Ryan Family, Kilbeacon Parish

RootsIreland lists baptisms for the following children of Daniel Ryan and Mary Fitzgerald:

Church BaptismRyanBridget1839Co. Kilkenny

Church BaptismRyanBridget Jean1839Co. Kilkenny

Church BaptismRyanJohn1844Co. Kilkenny

Church BaptismRyanMary1847Co. Kilkenny

Church BaptismRyanThomas1850Co. Kilkenny

Church BaptismRyanPatrick1854Co. Kilkenny

Church BaptismRyanMary1857Co. Kilkenny

These baptisms are listed on rootsireland for children of Wm. Holden and Judith Ryan.

                        Holden            Thomas           1838    Co. Kilkenny   

                        Holden            Mary   1840    Co. Kilkenny               

                        Holden            Catherine        1843    Co. Kilkenny   

                        Holden            David   1845    Co. Kilkenny

Hello William

To compliment the records that Patricia has generously provided concerning the Ryan family, I uncovered a baptism record for a son of John Ryan and Margaret Oates that you hadn’t mentioned.

A transcription from the Find My Past (FMP) website shows that John Ryan and Margaret Oates had a son named Patrick, who was baptized in the Carrick-on-Suir Catholic Parish, County Tipperary, on 13 December 1807. First names in the transcription are in the Latin form. For example, Patrick is “Patritius.”

You can access the transcription after establishing a free account with FMP: https://www.findmypast.com/transcript?id=IRE%2FPRS%2FBAP%2F4497714

A copy of the original Carrick on Suir baptism record for Patrick can be found at the National Library of Ireland link at: https://registers.nli.ie//registers/vtls000632153#page/79/mode/1up

There are two facing pages of the baptism register. Patrick’s baptism is the first entry at the top of the right-hand page. Baptisms in this register are in a handwriting called Copperplate, or English Roundhand.

You can enlarge the register by means of round icons in the upper center/right of the screen. The icons are white with green backgrounds. You can also access the full-screen function by clicking on the last icon on the right with the two arrows pointing northeast and southwest.

Patrick’s godparents are Michael Mara and Bridget Norriss. Bridget’s last name in the register is written in a convention where a double ss looks like fs, hence Norrifs. It’s not actually the lowercase letter f, but a version of the lowercase letter s, which you’ll see in a lot of 18th century and early 19th century documents and books. See the livescience.com link for more information:
https://www.livescience.com/65560-long-s-old-texts.html

A Google Map shows that Buckstown, County Kilkenny, is 12.8 miles east of Carrick on Suir in County Tipperary, by the shortest modern-day route: https://rebrand.ly/q89xdx1

Here is a Google Street View of Buckstown: https://rebrand.ly/sinkaey

GRIFFITHS VALUATION

I found Valentine Ryan in an Irish property tax record known as Griffiths Valuation living in the townland of Inchacarron, Civil Parish of Killahy, County Kilkenny. The reason I think this is your Valentine Ryan is that Inchacarron, according to a Google Map, is 1.2 miles northwest of Buckstown heading north on the R448 road through Mullinavat: https://rebrand.ly/cnh6b3y

Griffiths Valuation was enumerated in the 32 counties of Ireland between 1847 and 1864. The valuation for Buckstown and surrounding townlands was completed by the year 1850.

Unlike a census, Griffiths Valuation did not enumerate individual members of a family, such as husband, wife, and children in a household residence. Those named in the valuation were individuals who paid to lease property, such as land, houses, and outbuildings. Each person who paid to lease the property was called an “Occupier.” The other person listed in Griffiths Valuation was the person who owned the property, or who worked as the middleman collecting the rent on Gale Day for the owner. This middleman was called the “Immediate Lessor.”

You can search for Griffiths Valuation transcriptions and original copies for free at the Ask About Ireland website link at: http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml

Griffiths Valuation for Inchacarran can be accessed at: https://rebrand.ly/rwx8z1t

Valentine Ryan is the 6th Occupier recorded in the townland of Inchacarran, and shows that he leased a house, but no land, from an Immediate Lessor named Walter Costello. The house was valued at 10 Shillings. Valentine would not have been required to pay a tax on his house as only those properties valued under 5 Pounds were required to pay the tax.

