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 28th 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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My grandparents lived in 1 Great Longford Street (now Longford St Little) from 1922 In their tenement was a Francis & Mary Mooney and their daughter Bridie who was friends with my mother born in 1925. I remember a Christie Moonie coming to visit my parents in the 1960s who I was told was a friend of my mother - I don't know if this is of any interest.
ReplyDeleteLoved reading about your family and particularly Teresa. i was wondering if she could have been married to a other soldier that brought her to Corfu who then died leaving her a widow there with the best option being to marry another. Or even if a sibling married a soldier and she went to Corfu with them. It does seem a remarkable journey for a single woman to make. Some families have a history of being in the military and it could fillow that the lady members of the family would tend to favour men in the military too and might know where to mingle with them.
ReplyDeleteBest of luck in finding the rest of the story.
Phil