Monday 10 January 2011

The graveyard at Clonbur - Part 2

Next to the pair of gravestones which I described in the last post, was this stone. It was carved from granite and was covered in lichen.
In loving memory of MARY FITZHENRY
who died April 9th 1939
and her children BRIDGET
died March 14th 1910
MARGARET died May 28th 1915
ANNIE died June 1st 1915
Her husband JOHN
died May 8th 1948
Aged 82 years

RIP
Erected by her children
Mary, Patrick and Thomas

Surprisingly, this wasn't a family that I could directly attach to the Clonbur/Cornamona Fitzhenrys from the neighbouring gravestones, but it does relate to a family which we have seen before on the Blog.

To recap, Nancy Nolan wrote to us regarding her Fitzhenry forebears who also lived in Cornamona, County Galway. Patrick Fitzhenry married Mary Kyne (or Coyne) sometime before 1856 and had at least four sons (at the time we last wrote about them, I had only found three). Nancy is descended from Catherine, the daughter of the oldest son Myles (baptised 1856), who died as a young man.

The next son John (baptised 1865) married Mary Morrin or Marrin, and this is the couple whose family is on the gravestone. Mary was born around 1873 and the couple married in 1894. They had at least eight children:

  • Patrick (born 1895) emigrated to New Jersey in 1923 to stay with his uncle Patrick, and then moved to Cuyahoga, Ohio. He married Sarah Coyne in 1924. They had at least one son, Joseph Fitzhenry (1924-1947) who appears to have been killed in an industrial explosion. Patrick was one of John and Mary's children who paid for the gravestone.
  • Bridget 1896 - 14 March 1910
  • Mary 1899 to after 1941, the year she gained her US naturalisation. She also lived in Ohio and was also one of the children who paid for the gravestone.
  • Michael born 1901 and lived at least until after 1911 as he is listed in the family group for the 1911 census.
  • Kathleen born 1904 and again listed in the 1911 census.
  • Thomas born 1906 and listed in the 1911 census. Potentially may also have emigrated to the USA as he is the third of the children who paid for this memorial, and the other two were living in Ohio at the time.
  • Margaret 1908 - 28th May 1915.
  • Annie November 1910 - 1st June 1915.
The deaths of the last two children are within a week of each other and suggests an infective cause.

Patrick Fitzhenry and Mary Kyne had at least two other sons.
Patrick (baptised 1869) and emigrated to the US in about 1903 (according to the 1920 US census). This is the uncle Patrick that Patrick, the son of John Fitzhenry and Mary Marrin came to stay with initially in New Jersey.

William baptised September 1873 in Clonbur. I know nothing more about him.

Mary Kyne / Coyne lived until 1914 and appeared in both the 1901 and 1911 censuses of Ireland, as a widow living with her son John and his family.
Her husband Patrick appeared in neither census, and I have found a likely death registration for him in the first quarter of 1893 in the Registration District of Oughterard which covered this area of County Galway. It gives his age as 74 and his birth year as 1819.

Do any of these names ring any bells with anyone? Can anyone out there provide the link to one of the other Fitzhenry families in this area of Galway?

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