The following link will take you to an Ordnance Survey Map of Inchacarran and Mullinavat from the 1830s-1840s time period. The map, in color, is from the GeoHive website: https://rebrand.ly/1ti8n80

When going over the Ordnance Survey Map for Inchacarran, I noticed an R.C. Chapel just east of Mullinavate. This chapel is actually in the townland of Garrandarragh. You can see the R.C. Chapel and graveyard just northeast of Mullinavat on the Ordnance Survey Map at the following link: https://rebrand.ly/jsu4vm8

The present-day R.C. Chapel is called St. Beacon’s. According to the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage/Buildings of Ireland website, St. Beacon’s was constructed in 1890 “on a cruciform plan incorporating fabric of earlier chapel, 1805…”

See the Buildings of Ireland description of St. Beacons and a slide presentation of the church and graveyard at: https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/12326012/sa…

The former chapel constructed in 1805 may have been the chapel where the children of Valentine and Bridget Ryan were baptized when the family lived in Buckstown or Inchacarran. A Google Map shows that St. Beacon’s Church is eight-tenths of a mile north of Buckstown, going through Mullinavat along the R448 Road: https://rebrand.ly/fbf47c

St. Beacon’s is also eight-tenths of a mile east of Inchacarran: https://rebrand.ly/qf27os9

Here is a Google Street View of St. Beacon’s Church and graveyard: https://rebrand.ly/79ttx14

Information you submitted to the Find A Grave website shows that Valentine Ryan died on 22 February 1881 and is buried in the Orion Cemetery Sheridan, Grant County, Arkansas, USA. You also mention that Valentine was born in Piltown, Kilkenny. Pilltown was in the Civil Parish of Fiddown, according to the IreAtlas Townland Database: https://rebrand.ly/a14sws4

I found an Occupier named John Ryan in Grififths Valuation in Pilltown, Banagher, Civil Parish of Fiddown. The valuation for Pilltown, Banagher was also completed by the year 1850. This John Ryan may be Valentine’s father. See Griffiths Valuation for Pilltown at: https://rebrand.ly/30vcl49

John Ryan is the 7th Occupier recorded in Pilltown, just below Peter Ryan, who may be a relation.

John Ryan leased a house, offices, and garden from an Immediate Lessor named the Earl of Bessborough. The land was 15 Perches in size and valued at valued at 4 Shillings. The house and offices were valued at 4 Pounds and 16 Shillings. The total valuation for John’s lease was 5 Pounds. He would have paid a percentage of the value of his lease of 5 Pounds toward the property tax. As mentioned earlier, those who held property valued under 5 Pounds were not required to pay the tax.

The area of land in Griffiths Valuation is subdivided between Acres, Roods, and Perches, abbreviated as A. R. P. Go to the lochista.com website link for an explanation about Acres, Roods, and Perches: https://rebrand.ly/j66tfuk

An “Office” in Griffiths Valuation could refer to a barn, stable, blacksmith shop, piggery, corn shed, grain shed, etc.

Griffiths Valuation shows that Peter Ryan did not lease any land at all. He leased an office, forge, and yard valued at 1 Pound and 10 Shillings.

I found however, that Peter did lease other property in Pilltown, which included a house, offices, yard and garden. He leased this property from the Earl of Bessborough. The land was 16 Perches in size and valued at 2 Shillings. The house and offices were valued at 2 Pounds and 13 Shillings. His total valuation was 2 Pounds and 15 Shillings.

The following link will take you to an Ordnance Survey Map for Pilltown, Banagher: https://rebrand.ly/7sz6od1

You can enlarge the map for better viewing. In the lower center-right portion of the map you’ll see the location of the Pilltown R.C. Chapel.

Griffiths Valuation doesn’t show anyone with the surname Oates leasing property in Pilltown. There are leaseholders named Oates in other townlands in the Civil Parish of Fiddown however, who are recorded in Griffiths Valuation. I can send you these Oates leaseholders recorded in Griffiths Valuation in a follow-up reply at your request.

THE TITHE APPLOTMENT BOOKS

Predating Griffiths Valuation are the Tithe Applotment Books. Under the tithe records, compiled between 1823 and 1837, farmers in the 32 counties of Ireland were required to pay a portion of their income toward the upkeep of the established Church of Ireland. Most farmers in Ireland were Roman Catholic, and were not happy about paying tithes to a religious denomination that had persecuted them in the past.

I looked for John Ryan in Pilltown in the Tithe Applotment Books and found him.

The Tithe Applotment Books for the Civil parish of Fiddown are in cursive handwriting. The handwriting of the man who compiled the tithe data for Banagher and Pilltown can be confusing to read, as his upper-case B, looks like an upper-case D. His upper-case letter L, can be confused for the letter S.

The names of the townlands you’ll see in the Tithe record look like “Danagher, Sogriah, and Pilltown. Sogriah, I think, is Logriah.

Danagher is actually Banagher. I couldn’t find a town named Logriah, or a place called Sogriah for that matter, in County Kilkenny. The tithe record is not clear which town John Ryan had leased his property in.

