Whilst in Dublin I wanted to visit two
locations that topped and tailed the story of my three times great
grandmother, Teresa Mooney, born 1834 and passed away in 1919.
Teresa's family to date is the only confirmed Irish Catholic line
that I have in my tree, although I do have a couple of lines
that I strongly suspect involved mixed denominational marriages, a
bit further north in Donegal and Fermanagh.
Teresa was born in the city of Dublin,
in 1834 to Thomas and Mary Anne Mooney, and baptised on October 14th
1834 at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Pro-Cathedral (www.procathedral.ie). This was my first
stop, to locate the building, and I nearly kicked myself when I found
it, as it is about a minute away from O'Connell Street, which I have
visited more times than I can remember! Not only was this where
Teresa was baptised, it is also where Michael Collins' funeral was
held after his assassination in 1922. The 'Pro' in 'Pro-Cathedral'
stands for 'Provisional' it being the provisional cathedral built for
the city's Roman Catholic community, with two Protestant cathedrals
having already been erected (Christ Church and St. Patrick's), and is
a gorgeous, peaceful building, right in the heart of the city.
I don't know much about Teresa's early
life, other than that she had a sister called Mary, and may have had
a brother called Thomas (I'm working on a DNA connection to try to
confirm this), but she later became one of the strongest women in my
family. I have no idea how she ended up there, but Teresa married Corporal Alexander William Halliday of the 2nd
Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of Foot (Queen's) on June 27th 1862 at
the Garrison Church in Corfu, deep in the Mediterranean Sea, with the
service being Anglican in nature. She then travelled with Alexander's
regiment to Gibraltar, where on October 7th 1863 she gave birth to my
great great grandmother Florence Teresa Halliday.
By 1866 the regiment was in Bermuda,
where two key events occurred. The first was that Teresa's husband
Alexander tragically died on 31st January 1866. Although the death
took place in the aftermath of a serious yellow fever epidemic which
took many lives from the military unit, there is no indication as to
whether Alexander was himself killed by this plague. From muster rolls held at the National Archives in England (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk), I established that Teresa was given £4 17 shillings and 11 pence by the regiment, but after after all of
Alexander's outstanding debts were paid off, she was left with just 8 shillings and a ha'penny for her
passage home - regulations stipulated that widowed women had to leave
the unit of their deceased husband within four weeks after his death.
However, Teresa somehow remained with the unit, perhaps because of her pregnancy, and shortly after
gave birth to a son, Alexander William Halliday, in Bermuda, on
August 16th. With two infant children to care for,
it is perhaps not surprising that she remarried quickly. The wedding took place on December 28
th 1866 in Nenagh,
County Tipperary, Ireland, showing that Teresa and the regiment had
almost immediately departed Bermuda after Alexander's birth. Her new
husband, William John Burns, had also been on Bermuda, and like her
former husband Alexander was also a corporal with the 2nd Battalion
of the Queen's Royal Regiment. In her second marriage record her
father Thomas was noted as a weaver, and the service was again
Anglican in nature.
Whilst at Nenagh, her husband William
re-attested for another eleven year stint of service with the
regiment, but was discharged from the regiment on January 28th 1870
as being unfit for service. Teresa and William then had two children
between them. The first was Sarah Jordan Burns, born in Rathmines,
Dublin on March 1st 1871, with Teresa noted as being based at Church
Lane, and by June 8th 1871, at 14 Wexford Street. By April 11th 1873
they had relocated to Belfast, where their second daughter, Teresa,
was born, although within a year young Teresa had died of scarlatina
at the Belfast workhouse. In this record her mother was noted as a
charwoman.
On August 1st 1878 Teresa's son
Alexander was admitted to the Royal Hibernian Military School in
Dublin, with his mother noted as 'Trease Burns' and sisters as
Florence and Sarah. Alexander later went on to serve in the same
regiment as his father. Three years later in 1881, Teresa's eldest
daughter Florence married my great great grandfather Edwin Graham in
Barrow-on-Furness in England.
In the 1901 census Teresa was noted as
being in County Dublin for the 1901 census, by now a 65 year old
widow at Woodroffe's Cottages at New Kilmainham, Dublin. She was described as Anglican by way of her religious persuasion, a seamstress who
could read and write, and born in Dublin City. It is not yet known
when and where her husband William died.
Teresa's son Alexander left the army
between 1901 and 1911. In the 1911 census he appears in Dublin at 3
Synnott Row, with his mother, and it was here that I made my second
stop. The house is a small cottage in a row not far from the north
end of O' Connell Street (known back then as Sackville Street), and
whilst there I was fortunate to bump into the current owner as she
was returning from some chores. I explained my interest in the
property, and was informed that this was still the original building
but that last year it had undergone a major renovation, including
repointing of the brick work outside, making it seem more modern than
it is.
In the 1911 census, Teresa was still
noted as being Anglican, but her son Alexander was listed as Roman
Catholic, returning to the religion of his mother before her first
marriage. His 39 year old wife Margaret was also in residence.
Alexander was noted as a 'motorman', and just two years later he was
one of the first tram workers to go on strike, in what led to
Ireland's biggest ever industrial dispute, the Dublin Lockout.
In April 1916, just a few streets away
from the property, the Easter Rising kicked off, with the
proclamation of an Irish republic brutally repressed by the Crown
forces, which led just under three years later to a breakaway
Irish government being formed in January 1919. What I would give to hear
Teresa's testimony of what she may have heard that week! She survived
long enough to see the creation of the First Dáil (government), in the middle of
the War of Independence, but sadly not the creation of the Irish Free
State, she passing away on May 16th 1919 at 3 Synnot Row, aged 83. The cause of death was senile decay and asthma.
Teresa was subsequently buried at the St. Bridget's section of
Glasnevin Cemetery, but there is unfortunately no headstone to mark
her grave (below). Her son Alexander continued to live at the cottage until
his own death in 1947.
Teresa Mooney was a remarkable woman who travelled the world, doing what she had to do to survive with her children, and who ended her days back in Ireland, where she would have witnessed the birth pangs of the new independent state. Her daughter Florence, my great great grandmother, married into a Protestant family in Belfast, and gave birth sixteen times, with eight of her children dying in infancy.
Another era, another world, but the strength of the women in my family on that line is something I will be forever grateful for.
Chris
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