James Cumiskey : Short Biography

James lived all his life in Otterstown, Co. Meath. He married twice, first to Mary Ann Lynch of Balrath in 1886. She died nine years later in February 1895, aged 46, leaving him £42 in her will. There doesn't seem to have been any children from the marriage.

Six months later, James married Mary Ann Smyth, a young English woman who was working in service in nearby Ballyfallon. 

She was much younger than James and she gave birth to five children. The youngest, also James, was born only 18 months before James died suddenly in 1913 at 76. There was an inquest on him which established that he'd had a stroke.

His family was not blessed. James' and Mary's second child, Mary, was unable to read and was dumb. She died aged 22, eight years after her father. The youngest, James, died in the flu epidemic in 1918. The remaining three children, Catherine, Margaret and John, lived normal adult terms. Mary Cumiskey thus buried two children and her husband by the time she was 43. She lived until 1944 and often had her grandchildren down from Dublin for holidays.