The tithe record, from the year 1828, is from the National Archives of Ireland, and can be found at:
http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/reels/tab//004587443/00…

The first person you’ll actually see recorded in Banagher, Logriah, and Pilltown, is Philip Oats, at number 97. A faded notation to the left of his name reads, “widow Bridget,” who may have been his wife. Philip’s first name is also crossed through, though I’m not sure if this means he has been eliminated from the tithe record. Philip could be related to Valentine’s mother, Margaret Oates Ryan.

At number 101 you’ll see the entry for Simon Tobin, who may have been related to Valentine’s wife, Bridget Tobin.

The tithe record for John Ryan is at number 114. So as not to bog down the entry for John Ryan with all the numbers you see to the right of his name, the last column to the right shows the amount of tithes he was required to pay was 11¾ Pence.

The tithe record also shows that a Patrick Ryan was living in Banagher, Logriah, or Pilltown. He is at number 116. To the left of his name is the name Alice Casey. She may have been his wife. His tithe amount looks like 11 Pence.

Also enumerated on a different tithe page for Banagher, Logriah, and Pilltown is a Peter Ryan at number 147:
http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/reels/tab//004587443/00…

His tithe amount looks like 1 Shilling and 8 Pence.

The name of the owner of Banagher, Logriah and Pilltown was the Earl of Bessbrook.

With Kind Regards,

Dave Boylan

SOURCES

Reply from IrelandXO Volunteer Patricia, 26 February 2023
Find My Past (FMP)
National Library of Ireland: Catholic Parish Registers
livescience.com
Google Maps
Google Street Views
Ask About Ireland: Griffiths Valuation
IreAtlas Townland Database
lochista.com
GeoHive: Ordnance Survey Maps
National Inventory of Architectural Heritage/Buildings of Ireland
Find A Grave
National Archives of Ireland: Tithe Applotment Books

Dave, I can't think you enough for the wealth of helpful information. Patrick, son of John Ryan and Margaret Oates, is new to me. I'm very happy to have information about him. Yes, the Tithe Applotment listing for John Ryan and other records suggest to me that he and wife Margaret were retainers of the Bessborough estate, renting land from it. I find other clues that John may have been doing some kind of skilled work like stonecutting or building for the Ponsonby family as they built villages like Harristown, which is mentioned as the place of baptism for some of John and Margaret's children. I also find a record of Peggy Ryan being paid in 1827 by the Besssborough estate for weaving flax into linen. A project I'd like one day to pursue is to go to National Library of Ireland and go through the papers of the Bessborough estate to see if they may yield more information about my family.

You're right that that's my Valentine Ryan leasing a house from (and sharing a house with) Walter Costello in Inchacarron/Inchacarran on Griffith's Valuation. I shared a bit of information some time ago about Watt Costello on my blog, noting that I suspect he was connected to Valentine Ryan's wife Bridget Tobin by mutual Walsh marriages in her Tobin family. That posting is here: https://begatsandbequeathalsasouthernusfamilydocumented.com/2021/04/08/…

Watt Costello is also mentioned in the 1865 will of Thomas Ryan of Buckstown, who is, I suspect, related to my Ryan family there. Thomas Ryan married Judith Fanning, whose first husband was John Costello. I believe Thomas Ryan was son of a William Ryan born in 1744 who died in March 1828 at Glendonnel in Co. Kilkenny. 

I'm grateful to you, indeed, and will be combing through the wealth of material you provided here for me for days to come.

Patricia, thank you so much for the information you've shared. I'm sorry I had not seen your reply until now. I'm going to start going through the links you generously provided, and am very grateful for them.

Dave, a p.s. as I go through the material you've kindly provided (I did, by the way, find the baptismal record for Patrick, son of John Ryan and Margaret Oates, with the help you generously gave me, and have now downloaded it):

Here's the information I have on Logriach: https://begatsandbequeathalsasouthernusfamilydocumented.com/2018/04/20/…

Hello William,

Many thanks for your reply and very interesting narrative about your Ryan/Tobin and Ryan/Oates ancestors. It makes for very interesting reading, and you can tell you’ve put a lot of research as well travel into the information you have acquired over the years.

It’s amazing to think that Valentine, his wife, and children had lived through some very momentous times in Irish and American history.

In Ireland, it would have been the Great Famine of 1845 to 1851.

A year after that Valentine and his family left Ireland, undergoing a hazardous voyage to the United States in 1852, landing in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Another event the Ryan family would have experienced was the bloody American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at war’s end in 1865...all of this in the span of one lifetime.

Again, thank you for your reply and additional information about your ancestors.

