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Patrick's Siblings

Patrick’s Family Chart

Patrick had six brothers and two sisters. They were Edward, Christopher, Jane, James, Matthew, Philip, Thomas and Mary (Tree 1).

Edward

Edward was the eldest son of Philip and Ellen. According to baptismal records he was born on the 1st June 1862 in Hodgestown. Edward emigrated to New York in the 1880s, where he worked as a gardener on a private estate. He married Rosanna Huston in Manhattan on the 21st October 1894. Rosanna was born in the U.S. of Irish parents. The Huston family held land in Greenburgh, north of New York City and Edward and Rosanna lived there beside other members of the Huston family. Rosanna died in 1922 and Edward in 1934. They are buried in Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Westchester.

They had one daughter, Mary Jayne, who was born in 1896. Mary Jayne married A. Irving Cumming in 1925 and they lived all their lives in the Greenburgh area. She was active in her local community, as can be seen from her obituary in the local newspaper.

The Cummings had one daughter, Rosemary, in 1926. When she married James McGoey in 1948, the wedding in Irvington, New York, was fulsomely described in the 22 June edition of the local newspaper, the Standard-Star. Rosemary and James do not appear to have had any children.

Christopher

Christopher was born in 1864. He appears to have initially worked on the farm, as he was listed as the landholder of the 15 acres on the road towards Edmondstown in 1898. However this may not have worked out as he was working as a land steward in County Kildare when he married Kathleen Moyles from Hodgestown a year later in 1899. The land reverted to his parents. By 1911 Christopher had moved to work as a steward in Oakfield, County Galway. They settled in Abbert near Monivea. They had one child, Mary, born in 1904. Mary married Timothy Dolly in 1925, and the Dolly family tree has been developed in FindMyPast.com. Several of their descendants live in the Dublin area.

Jane

Jane was born on 2nd March 1866. She was 33 years old when she married William Cooney, a shepherd, who was only 24. William was her second cousin on her mother’s side. They migrated to different locations where herding was required. Their first two children were born in County Kildare and another three near Knockdrin in County Westmeath. They were in County Waterford in 1922 when Jane died of cardiac failure.

No detailed information about most of the Cooney children after the 1911 census has been found so far in the Irish records. Their eldest child, known as Julia, was named Mary Ellen on the civil registration birth records although her younger sister also had that name. Julia never married, and was visited by her nieces in a nursing home in Mullingar in the 1980s1. The 1926 census may provide more information when that becomes available.

James

James was born in 1868 and lived at home. In the censuses of 1901 and 1911 he is listed as a farmer. As the eldest son still at home at the time of his mother's death in 1910 he inherited the farm with his sister Mary. He never married and died of abdominal cancer in the infirmary in Mullingar in 1921. He is buried with his parents in Coralstown.

Matthew

Matthew was born in 1870. A small section of land on the road towards Edmondstown was assigned for a new council house for Matthew in the 1890s. However he spent a period working as a shepherd in County Kildare before he returned to the family farm sometime between 1901 and 1910. Matthew eventually inherited the farm and the original house after the relatively early death of his brother James. He also acquired more land in Higginstown. Matthew married Mary Anne Cunningham from a neighbouring farm in 1911 and they had five children.

Their daughter Elizabeth trained as a cook and worked at Lisnabin castle for the Purdon family. She married a groom who worked on the estate called William Kenny. They lived in the gate lodge and had one daughter Olive, who has been active in researching the family history. Another of Matthew's daughters Jane married Nicholas Moore in 1946, and members of the Moore family still live in the Mullingar/Killucan area. Janette Moore, granddaughter of Matthew has actively helped in researching the family.

The other three children lived all their lives in Hodgestown and did not get married. Philip and Ellen lived in the council house on the road towards Edmondstown. They are buried with their parents in Killucan cemetery.

As part of the folklore collections collected by schoolchildren in Ireland in the 1930s, Matthew was interviewed for the project by his niece Mary Anne Larkin and Sheila O'Brien from the local school, and he told them some stories about famine times. One two-page story can be seen here.

Matthew died in 1955 and his wife in 1958. On his death, the whole farm passed to his son Philip. Details of the land transactions are described in a later section.

Philip

Philip was another member of the family who was a gardener. He was born in 1872 and was working in the Dublin Botanic Gardens as a gardener at the time of the 1901 census. He married Mary Cunneen in 1902 and they had one son, Philip, who was born in April 1908. At that time he was workings as a gardener in Ardsallagh. near Navan. By 1911 he was living in Dundrum, County Dublin and working as a gardener and domestic servant. No detailed information about the family after the 1911 census has been found so far in the Irish records. The 1926 census may provide more information when that becomes available.

Thomas

Thomas was born on 5th August 1874 and, like his brothers Edward and Philip, trained at the Botanic Gardens in Dublin. He was at home in April 1901 at the time of the census but left Ireland shortly afterwards to join Edward in the US. He arrived in New York on the 12th August 1901. Thomas married Margaret Cunningham on the 28th of July 1910 in Manhattan. Margaret was a sister of Mary Anne Cunningham, who married his brother Matthew the following year (...two sisters married two brothers). It appears that both sisters went to the US; Margaret stayed in New York and married Thomas, while Mary Anne returned home to marry Matthew. Family lore has it that the girls were visiting their aunt Ellen Cosgrove, who tried to persuade Mary Anne to stay in New York by offering her a Model T Ford2. She chose, however, to return to Ireland!

Thomas and Margaret had three children. Mary A., Thomas and Margaret. Mary A. married Bertram Dawkins and they had a family in Long Island. Her obituary in 1998 identified several family members. Margaret married Richard Sprague and also went on to have a family in the Nassau area of New York State. DNA links to members of the Dawkins and Sprague family descendants have been found.

Mary

Philip and Ellen Lynch's youngest child Mary was born in 1878. She lived her entire life in Hodgestown and never married. When her brother James died, she inherited the home and remained there until her death in 1951, although the ownership passed to Matthew sometime in the 1940s. She is buried with her parents in Coralstown.