100 years of family history research

 When looking through the family archive, I found a transcript of a letter written to Mary Ellen Kelly from her cousin Mary Hanlon. As the address was Ballymitty, Co. Wexford I was intrigued. My great-great-grandfather Michael Kelly was from Ballymitty, Co. Wexford. And while I know quite a lot about his life from when he joined the army at age 18, I know very little about his life in Ireland or his Irish family. Mary Ellen Kelly was his eldest daughter and Michael had died by 1928 when this letter was written. 

“Ballingly

Ballymitty

Co. Wexford

Ireland

5/7/1928

My dear Mary, I hope you are well. Excuse me for not writing before now, but I must tell you how delighted I was to get your letter and to know you are so well as this leaves myself and all the family well thank God. Well, Mary, there are big changes in the bog since yourself and Kate Furlong was there. You did not know that John is dead. I never wrote to tell you he is dead six years may God have mercy on him. He was only 51 when he died. The poor fellow died rather sudden. There is no one in the bog now, only Jim. He is living by himself. I suppose you heard that Kate died since she died four years last April. Do you remember Poor Mother and the teapot? She said she should have the teapot […]. Well Mary about your grandmother. I went to our parish priest about it. Your Grandfather was not married in our parish. Your grandmother was from Mullinderry a long ways from here. And of course the wedding took place in her parish. So I will send you the address of the parish priest there and your priest can write to him. He will tell him all you want to know. But I know your grandmother's name was Mary Mullery, and she was from Mullinderry, in the parish of Clongeen. And your grandfather’s name was Jim Kelly of Ballingly in the parish of Bannow. Well Mary I had a letter from Maggie and Kitty last week and they are very well. She said she would come home in September the next holidays she will get, she will go to see you. She will go and spend a weekend with you. I have one girl at home and three boys and one boy in the army in Dublin. Master Lambert is in Dublin, yet he is married the second time himself and his wife spent two years down in the County Wexford but she would rather live in Dublin.

Well, my dear Mary, I think it is time to finish up. I often think, will we ever see each other again? You should come and spend a holiday here with me. You should try and come before the summer is gone but the summer is not much yet nothing only rain. What is the weather like there? Did you ever hear anything of Kate Furlong? I heard she had no money when she died. She died with Rosey Harle in Liverpool, Rosie wrote to me and she told me Kate had no money. When she came to her, she was only about nine months with her. Poor Kate went out to do some shopping one day and she had to be carried home. So Rosie told me in a letter and she only lived a week God have mercy on her. And poor John got a pain in his head and he lost his memory altogether. She only lived two days remember you never saw Andy that my father had all the talk about he is doing very well he is an inspector now. Well, Mary, this is all for this time don't be so long as I was about writing with love from all remember me to your sisters and brothers, I remain your loving cousin, Mary Hanlon. Goodbye write soon. 

This is the address. Reverend Michael Canon Hickey PP Clongeen, Foulksmills, Co. Wexford Ireland. I hope you will find out all you want to know write soon and tell me how you got on.”

I had been trying to find out more about our Irish ancestry, just like Mary Kelly, and not getting much further. This letter has more information in it than months of research. What I love most about this letter is how strongly Mary Hanlon’s voice comes through. You know she wrote it exactly how she spoke, and that is more valuable to me than a perfectly punctuated and structured missive. I only wish she had added in more details to help a distant descendant figure out who everyone is 100 years later. But why would she have needed to explain? Mary Kelly was her cousin and according the memory of Mary McLoughlin (Mary Kelly’s niece), Mary Hanlon was a regular visitor to Durham. 

So, lets go through who everyone is.

Michael Kelly, my great-great-grandfather joined the army in 1860 when he was 18. On his attestation document, he came from Ballymitty, Co. Wexford. I don’t think he ever returned to Ireland. He spent just over 20 years in the army. He was last stationed in Durham, where he met Mary Agnes Dodds. He was 35 and she was 18 when they married in 1877. Just before his regiment became the Durham Light Infantry, he retired from the army. He was a pub landlord for a few years before retiring with his army pension and enjoying family life. He had 10 children with Mary Agnes, the eldest of whom was Mary Ellen Kelly. One of his sons, Joseph Kelly was my great-grandfather. 

Mary Ellen Kelly was born in 1877 in Durham. She lived the first few years of her life in the barracks with her parents. That’s where they are all living In the 1881 census. Her younger brother had died from an illness that had swept through the barracks. Michael would retire from the army just a few months after this census was taken. Mary Ellen never married. She trained as a tailor or dressmaker, and was remembered as being very talented at it. She lived with her sisters in their family home at 19 Sherburn Road, and became the head of the household after her parents died (Michael in 1905 and Mary Agnes in 1918). Mary McLoughlin was her niece who often stayed with her as a child, and eventually inherited the house and lived there in her retirement. 

In 1988, Mary McLoughlin (1921-2002) was asked for her memories of her family, and this is what she remembered of Mary Hanlon: She came every year from Ireland. A small, quiet woman, a spinster, used to sit in the corner by the fire. Just after the war, Mary went to Ireland with her parents to visit relatives and married couple with children. Mary thinks Mary Hanlon was her mother's cousin.

So there’s the context. Who was Mary Hanlon exactly? And how was she related to the Kellys?

I started the investigation with John who died six years before 1928. I found a death record for John Kelly in 1922 in Ballingly. So, a Kelly. So maybe Mary Hanlon was Mary Kelly? But Mary McLoughlin remembered her as a spinster? So I checked the census for 1911, and found a Mary Hanlon living with her family in Ballingly. Edward Hanlon was her husband and her children, Margaret, Dennis, Patrick and Catherine. Maggie and Kitty? Like in the letter? To cut out a lot of digging around various records, I pieced together Mary Kelly’s family, including her siblings and parents. Maybe Mary McLoughlin remembered her as a spinster because she visited Durham alone?

According to her marriage record, Mary Kelly’s parents were Patrick and Catherine Kelly. I hoped that Patrick Kelly might have been Michael’s brother, but he was 43 when he married Catherine Neville in 1868 according to their marriage record. This would make him too old to be Michael’s brother if Michael was 18 in 1860. And then, Mary Hanlon tells Mary Kelly that her grandparents were Jim Kelly and Mary Mullery, and she phrases it is as if they don’t share those grandparents. Even so, she signs off as “your cousin” and she is. Adding it all up together, I’m assuming that Patrick Kelly was Michael Kelly’s uncle and that would make his children Michael’s first cousins. Patrick’s daughter Mary was born in 1875, and Michael’s daughter Mary was born in 1877. 

I’m intrigued that Mary Hanlon kept in touch with her Durham relatives all those years. And it seems like there were visits back to Ireland by Michael’s children and grandchildren. 

The Jim who was left in “the bog” must be James Kelly, Mary’s brother. John Kelly who died suddenly in 1922 was living with Catherine Furlong in 1911 in Ballingly who is described as his first cousin. This might be the Kate Furlong who died in Liverpool with Rosey Harle. 

I didn’t manage to find any records on Jim Kelly and Mary Mullery, not their marriage record or baptisms or anything like that. Mary Kelly died in 1929 and there’s no surviving reply from Father Hickey in the family archive. 

Mary Hanlon died in 1960 having lived all her life in Ballingly and was the connection back to the bog for the Kelly family.