All the Best,

Dave

Thank you for your reply, Dave. I'm indeed so grateful to you for the wealth of information you've provided. In pointing me to the baptismal record of John Ryan and Margaret Oates' son Patrick in Carrick-on-Suir, you've given me a whole new place to look for information. I find a baptismal record for a John Ryan, son of John Ryan and Margaret Powers, in 1785 in the Carrick-on-Suir parish register, and am wondering if he might possibly be my John Ryan who was liiving in what's now Piltown in County Kilkenny by the early 1800s. Worth pursuing, if not easy to prove….

Yes, I'm sure the horrific Famine loomed large in the history of my Ryan family, which left Ireland for America, just as you say, right after the Famine. The Kilbeacon and Kilmacow parish registers show Valentine Ryan and Bridget Tobin having seven children. Since only three — Margaret, Patrick, and Catherine — came to America with their parents, I assume the other children, Valentine, Ellen, William, and John, died as babies or young children. Histories I've read of the Famine say that many people died during those years now only from hunger but from illnesses spread around as people were dislocated by the Famine and went from place to place. 

I try to imagine Bridget's life, losing four children as babies or young children, then going with her three living children to join Valentine in the strange new land — and very different climate — of southeast Mississippi and central Arkansas. The culture shock must have been intense.

The Civil War did, of course, affect my Ryan family in Arkansas. My maternal grandmother was the daughter of Catherine mentioned above, who married George Richard Batchelor. Growing up, I heard many stories from my grandmother and her three brothers still living by then, Pat, Monroe, and Ed, about their uncle Patrick Ryan, the Patrick mentioned above, and how lost an eye in the Civil War.

Pat was a Union soldier who enlisted as a young man during the Civil War in the Union Army in Little Rock. I've told the story of his military service and his life in a nine-part series of postings on my blog, which starts with this linked posting: https://begatsandbequeathalsasouthernusfamilydocumented.com/2018/03/14/…

Hello William,

Many thanks for your latest reply, and information that Patrick Ryan, who, lived in Arkansas, had joined the Union Army.

I can very well see where Patrick’s father and mother had instilled into their children the horrors of slavery, having gone through the Great Famine, in Irish, “an Gorta Mór.” The English that ruled Ireland from London, in many aspects, had a laissez-faire attitude about the deaths and the diseases that afflicted whole 32 counties of Ireland.

By 1845, the first year of the famine, the Irish in effect, had been slaves of the English for hundreds of years.

I believe Ken Burns, in his Civil War documentary, had mentioned that men from every southern state had joined the Union, though it was still a bit of a surprise when you wrote that Patrick, living in Arkansas, joined the Union Army.

Based on your information in “Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier),” (1), (2), and (3), I looked for Patrick Ryan in the Soldiers and Sailors Database: https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/index.htm

I found Patrick in the database at:
https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-soldiers-detail.htm?soldierId=7F6A3…

What I like about the Soldiers and Sailors Database is that it provides the date a regiment was organized, as well as its operations, skirmishes and engagements for the unit a soldier belonged to. You can see this for the 3rd Regiment, Arkansas Cavalry at:
https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitC…

In the 1969 John Wayne movie, True Grit, you learn that one-eyed Marshall Reuben (Rooster) Cogburn, (a fictional character played by John Wayne), has a cat he’s named General Sterling Price, (a fictional character played by Orangey). The cat is a giveaway that Rooster, in his younger days, had fought for the South and was an admirer of Major General Sterling Price during the Civil War.

In the Charles Portis novel, True Grit, Rooster lost his eye when he was fighting under the command of Confederate guerrilla leader, William Quantrill.

Sterling Price was a real Confederate Major General who fought several engagements in Arkansas, including engagements against Patrick Ryan’s 3rd Regiment of the Arkansas Calvary. Two of these engagements include Prairie D'Ane, Arkansas, April 9-12, 1864, and Jenkins Ferry on the Saline River, April 30, 1864.

Price was in command at Prairie D'Ane, but not at Jenkins Ferry. In any event, Patrick Ryan’s 3rd Regiment of Union Calvary, won both engagements.

In the 1860 census, Patrick was living with his father Valentine, his mother Bridget, and sister, Catherine in Barraque, Jefferson, Arkansas. He was 13 years old. This means he would have been 17 or 18 years old when he joined the Union Army in 1864. You can only imagine the sights and sounds he was exposed to in the year or so that he was in the Civil War.

You have a very interesting family history William. You can say it is one of “innocence and experience,” to quote William Blake. It runs the gamut from a young, innocent girl in England being murdered with fireplace tongs in 1599, to experiencing the horrors of death and disease in the Great Irish famine in the 1840s, and the bloodbath of the American Civil War in the 1860s.

Thank you for sending the history of your family. It is a very compelling narrative, backed up by years of research.

