Seeking info on family Byrne of Tipperary (Pallas, Borrisoleigh) 1800-1860

Thank you Miriam for this detailed careful work, I very much appreciate it. I had no idea how to start the search, but those things will be very useful.

I found an entry for a Terence Byrne (of "Pallace, Glenkeen, Tipperary" - a new orthography of Pallas which I can now search under) from the tithe applotment book from 1832 http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/reels/tab//004587445/00… . The date and location seems right for this to be a listing of my oldest known ancestor, my great-great-great grandfather. This is the first official record of his existence I've identified. Until now I've only had family tree from relatives, but no further data.

You will notice the patterning down the generations of various Terences, Morgans, Lawrences etc across several generations (including in the emigrant families in Australia). I have some more detailed family trees from various distant relatives, so I will investigate. The people listed in the links you give have the right sort of names but none seem to match people in my tree, unless they are descended from Terence's first son, Morgan, which seems totally possible. I will dig my archives and see if I have his children's names there.

Yes, I did wonder about Morgan as a first name (for a man, too) in Ireland, I wonder what the story is there. Looking at what you've suggested, either those individuals mentioned in the records were descendants of Terence's first son Morgan (b 1815), or, they used their middle names instead of those I have them listed under. Eg. if a son of my great great grandfather Lawrence Byrne, the person indicated as Patrick may well be his son Michael or one of the others in my list, using middle name instead - this sort of thing was done right up to my own father's generation (his brother Charles Patrick was always called Pat, not Charles). I will look at the more detailed tree I have and will check it for a Patrick middle name.

Thanks again!

Thanks Miriam.

Lawrence seems traditional for Byrne forenames, but I had no inkling about Morgan until your remarks. It seems unusual. Deriving from Welsh, I wonder if there was a reason further back for this name becoming used in my family.

What chance is there of finding anything at all before 1800? I know the 17th and 18th centuries were appallingly disrupted, but is there any way of learning about ancestors or relatives during that time? I suppose this would have all been oral history at the time, rather than recorded, but I still wonder if anything can be gleaned. What I don't know is whether the original Terence had any siblings, for example, and what his father's name might have been, and where from.

Thanks Miriam, that is all very helpful.

I wonder if Morgan in this case derives from Muirgen which is an Irish name, rather than the Welsh. It could be either I suppose, as they seem to have adopted non-gaelic forenames as often as not. (I wondered if Terence was an anglicisation of Turlogh, too).

What you say regarding the pre-1800 records confirms what I feared. The upheavals and conditions prior to then made a lot of knowledge perish but I wonder if some grave sites might be identified? They were all Catholic.

I looked at the detailed genealogies I have, but they contain no information for the members who remained in Ireland, but have extensive info about the emigrants (who kept marrying immigrant Tipperary Irish for some time in Australia) and their descendants (hundreds!). The most information I have about those who stayed is for Lawrence's youngest son Morgan who became a celibate Brother adopting the (confusing) Order name of John Lawrence or Lawrence John - just to keep future genealogists guessing, no doubt! He would have been a nephew of the earliest Morgan Byrne in my tree.

I now think I may have got the spouses names wrong for the generation after Terence (1). These may be sponsor's names, not spouses, but I have to check this (yet another thing!).

I will check out those maps and see what comes from it. Many thanks.

Hi again Miriam,

Studying the maps, and Griffiths, I have come round to your suggestion Honoria is a rendering of what I have as "Hannah" (Gleeson), Terence Byrne's wife. This would explain why in Griffiths valuation of 1850, Thomas Stapleton, her neighbour at 14 Pallas Upper (she at 13) was also listed as the neighbour of Terence in the 1832 Tithe Applotments albeit under a different address system. Your suggestion Terence had died by 1850 would explain this. With this, I'm reasonably confident that the Honoria mentioned is the person I have in my tree as Hannah (1) nee Gleeson of Pallas, Tipperary; and that the address given for her in Griffiths was also that of Terence and the family in general before the adult children moved to the other farms in Allengort and Pallas Lower.

It is quite amazing how just enough information survives to locate the physical farmlands both from the old maps and then see how they look today via satellite image. Really incredible. Yes, they look identical to every other bit of rural Irish farmland, but it is the end of a chase in one sense, as it seems likely those particular bits of green are where my ancestors lived, in particular.

