John William Ballard born Newry

Liverpool Weekly Courier 27.9.1890 reports the death of a William Ballard aged 54. Tinsmith of 78 Blandford St, Liverpool. Well known in local Orange circles. Was for a while Grand Master of the Liverpool Province of Orangemen.

Served with the Black Watch in the Indian Mutiny. His Indian experiences contributed to the decline in his health.

Article says he was a native of Drogheda. Also a Guardian of the West Derby Union. (So if the workhouse Guardians minutes have survived, you should find mention of him there at their weekly meetings).

Article says he left a widow but no children.  Interred Kirkdale cemetery.

So his being a senior Orangeman tells you he was not Roman Catholic. Presumably the family was Church of Ireland or Presbyterian.

Drogheda St Mary’s Church of Ireland has records from 1763 onwards & St Peter’s from 1655. Some coverage of both on rootsireland. Original records are in the RCB library in Dublin.

There was a small Presbyterian congregation in Drogheda. Not sure if any records have survived. The Presbyterian Historical Society in Belfast should know.

Many thanks for your help. That makes sense! The family moved to Liverpool. My 3x great grandad (William b.1817)remained in Liverpool along with John William. I think because they had successful tinsmith businesses there. My 4x great grandad(William b. late 1700’s) died in Liverpool in 1845. His wife and the rest of the Ballards with English spouses went on from Liverpool ending up in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. One of the family, Robert F was a mason over there… the chief mason. Interestingly I read that Dublin had an ‘English/Anglo’ Protestant majority in the early 1700’s and even in 1861 up to 1/4 of the Dublin population was Protestant. That was where my 4x great grandparents were born. And McBride can be a Scottish name.

Once again thanks for your great help!

regards

David

David,

MacLysaght’s “The Surnames of Ireland” says of Ballard, “see under Bollard.” Of Bollard, “Of Dutch origin, this name came to Ireland in the early seventeenth century, and soon became prominent the commercial life of Dublin. The quite distinct Norman name Ballard (Middle English bald head) goes back to early Medieval times.“

If your family arrived in Ireland with the Normans (ie mid 1100s) then I would expect them to have been RC. If they were Protestant (and there can’t be much doubt they were given the Orange connections) I’d say they arrived in Plantation times ie 1600s.

That’s true! On my mum’s side I have a 3x great grandmother Ellen Callaghan from Cork… Catholic. My grandad was Catholic ‘ Timothy Cornelius’ given names. So I am well balanced eh?!!

many thanks

David

What is fascinating is the fact that over 50% of Irish Americans are Protestant. There are over 46 million English Americans(undercount) and over 90 million British Americans (undercount)

Most of the folk who moved to the USA (and Canada) from Ireland in the 1700s were Protestant. And most of them were Presbyterian. (In the US often called Scotch-Irish. Here we call them Ulster Scots).  These were descendants of people who had moved to Ireland from Scotland (and in some cases from England & Wales) in the 1600s. By the early 1700s they were dissatisfied with life in Ireland (lack of spare land, rising rents, poor harvests due to bad weather, low prices for manufactured cotton and for crops, lack of employment opportunities, some religious restrictions etc) and having already moved once quite recently they were often ready to move again. By 1790 more than 400,000 Protestants (the majority from Ulster) had settled in the US.  Our “Native Irish” most of whom were RC, didn’t really start emigrating in significant numbers till the 1800s.

There’s a bit of a myth that Irish-Americans have always been a single coherent group. The Orange Riots in 1870 and 1871 in New York saw many violent clashes between former Ulster Protestants and Catholic Irish.  We are a mixed bunch.

That’s all very true. All I can say is that from my research I have learned that life was tough for the working class people of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales in Victorian times. And in the big cities of England, ordinary working class English snd Irish people have always inter married with no problem. And I am overwhelmingly English but have Protestant Irish, Scottish and Catholic Irish blood in me. The English and Scottish settled in Ireland  for over 700 years. Every county of Ireland had a significant Protestant population. The Irish who came to England, Wales and Scotland in Victorian times were not immigrants. They were Irish but also British citizens and they had a right to come to places like Liverpool and Glasgow. It was the United kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland back then. Two way traffic between England and Ireland. I read somewhere that in 1801 a quarter of the population of the island of Ireland had English and Scottish blood. Guinness… from an Anglo Irish Protestant family. Bushmills whiskey as well. Jamesons whiskey from Scottish settlers to ireland etc Love Irish whiskey!!

Can’t really disagree with you. Whilst it’s absolutely right to be proud of your origins, as you pare back the genealogical onions you often find surprises. Folk have been moving around the British Isles and more generally across northern Europe for hundreds of thousand of years.  (Ireland has only been settled for 10,000 years. But England has been settled for 500,000 or more. So guess where most “Irish” folk probably came from?)  Most of us come from shared roots, and we don’t have exclusive ethnic identities like “Celtic”, “Irish” or Viking” even though many yearn for them. There’s no genetic science that supports that. (That understanding ought to be something that should unite, rather than be a source of dispute).

You mention Jameson, the founder of Jameson’s whiskey, established in the early 1800s. In Ireland we are very proud of it (and him). But, as you clearly know,  John Jameson was a Scot from Alloa, in Clackmannanshire, who had distilling skills and brought them to Ireland to make a little money. He wasn’t Irish at all. So what? He brought great fame and great whiskey to Ireland. That’s what we should be proud of.

Finally, I attach a note outlining the origins of perhaps the most famous Irish song there is. Danny Boy. Its background in my view shows the importance of acknowledging our shared origins when we approach our history.

All very true and interesting facts!

I live close to the village where Joe Biden’s great great great English grandad came from in West Sussex. The church where the Biden’s came from(baptised and married over many generations) is spectacularly beautiful with one of the oldest yew tree avenues in the world planted many centuries ago. He has at least 30 to 35% English roots and some Protestant Huguenot roots but does not acknowledge it. Anyways, one day I should visit Ireland! I will be visiting the church in London where my 3x great grandma Ellen Callaghan from Cork is buried and I think she came escaping the famine.

regards

David