With Best Wishes,

Dave

Dave, thank you so much for the response and valuable information. Yes, I suspect the experience of living through the Famine marked Val and Biddy and their children forever. My great-grandmother Catherine was too young to have strong memories of the Famine, but did tell her children stories that passed down in all branches of my family about the voyage over from Ireland to America, which was harrowing. She was a little girl of four years old at the time. Val had gone to America two years before Biddy and the children did, I suspect to earn money for their passage over and money to buy land after Biddy and the three children joined him.

Bridget took the children to Liverpool and from there sailed to New Orleans to join Valentine. Catherine told her children that the ship was small and crowded, with sickness aboard, and a baby died as the ship made its way to New Orleans. The mother naturally did not want her baby buried at sea, so she hid the body in a trunk beneath quilts. Sharks began to hit the boat, evidently smelling the baby's body, and the captain ordered a search and found baby's body, which was then tied to a plank and thrown overboard, something that made a deep impression on little Catherine.

One of the values my Ryan ancestors had, very strongly, perhaps due to living through the Famine or to their Irish culture, was that we always have an obligation to give to those in need, even when we have little, and to practice hospitality towards others. Patrick and his wife had no children of their own, but raised several orphaned boys, and Pat was known for his kindness to any beggar who came to his door. He refused ever to turn a beggar away, so that when he died, people mistakenly thought he was a wealthy man and dug all around his house hoping to find money buried there. My grandmother could remember this because her mother Catherine took my grandmother and several of her brothers, all very young, to spend time with Pat's widow Delilah. They stayed there some days or weeks to help Delilah cope with losing Pat and also to help fend off intruders. I am in touch with the descendants of one of the orpans Pat and Delilah raised, and that family has the same stories aobut this period handed down to them.

On another subject, may I ask a question — I hope not imposing on the generosity with which you have already shared information. It's a question I'm thinking about after you kindly found for me John Ryan and Margaret Oates's son Patrick, about whom I had known nothing. As the records you found for John tell me, he was renting land from the Bessborough estate at Piltown up to the Tithe Applotment period and is perhaps also a John Ryan still living in that same location when Griffith's Valuation was made.

What puzzles me is that even though he seems consistently to have lived in that place, the baptismal records of his children suggest to me he and wife Margaret were moving around in the period in which their children were born — or perhaps I am misinterpreting those records. When John and Margaret's first son Valentine, who died young, was baptized in 1805, they were at Logriach, which is Piltown, the Bessborough estate. When Judith was baptized in 1806, her parents were again at Piltown, per her baptismal record. When Patrick was baptized in 1807, the baptism was at Carrick-on-Suir — and does that mean John and Margaret were living there at that time?

When the next Valentine was baptized in 1811, my ancestor, the parents were at Milltown in Co. Kilkenny, according to his baptismal record. When Mary was baptized in 1814, the parents were at Harristown in Co. Kilkenny. The final baptism record of John and Margaret's children, for Daniel in 1815, has them back at Piltown. Is it possible that the family was moving around in these years while keeping a primary residence on the Bessborough estate, or am I misreading the baptismal records in Templeorum parish (and now the Carrick-on-Suir parish record to which you pointed me for Patrick)? I don't mean to impose on you by asking about this, but since you've so kindly shared such valuable information, I thought I'd ask for your perspective on this matter. I'm grateful for any information!

Hello William,

I think you’re correct in your interpretation the six Ryan baptism records.

It is curious that in the 10 years between the birth of Valentine in Pilltown in 1805, and the birth of Daniel in Pilltown in 1815, the family had moved for the baptisms of three children…Patrick in Carrick-on-Suir in 1807; Valentine in Milltown in 1811; and Mary in Harristown in 1814.

I believe I cannot come up with a better explanation for these moves than the one you wrote about in your blog, “John Ryan (Bef. 1785) and Wife Margaret Oates of Piltown, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland: New Information,” after your extensive research.

You wrote:

"I’ve concluded it’s likely that John Ryan was employed by the Ponsonbys to do some kind of skilled work, and this explains why the Ryans were moving from Ponsonby village to Ponsonby village in this period in which these villages were being built up.

There are a number of indicators — again, see my previous posting — that even as John and Margaret Oates Ryan moved their family about around Piltown in the early 1800s, they retained a pied à terre in the Piltown area."

I think this is backed up by the amount of land that John Ryan leased as recorded in the Tithe Applotment Books and Griffiths Valuation…in each case, under an acre of land.

For instance, the Tithe Applotment Books shows that John Ryan had leased 1 Rood and 5 Perches of land. But, 1 perch of this land was deducted because it was either waste, or pertained to the area of a road.

This was not a lot of land for growing a substantial amount of crops, and so, indications are that John Ryan may not have made a living solely farming, though he likely had done some farming on the Bessborough estate to help feed the family.

In 1850, Griffiths Valuation shows that John Ryan had leased 15 Perches of land, again, not a great deal of acreage to grow and make a living selling crops.

This is not to say the family of John and Margaret didn’t fall on hard times during, as well as after the Great Famine, as there may not have been a large demand for building construction during this period, or immediately after the famine.

Falling on hard times is evidenced, I think, by John and Margaret’s son Valentine, and Valentine’s wife Bridget and remaining children, leaving Ireland for a better life in the U.S. in 1852 and 1854, after the famine.

Following your latest reply I went to the GeoHive website where I accessed an Ordnance Survey Map of the Bessborough House, the Bessborough Demesne, and Pilltown. The map is in color and according to GeoHive was produced between 1829 and 1841, which is the time period the Ryan family had lived in the area.

This portion of the map shows Bessborough House: https://rebrand.ly/0oy97ew

This is an overview of the Bessborough Demesne: https://rebrand.ly/wnsc6rm

This next view of the map is for Pilltown: https://rebrand.ly/esjz0o2

The map shows the locations of the Pilltown School House, the Dispensary, the Infant School, the Market House, Corn Mill, and Hotel Museum and Post Office.

The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage/Buildings of Ireland website gives an architectural history of Bessborough House, including the latest iteration of the house as the Kildalton College.

You can read about the description and appraisal of Kildalton College, as well as view a slide presentation of the college at the Buildings of Ireland link: https://rebrand.ly/llw6cjn

Many thanks for writing, William. It is very much appreciated.

Dave

Dave, thank you again! This is grand information, very helpful for me. I suspect that there may be more information and answers to my questions in the papers of Bessborough House held by the National Library of Ireland. My information that Margaret Ryan was paid in 1827 (along with other women) by Bessborough House to spin flax comes from something Jim Ryan posted at his Ancestor Network site, which extracts information from the Bessborough papers. This leads me to think the Bessborough papers may have other information about John Ryan, Margaret Oates, and their family.

I tried in the past two or three years to find a researcher who would be willing to go to NLI and read through those papers to extract any information they might have about my Ryan family, but failed to get even a reply to my queries to various research services — perhaps because the pandemic had understandably shut down a lot of research at NLI. I do suspect there may well be other pieces of information in that cache of estate papers similar to the list of women paid by the Bessborough estate in 1827 for spinning flax. 

I had the privilege of seeing Kildalton College (from the outside) on my last visit to Ireland, when my gracious hosts in Piltown, who lived very near it, took me there to look around. Quite a grand and imposing place, isn't it? I'm typing this reply on the eve of St. Patrick's day, and wish you and yours a very good St. Patrick's.

Hello William,

I hope you had a grand St. Patrick’s Day. I celebrated with a couple of jars of Guinness at the local, came home and fed the cat, whose name also happens to be Guinness.

After receiving your latest reply I found a genealogist in Dublin named Helen Kelly who has many years experience in research at both the National Library of Ireland and the National Archives of Ireland. Have you contacted her in the past? If not, you can read more about her and her experience at her website here: https://www.helenkelly.com/about-helen-kelly/

I believe you’d have to fill in a form and send it to her with the information you are looking for in the Bessborough estate papers. Maybe she can steer you in the right direction, or help you find what you are looking for, though she doesn’t publish her prices on her site because every genealogy project is different.

Please let me know if you learn anything new.

With Very Best Wishes,

Dave

Thanks so much for the information about Helen Kelly, Dave. I haven't been in touch with her and will contact her. You're very kind to send that information.

Guiness is perfect for St. Pat's. I, too, had a glass of it with a Creole boiled dinner I made for us as a celebratory boiled dinner, a dish I learned to make from an elderly woman of Irish descent in New Orleans, who was quite an accomplished cook with a repertoire of Creole dishes. It seemed fitting to celebrate St. Pat's with that meal, given how my Ryan ancestors from Co. Kilkenny entered the U.S. via the port of New Orleans before heading to the Irish colony in southeast Mississippi in which they initially settled, before buying farmland in Arkansas. I'm not sure they spent much time in New Orleans, but that would have been their first impression of America when they arrived, Valentine in 1852 and Bridget with their children in 1854. I think the city must have been very exotic for them to encounter, a vibrant mix of cultures, with lots of French, Spanish, and African influence and ties to the Caribbean, and with so many goods coming into the country through that part, including coffee, wine, sugar, European furniture, and coming downriver from farms and plantations in the interior of the country. 

I remain very grateful to you for your kind help.

Hello William,

In reading your latest reply about your Creole cooking, I was getting more and more hungry, and had to stop reading to make lunch. The closest thing I could come to Creole cooking was making some tomato basil soup, if you can even call that related to Creole cooking.

On a non-culinary note, a couple of weeks ago, after going through all the very interesting information in your blogs, I had started looking for Valentine Ryan in U.S. government land patent records for Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. While I didn’t find Valentine, I am wondering if there were other related Ryans and collateral lines who may have applied for land patents from the government in the 1800s in Louisiana, Mississippi or Arkansas?

One website I’ve been using for many, many years, is the U.S. Dept of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management/General Land Office Records. They have a searchable website where you can look for land patents for most states in the U.S.

The search engine for the site can be found at: https://glorecords.blm.gov/search/default.aspx

The home page for the website is: https://glorecords.blm.gov/

Here is an example of a land patent for Abraham Lincoln in Sangamon County Illinois, dated 1 November 1839: https://rebrand.ly/396i88i

You’ll probably have to enlarge the document, but once you do you’ll see the signature of President Martin Van Buren, but I’ve read that presidents usually had staff members sign the land patents for them.

I hope you can find some land patents for your ancestors, as they would look good matted and framed.

Many thanks again for writing.

Dave

Dave, thank you for your reply and your question about federal (US) records for Valentine Ryan. Our St. Pat's Creole boiled dinner was good, if I do say so as the cook. I'd gladly have shared it with you if you'd been at hand!

You ask a good question about federal land records for Valentine Ryan. In 1859, he bought 172.96 acres from the U.S. land office in Little Rock.  The land was lot 1 and 2 in the N 1/2 of NW 1/4 sect. 6, twp. 3S, R11W, Jefferson County. Valentine applied for the land and received a patent for it on 19 September, and on the same day, $21.53 for the land.  The application says he was of Drew County in south Arkansas at the time. The oddity is this: all the documents in the file for this federal land sale give his name as Valentine Verene. He signed by mark. He received a certificate for the land on 20 September 1859. The land-entry case file has a declaration made in Pulaski County, Arkansas, on 23 January 1871 saying that Valentine had lived on the land since September 1871 [sic], had 30 acres in cultivation and a dwelling house on it, and that the duplicate certificate had been destroyed (file #11765).

On 4 Apr. 1860, Valentine Verene applied for another tract from the federal government at the Little Rock land office. The application says that Valentine was applying to buy the W 1/2 of the NE 1/4 and lot 5 of the NW of sect. 6, twp. 3S, R11W in Jefferson County.--119.66 acres--for use as a farm adjoining that already owned by him. The application also says that VR's farm had 5 acres under cultivation. The same day Valentine paid $14.96 for the land (file 13024). The application lists Valentine as of Jefferson County, and is again made to Valentine Verene and signed by mark. The certificate was issued 1 October 1860, noting that "Valentine Verene" was living in Jefferson County at the time. I've attached a screenshot of the page indexing these two land entries at the BLM GLO site.

There was never a Valentine Verene in Jefferson County records, so it's a mystery to me why the records are all made out to a man with that name. The land coordinates match the coordinates of land Valentine's son Patrick, who provided care for Valentine in Val's final years and who inherited the land, owned. The land coordinates appear in Patrick's estate records, showing that the land Patrick held was divided between his widow Delilah Rinehart Ryan and Patrick's sister Catherine Ryan Batchelor, my great-grandmother. 

I think it's possible that whoever first recorded the application for the land understood Valentine Ryan, when he gave his name, to be saying that he was Valentine Verene — or V. Ryan. On the 1920 federal census, when asked what the first language of their mother was, my grandmother and almost all of her siblings told the census taker that their mother spoke Irish as her first language. I think Valentine and Bridget and their three children came to America speaking Irish as their first language, though they perhaps knew English, and that may have complicated the process of recording what they told officials at places like the federal land office. In 1860, when the federal census taker enumerated Valentine and Bridget Ryan's household, he wrote the name of their son Patrick as Patin, which suggests to me that they told him Patrick's name with the Irish diminutive form.

Since Valentine Ryan signed the federal land papers by mark, he may not have been literate — in English, at least. 

Hello William,

The land grant records for your Ryan ancestors are a treasure to hold. You must have found them some time ago and were probably excited to have located them, but a little perplexed to see that the surname was "Verene," rather than O'Brien. The thing is, in Irish, the surname O'Brien sounds like "Oh-bree-un," and so you can see why Valentine's last name might have been spelled phonetically by the agent who recorded the land grant. It is very likely that Valentine's first language was Irish, as you had mentioned. 

I know my great grandparents from Cavan, Kerry, Limerick, and Roscommon were Irish speakers, but I don't think their children or grandchildren in the U.S. had any desire to carry the language forward to their own offspring. 

Many thanks for sending that information. It was very interesting to read, as are you many blogs.

