|
|
Where our ancestor came from
[Slide 1]
First, we know that the family arrived in Port Adelaide in
1852, with the four children Honor, 16 and Patrick 15, Anne 5 and James
was 2. (This photo of Honor above – she looks about 18 - must have
been taken in the 1850s).
[Slide 2]
Jeremiah and Mary were probably married about 1835, but there is
no record of the marriage, only records of the birth of James and Anne,
since parish records were not kept for catholics until 1845.
We know a little of where Jeremiah and Mary lived, and Jeremiah’s
location among the strands of Kellys from the region around the town of
Ennis in Clare. [Map -->] Jeremiah and
Mary connect us to a particular patch of earth located in the parish of
Ruan-Dysart, a place that suffered badly from crop failurein the 1840s.
It is thought that Jeremiah emigrated on the advice of his brother
John, who arrived in South Australia two years earlier, in 1850, with
his wife Ellen Fitzpatrick. Also Martin Kelly and his wife Bridget McMahon
arrived in 1851, and it is likely that Jeremiah and John were related,
perhaps cousins, of Martin.
So there are three strands of related Kellys who arrived in Adelaide
at about the same time, but they will have to hold their own reunion because
they wont fit in here.
But as with all families, there are mysteries and shadows, and much
yet untold.
Jeremiah’s dad
Jeremiah’ s father is the singular most ambiguous figure in
the story. But if we don’t know who he is, we know something of
his personality. It is known that Jeremiah displeased his father with
his marriage, was disinherited and stayed with another branch of the Kellys
at Bealnalicka before emigrating. My uncle Peter Kelly remembers his grandfather
James, Jeremiah's son, referring to some relation of his as "Bully
Kelly, the strongest man in Ireland". Father John Donnelly, writing
to Peter Kelly in 1982, made reference to a “Bull Kelly” in
the neighbourhood.1
This wrathful parent of Jeremiah is our enigma. He has different
names according to different Kelly historians. Is it Patrick, or Timothy,
or even Jeremiah 2, and there were an awful lot of
Jeremiahs. But think about this disinheritance – it would most likely
have been absolute and total, leaving Jeremiah and Mary landless in a
place where you had land and family or nothing. They would have had little
choice but to leave the region (although it was some 15-16 years between
marriage and emigration). The the indications are tantalising but imprecise.
Page 1
<<Page 2 >> Page 3
>> |
Patrick/Timothy or Jeremiah
|
|
|
Jeremiah
(1812 - 1868)
married Mary Baker c. 1834
Sailed to Australia 1852
|
|
|
Anne
b. 1835 |
Patrick
b. 1836 |
Anne
b. 1847 |
James
b. 1850 |
See the Kelly district
on the
Map
of Clare (popup)
|
| |
Footnote
1:
Bull Kelly has been identified, and he is not our Jeremiah’s
father. He was identified by both Fr John Donnelly (letter 1982) and “Pappy”
Kelly, who said Bull Kelly was his grandfather James (1818 –80),
brother of “Old Jer” Kelly. This is recounted in a letter
by Peter Kelly to his parents Frank and Sheila in 1951.
This makes our Jeremiah 6 years older than James “Bully” Kelly,
and probably a cousin.
Dates taken from Ray Kelly’s GEDCOM database, at
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~hannontan/archive.htm
Footnote 2:
Patrick is our Jeremiah’s father, according to Antoinette O’Brien
from the Clare heritage Centre in her work for Des Caulfield, 28 April
1997, is the father of John Kelly, who arrived in Adelaide in 1851. Timothy
is our Jeremiah’s father, according to Ray Kelly in his database,
and Jeremiah, though my mother Patricia Hannon (nee Kelly), Peter Kelly’s
sister. |
|
