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Johanna's Maternal Great Grandparents

Johanna’s maternal great grandparents were John Fahy and Mary Dalton from Kilmanahin and Felix O’Neill and Margaret Condon from Owning.

John Fahy and Mary Dalton

We can identify Johanna’s Fahy Great Grandparents from the Fahy family headstone in Owning churchyard. Based on the age of their children, we can assume that John and Mary were born before 1780. The Fahy headstone informs us that Mary died on 22nd June 1840 and John in 1850.

We have an additional record source for John Fahy – a record of a deed for the lease of his land in Kilmanahin. Historically in Ireland, the vast majority of farmers were tenant farmers living on large landlord-owned estates. Formal contracts for the lease of land to farmers are rare before the mid 19th century. During penal times Roman Catholics were banned from owning land, and these laws were only gradually relaxed towards the end of the 18th century. It was very exciting to find that John Fahy, with two neighbouring farmers – James Scurry and Thomas Phelan – signed a lease for their lands for 31 years (the maximum period allowed), which was registered on 19 April 1797. The image alongside shows the original lease memorial, and a transcription of the text is presented below. The memorial is held in the Registry of Deeds in Dublin.

Mary Dalton's family name is an important one in the Templeorum and Piltown area. It predates Cromwellian times. There were two related families of Daltons living in Jamestown (adjacent to Kilmanahin) in the 19th century and into the 20th century1. It is possible that Mary Dalton was from one of these families, although baptismal records do not survive to corroborate this.

Felix O’Neill and Margaret Condon

We can identify Johanna’s O’Neill great grandparents from her grandmother’s baptismal certificate – they were Felix O’Neill and Margaret Condon of Owning. There is only one O’Neill family in the area, and they lived close to Owning village. The Condons were from Kilmanahin. There was only one other Condon family in the parish in the early 1800s. Thomas Condon and Johanna Kennedy had three children baptised in the parish between 1805 and 1810. Thomas is probably a brother of Margaret Condon. There are no Condon families listed in the area at the time of the Griffith Valuation[1].

Although the precise relationship has not yet been verified, it is likely that Felix O’Neill was connected to the O’Neills identified in three interesting headstones in Owning Old Graveyard.

The older headstones on the left and right read as follows: