Martin Carey : Short Biography

Martin Carey is my GGG Gradfather .he was born around 1800 in Murroe and Boher. The family lived in the Townland of Moher. Martin married a Rebecca Blackwell around 1823 in Murroe and Boher. ​He farmed some land on the townalnd of Forkeala near the Tipperary border. He raised 10 children ,Thomas 1824, James 1825 ,Mary 1826,Bridget 1828,John 1829, Michael 1832, Patrick 1836, Jeremiah 1837, Margaret 1839 and Martin 1842.    

For the longest time , I couldn’t make the connection to Ireland for the Carey family . The farthest back I could go was when my GG Grandfather James Carey married a Bridget Walsh in 1862 in St Paul’s Church in South Brooklyn. I had also found the family in the 1865 NYS census records for Brooklyn living in Crow Hill which is now Crown Heights. I had reached a dead end.

The break  through came when I then found the death certificate for my GG Grandfather James Carey who died in Feb 1876. His death cert was listed mistakenly under a Jane Carey. He was buried in a plot in Holy Cross cemetery Brooklyn, not in the plot he owned but in another plot that belonged to his brother Tom Carey’s wife Ann Murphy Keary (Carey) . In the plot were  other family members and  I was able to use these new names to make the connection to Ireland.   

With this new info I found the Carey family in the old Irish newspapers and prison records from the 1800’s. These records are on the internet at find my past.com .  Find my past.com has done a wonderful job of gathering the old records. There is a detailed article about  a Martin Carey , who lost over 1000 acres he was renting for back due rent .Martin is our GGG Grandfather, the father of our GG Grandfather James Carey. Martin  rented from Lord Cloncurry what was the whole Townland of Forkeala , which is in the RC Parish of Murroe and Boher near the  County Limerick and Tipperary border.  This is about 10 miles outside of the City of Limerick and about 5 miles from Newport County Tipperary. (Martin appears  in Griffiths valuation the census substitute from 1850 which I will explain later.)  Even though Martin rented over 1000 acres only about 80 acres of the townland was suitable for farming. The rest of the Townland was forested Mountain land.  Sounds like Martin was a big landowner but he wasn’t.  

 After Martin was evicted off the property for back rent , his sons and other family members decided to take revenge and attack the cows of the new owner Daniel Murphy.   The article described the attack as “Whiteboyism”. Whiteboys was a secret society from the 1700’s. The Men would go out at night wearing white smocks and attack the property and cattle of the landlords that they didn‘t like. It was largely disbanded back in the 1700’s after the government cracked down. The terminology “Whiteboyism”  carried over into the 1800’s and referred to any attack at night on Cattle or other livestock. It was also called the Houghing of Cattle which means crippling the cows. Martin Carey was  evicted off the property in Dec 1850 and the attack the Carey’s did on Martin’s old land was the night of July 18th 1851.

The newspaper  article on the attack was from  March 4th 1852 after 7 people that were arrested  went to trial. Those arrested were a Thomas Carey (Martin) , James Carey(Sim),  James Carey (Shuck), Jeremiah Carey, Michael Carey(Mick) , Michael Ryan and Thomas Ryan. They were sentenced to be transported for 10 years which meant going to Australia.

Well they never made it to Australia .  Transporting of prisoners was being phased out around this time. They served  7 years in several Irish prisons run by the English .  There are records posted on line consisting of Irish Prison records. I found the Carey’s and Ryan’s in a Dublin prison when they got out in June 1859. There is details about when and where they were born ,where they wanted to go back to and where they went after being released. Finding this type of info is like hitting the bulls eye in Geneaology.  

Who the attackers were I can pretty much figure out. The paper says that two were the sons of Martin Carey and the rest were cousins . The two sons I believe are Thomas and his brother James Carey(Sim) .  I am not sure how James Carey (Shuck) fits in as I don’t know where they got the name shuck. (In Ireland they would differentiate between people with the same name by using nicknames such as the father’s name or wife’s maiden name.)  Jeremiah and Michael Carey I believe are the sons of Michael Carey, Martin’s brother . Thomas Ryan was a son in law of Martin Carey .  Martin’s daughter Bridget was married to Thomas Ryan. His brother was Michael Ryan.