I hope your kids and grandkids show an interest in their Kilkenny ancestors, and also in your Creole cooking, and hand both down to succeeding generations.

Thanks William.

Dave

You're very right, Dave: I think when Valentine Ryan purchased land at the federal land office in 1859, the clerk very likely wrote down the name he thought he had heard, which may very well have sounded like Rene instead of Ryan. I can imagine Valentine giving his name as Valentine Ryan, then repeating the name as V. Ryan — and the clerk then hearing and writing down Verene. 

When I first noticed that my grandmother reported on the 1920 federal census that her mother spoke Irish as her first language, I thought that probably this meant that Catherine Ryan spoke an Irish dialect of English. But then when I found my grandmother's siblings reporting the very same thing on the 1920 census, all except one of them, as well as I remember, it struck me that they knew precisely what they were reporting and were reporting precisely to the census taker that their mother spoke Irish as her first language.

I suppose I was surprised both because I had not heard this in family stories, and also because I had not realized that the Walsh Mountain area of southern County Kilkenny was indeed still largely a Gaeltacht at the time my family emigrated to America in the early 1850s. I would imagine that they understood and could speak English, but that Irish was their first language — and they may not, in fact, have been literate in English.

I do have very vague memories of two of my grandmother's older brothers teaching me, my brothers, and my cousins a few expressions in Irish when we were very young, and that makes me think their mother Catherine may have taught them bits and pieces of Irish.

I am definitely trying to pass on to as wide a circle of family as possible what I remember and have learned about our Irish roots, and am pleased that a lot of cousins are eager to know more. I find, interestingly enough, that the stories I heard from my grandmother about our family's voyage to America were also told in other branches of my family as far off as California and Oklahoma, and they match the stories I myself heard from my grandmother.

Hello William,

It really is a shame that the Irish language wasn’t handed down to children, then grandchildren and great grandchildren. I think that many people who came to America speaking Irish, may not have encouraged their children to speak the language because of the extreme prejudice against the Irish. I think they would have wanted to Americanize their children as quickly as possible to escape that prejudice.

I took four years of Irish language classes in the 1990s and found it a very difficult language to learn, having never really mastered it. The grammar was very difficult to understand, with eclipsed and lenited words, inflection of nouns, and an alphabet that doesn’t include the letters j, k, q, v, w, x, y, or z. For instance, my Quinn ancestors would have spelled their surname “Cuinn,” in Irish, rather than ‘Quinn.” My last name Boylan, in Irish, is spelled, Ó Baoighealláin. I pronounce it, “O’Bwee-hell-on”, though there is really no standard pronunciation of the name, or of words in general in the Irish language. Oy vey!, to use a Jewish expression.

I went to Ireland every year in the 1990s and early 2000s to visit relatives and friends, and would always set aside time to spend in the Gaeltacht areas of western Ireland, particularly in Galway, Clare, and Mayo. Many people there spoke Irish and I could always use what I learned to converse with them.

But, I have lost a lot, if not most of the Irish from non-use, following in the tradition of my 2nd and 3rd generation Irish ancestors.

William, thanks for writing again. You have some very interesting stories about your ancestors in Ireland and the U.S.

Dave

It's always sad when native languages are lost, isn't it, Dave? So much of a culture's heritage is enfolded in its language. And the predictable process of immigration is that, after the first generation, the next generation may understand the mother language but not speak it, and then even that is lost in a generation or two — without concerted efforts to maintain the native tongue. In the US, up to the two world wars, Germans did a remarkable job of holding onto and passing on their language in culture enclaves where newspapers, church worship, schools, and family all kept transmitting a living knowledge of German. The same is true for the French in south Louisiana until there were strong efforts to force French-speaking families to stop using French. Schools would punish children who spoke French instead of English, to try to stamp out the French language.

I suspect for my Ryan ancestors, the challenge was even greater, since they settled in a rural area in a state dominated by Anglo (English and Scottish, largely) culture. They settled in a part of central Arkansas where there were almost no other Irish people, though Little Rock, 20 miles from them, did have an Irish community. Holding onto any part of their culture in that setting was not easy.

It's wonderful that you've actually studied Irish and have spent time in the Gaeltacht areas. I reproach myself for not having made an effort to learn Irish. I do love listening to it when it's sung, and I remember writing a research paper in college about old Irish poetry — which I couldn't read, of course, in the original language, but only in translation. If my grandmother and her siblings knew any Irish at all, I can't recall their having said that, though I do have vague memories of my grandmother's brothers teaching us some phrases in Irish when we were very small. 

So much is lost when a language is lost.

Truer words were never spoken William.

Dave

Thank you, Dave. I'm grateful to you.

It's been a pleasure William.

All the Best,

Dave