South- but there was a lawyer called John Riordan, so much more diligent searching will be needed to filter and find what I am sure must be there!

Family Search have made it very easy to download the full document as well as the AI-generated transcription. You can then find the url link and citation text at the end of the download.

Of course I then had to delve more deeply into this rabbit-hole, which wasn't on my Priority List for 2025 in any way! I found something about the history of the great house that was Castle Harrison on Wikipedia. It was demolished after 1956, but Wikipedia had a photo of it.


And I also then looked for an Ordnance Survey map on the National Library of Scotland's Map website. Ballynadrideen, where the Malone farm was, was quite close to Castle Harrison. (It's interesting looking at earlier maps before the railway ate into the Great House's land.

I'm unlikely to ever find my way back to Ireland now, but you never know, one of my nieces or nephews might, or perhaps a cousin's child. It would be good if someone can go back and stand on the land.

 

Saturday, 30 March 2019

James Lalor- origins?

I have written before on this blog about my maternal great-grandfather, James Lalor. And I also blogged a little info about him that I discovered in the parliamentary journal New Zealand Free Lance in 1901.

More recently I found an obituary for him that gave more facts about his life that I hadn't known before. He had come to Melbourne at quite a young age, and was a butcher there, soon managing Mr Pettie's large butchery shop. He then sailed in the ship Lightning for New Zealand. He followed the early rushes at Addison's Flat but met with little success.

He was appointed a messenger at Parliament, and filled that position for fourteen years, receiving an address and letter from Sir Joseph Ward when he retired. He was a keen follower of the trotting world, and owned a couple of horses.

His obituary states that he came from Kilkenny, and that was 79 years old at his death in 1916. I know only a few other things about his origins. His father was John Lalor, and his mother was "Mary" but I don't know her maiden name. From the Free Lance article I learned that he was a distant cousin of Peter Lalor of Eureka Stockade fame, and a 'full cousin' of the famous orator Richard Lalor Shiel. It seems clear from various newspaper entries that James Lalor was a clever speaker himself, both literate and educated.
The old Lalor homestead at South Beach, Greymouth, on the West Coast.

 Photo taken 1992
Emboldened by recent success in working out where exactly my Riordan ancestors came from in Co Limerick, I feel I should now put some effort into working out where exactly James Lalor came from. However, for Patrick Riordan, I knew the surnames of both his parents, and I had a townland, Curraheen. I also knew whereabouts in Co Limerick some of his cousins hailed from.
I expect that a search for James Lalor's origins will be more difficult, and since he was possibly born around 1837, his birth is likely not included in parish records. His full cousin Richard Lalor Shiel seemed to be more based in Waterford, which would indicate our James' family was perhaps based more in the south of the county of Kilkenny. But then I think that Peter Lalor, his 'distant' cousin was from Abbyleix, just over the northern border of Co Kilkenny in Co Laois. I will spend some time searching, but this might be a 'brick wall'. Will blog again if one day I learn more.