Thanks Miriam. I have now spent hours with this material and I see some of the benefits along with possible pitfalls of interpreting the data. In the early entries for the births of Terence and Hannah's children, her name is written Hannah (1815) and Hanah (1821), but I noticed the name Honoria (for other people) becoming increasingly popular as the years roll past 1821 and so it seems entirely possible a new generation of clerk just wrote down that name when told hers at census time, as the "intimate" (bapism entry) form gives Hannah (scribe doing his best), but the "official" entries by Crown drones give Honoria (their rendition). Besides this I've managed to clear up some mistakes in my family record (or my interpretation of it) by finding original birth and marriage records, as well as some of the addresses. This is extremely satisfying, while a lot of holes remain and likely will forever, at least I have some pretty convincing contenders for places.

Having scoured birth and marriage entries for Borrisoleigh for the first few decades of the 1800s, it seems clear that there were very few Byrne entries, especially early in the 19th century (virtually none), suggesting they were relatively new to the area. It seems also that as you say, all or nearly all the Byrnes there were related somehow. As the century rolls on, more people get recorded partly because there are more of them but partly because the recording becomes more thorough. But it still feels like they sprang from a common source. I wonder what that was.

I've learned the excruciating history of Ireland in recent years and the fact anybody survived it, let alone with so much preserved (never mind what was lost) despite such a tiny population, is truly remarkable. There are survival stories in my family's memory since emigration that make me expect there was something in the dna that enabled it. The tough Irish genes. I wonder if any of my ancestors spoke Irish, and if so, which generation was the last to do so. And I wonder whether these Byrnes had migrated into the area from another place nearby, and where that might be, and when, and why - all questions which it seems can't be answered, unless someone knows the story, and can tell it, as the trail stops at 1815, for now. But maybe new information will come to light in time, as it seems to do.

Thanks again!
 

I've just found the tombstone for Terence Byrne, erected by Hannah in 1857. This document (if the transcription is correct) states he was 75 years old at death in 1857, and two of their children also appear to have died early (not in my famiy tree, likely due to their early death, unless this is another family, which seems unlikely given the stated location of Pallace and the couple's name). This puts Terance's birth year at 1782. It is odd that it states Bridget was "his" daughter and John was "her" son. However, the figures for "her" son John would indicate he was born in 1783, so either there is a mistake in the transcription, or Hannah was older and had married another Byrne before Terance, or something else.

"Erected by
Hannah Byrne of Pallace in memory of
her husband Terance Byrne
who dep this life
Oct 25 1857 agd 75 yrs
also his daughter Bridget Byrne who died
July7 1836 agd 16
also her son John Byrne who dep
July 29 1817 agd 34 yrs"

Number 119, Glenkeen Parish
http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/ire/tipperary/photos/tombstones/glenkeen.pdf

If someone can visit and take some more, and clearer photos, I'll owe them a drink. Also, the listing at Find A Grave gives no result, clearly this is wrong, and the typed Borrisoleigh Council records also give no result for Byrne. But, as the link above shows, there is indeed a gravestone.

Quick update.

With some excellent local help, I have made progress since the foregoing regarding correcting the text errors in published transcriptions on the gravestone inscription for Terence (Terance, actually) Byrne. I will post further data once I have made sure it's all accurate. It's an interesting story. Suffice to say Terance's son John died in 1849, the date 1817 was a mistake caused by the angle at which the stone leaned.

More anon!

Oh, and also, the grave was mis-attributed to a non-existent Terance Ryan in Foulkes' 2004 publication listing the Glenkeen cemetary inscriptions. Both published transcriptions (Connors and Foulkes) contain different textual errors which were easy to make due to the age and difficult angle of the stone. I have obtained images that resolve these and will make a summary soon. I learned a lot from the process and how easy it is to both hit and miss the target.

Main point to take away from this :

cemetary publications were well-meant, but if you have looked for years and found no matching entries, it is entirely possible that inaccurate transcriptions are to blame due to lighting, weathering, moss lichen or leaning angles making it hard to read. Persevere and follow hunches, especially when you know the "evidence" goes against it. Every day more becomes possible than was previously even imagined. Or so it seems!