 I  do believe our GG Grandfather James Carey was James Carey(Sim) one of the attackers and went to prison for 7  years.  Per the newspaper article , James Carey was from the Townland of Moher. This is near the Townland of Forkeala where Martin is from.  It turns out this is where most of the Carey family came from as they appear in the Griffiths valuation from 1850. 

 Griffiths valuation was  the valuation of all privately held property in Ireland so the government could establish a tax rate on the land being rented. This tax was to pay the poor people. Since the original census records were destroyed from the 1850’s it is used as a census substitute. It does not list the husband and wife and children as a normal census would. It just lists the names of the Tenants of the property and the Landlord and the valuation of the land and the housing. 

For Giffiths valuation for 1850 under the  Townland of Moher in Abington (Murroe and Boher) County Limerick ,  the Carey’s listed are James Carey, Michael Carey, James Carey(Martin)(our GG Grandfather son of Martin) ) , Jeremiah Carey, John Carey, James Carey(Mick)( son of Michael) , Martin Carey (Darby)(son of Darby)  and Michael Carey. The major landlord  listed was a Steven W Roche esq . He was the son of William Roche a wealthy merchant from the City of Limerick. The family rented 396 acres off of him . Michael Carey, James Carey (Red) ,John Carey and James Carey and partners also owned land. They had about 80 acres.  Only about 100 acres of the townland of Moher was suitable for Farming. It was similar to the townland of Forkeala as a lot of acreage was Forested mountain land unsuitable for Farming.  

The type of housing the Carey’s were living in based on the valuation was on the lower end of the scale which was typical of houses in Ireland at the time. The house would be a small cottage built out of mud with a thatched roof and a couple of rooms. Even though Steven Roche was listed as Landlord at Moher  I believe that Lord Cloncurry still owned the property .  Stephen Roache was the middleman. Martin Carey is also listed under Griffiths Valuation for 1850 under the Townland of Forkeala. His landlord was Lord Cloncurry.

Lord Cloncurry was a Irish politician and landlord. He was of English extraction but his family had lived in Ireland for many generations.  His real name was Valentine Brown Lawless and he lived on a estate called  Lyons in County Kildare. He was born 19 August 1773 in Merrion Square Dublin.  He was the second Lord Cloncurry. His father was Nicholas Lawless , the first Lord Cloncurry  His father lived in France for a while and then returned to Ireland  and converted from being a Catholic to the Church of Ireland. He did this so he could own property. Under the penal laws Catholics couldn’t own property .  A wool merchant and a banker Nicholas was made a Baronet in 1776 and then became Baron Cloncurry in 1789. He took charge of Lyons House around 1793. He built a magnificent mansion on the Lyons estate in 1798. The Mansion is still there today. At one time Tony Ryan from Ryan Air owned it. Nicholas  died in 1899 in Dublin at another house that the family owned there.  

His  son  Valentine Lawless  was  involved in the 1798 and 1803 rebellion designed to establish a independent republic in Ireland. He  joined the United Irishman  in 1793 .He was in prisoned in June 1798 at London on suspicion of treason ,released and re-arrested and held in the Tower of London until March 1801.  After his father died he inherited all of his father’s property and the Lyons house. The father had a  5,000   acre estate called  Abington in County Limerick (where the Carey’s lived) ,  1,060  acres estate called  Lyons in County Kildare ,  3,900 acre estate called Cloncurry on the Kildare /Meath border  and a home in the city of Dublin.

Most of the  5,000 acre estate at Abington was divided up and rented out to the Irish people. This was done so the Irish people could make a living and sustain themselves. Also it provided income for the landlord so that they could maintain a lifestyle as the landed gentry of Ireland. Lord Cloncurry had a big estate at Lyons where he lived to maintain. It was expensive to operate. He needed cash and lots of it. Some of the acreage at Lyons County Kildare was rented out but most of it was part of the Mansion property and  farmed by the Lord Cloncurry himself. .Around the 1850’s and 60’s many of the Carey’s left the Abington Estate of Lord Cloncurry and emigrated to the US.