Myles Moriarty - My Great Grandfather

We have seen that Michael Moriarty of Coad married Mary Sweeney of Coad on 27 November 1850 and settled in Loughane  - this was after Griffith’s Valuation in the early 1850s and at the tail end of the Great Hunger. They had at least 7 children and perhaps more.  Mary married locally.  James taught school in Annascaul. Three of the children - Margaret, Cornelius, and Helen - emigrated to Newport, Rhode Island. We know nothing about Michael. I think Myles was the oldest son, and he remained on the farm.

The following is part of the short family history I wrote about 1981-1982. I was working nights at St. John of God Hospital in Brighton. The daytime secretary typed this up for me. No such thing as a computer in those days. I have incorporated that history into this.  Excuse the notes and marks I have made on this copy.

"Loughane is located about six miles outside of Sneem on the coast road to Waterville ...

"It was the custom to build rectangular cottages - in order to be 'lucky' a house must not be more than one room wide. A house would be built into the slope of the rising ground so that it would be difficult to widen. Each room was the full width of the house. Generally there were two doors in the house - opposite each other. The front door was the only one in regular use. A stranger could not leave by the back door, or he would take the luck of the house with him. The two opposite doors were a means of regulating drafts of smoke from the fireplace. In Kerry, 'some houses are the scenes of morning and evening milking of cows; each animal being driven in turn in at the front door and out the back.'

"The Moriarty house was a rectangular thatched cottage - the back of it faced the hill that led to the new/high road. There was a fireplace at the right end of the house. There was only one window on the front of the house - between the door and the wall with the fireplace. The house is now a barn and has no light, but it looks as if there was a back door or back window, and there was a window on the wall opposite the fireplace. The windows are boarded up now. Traditionally windows were placed at the side of the house away from the prevailing winds. (Glass was expensive, and at one time taxes were levied on the number of windows.) The thatched roof was higher than the present one. There were lofts on either side of the house with a ladder used to reach them. The children slept in the lofts which were also used for storage. Beside the fireplace in the wall was a resting place for the hens. There was a dirt floor which Larry John L. covered with cement. He says that  even on the coldest, windiest days, this old house is warmer than the new house" (that his father, Mick John L, built when he got married.)

Above is the old cabin from the western side - you can see how it faces into the hill to the road above.

"The kitchen and the hearth were the core of the Irish home. The turf fire burning continuously day and night was the symbol of family continuity and hospitality to strangers. When the fire went out, the soul left the family of the house. The fire also kept the thatch dry and preserved the roof timbers. Mary Sweeney Moriarty's last task of the day was to smoor the fire; that is, she buried a live turf in the ashes to retain a spark which she could fan in the morning. This custom was fortified by the belief that the fairies would be displeased if there were no fire for them through the night. The fireplace was a shrine to which ancestral spirits returned, a link with the living past.

"All the cooking was done over the fireplace. A moveable hook hung down over the fire; this allowed pots hung over the fire to be pulled out so that the food could be stirred or the pots removed. Mary Moriarty also did all her baking in the fireplace."

This postcard shows the hearth with what looks like griddle cakes baking on the open fire. I remember visiting Molly Curran Crowley, my grandmother's first cousin, in Beal. Her house had the old fashioned fireplace - a lot wider than this one - with the hook for the pots. She used to have the kettle boiling over the fire - always ready for a cuppa. 

I remember visiting some older folks with Larry John L back in the 1980s. They would tell me to go out the same door that I had entered so I would not take away their "luck". I also remember Mickey Paul and Johnny Murphy giving back a bit of money for "luck" to the seller when they bought a cow or sheep and vice versa.

Uncle Patrick Murphy told me about a family in Bohocogram that kept their cows in the house with them - that would have been back in the 1930s. Back in the 1800s this was more common. A pig or a cow was a valuable commodity especially when rent to the landlord had to be paid. A dunghill was sometimes located beside the cottage. The land was rocky; farmers were clearing rocks to build fields to grow potatoes or grain. The dung was fertilizer to spread over the fields. Tenants had to guard their possessions - whether animals or dung.

I haven't been able to find a birth or baptismal record for Myles Moriarty. I wrote to Reverend John McKenna, parish priest, about Myles baptismal record, but he had no luck finding it. 

"The Presbytery, 

Sneem, 

Co. Kerry, 

4th June 1980.

Dear Mrs. Manning,

Thank you very much for your interesting letter and your enquiries about Sneem and your relatives here.

I'm glad you liked the little booklet on Sneem. It was written actually by a man named Theo Stoakley, who is the husband of our local medical doctor, Mrs. Ruth Stoakley. He asked me and Dean Gray-Stack (the Protestant minister) to write a little introduction to the booklet. Mr. Stoakley is preparing a larger edition of it but that will not appear for some time yet. Over the years Mr. Stoakley has done great research into the history of Sneem -- perhaps if you write to him he may be able to give you some of the old information you need on Sneem in the 1800s.
Our parish records for the nineteenth century are not complete. They start with a few entries in 1835 and 1837. There are several gaps between then and 1857. I went through the entries from 1857 to 1863 and regret to say that I did not find the entry of Myles Moriarty. Perhaps he was baptised in one of the neighboring parishes or simply that it was not entered by the person responsible at the time.
I wish to thank you for your kind offering and I ask you to excuse  me for the delay in responding. I was in hospital having surgery when your letter arrived. I have returned to the parish since last weekend and so had no opportunity to go through the records or reply to you until now.
With every good wish for your welfare,
Sincerely your,
John McKenna"

Father McKenna had no luck with Myles’ baptismal record, but I did receive the marriage certificate from Dublin.

"The Presbytery,                                                                        Sneem,                                                                                              Co. Kerry,                                                                                        28 June 1981.

Dear Mrs. Manning,                                                                           I am delighted to hear that you procured the marriage certificate of Myles Moriarty. Since receiving your letter I have looked for the marriage in the parish register here and sure enough there it was under the date you mentioned. I enclose a certificate of the marriage.                                                                                           It is much more difficult to find his birth or baptismal entry, as the records way back in the last century are very incomplete. I have a few entries for 1834 and 1835. Then there is a gap until 1847-48. Then another gap until 1857 and from that onwards they are complete.
The registers up to 1882 are difficult to read as they were written without any particular order. The ones from 1882 onwards are quite easy to follow as a new design of register was introduced in that year and it makes the research work much easier.
All the registers of the parishes of Ireland are in microfilm in the National Library in Dublin. To study them a person needs the permission of the parish priest of the parish in question. You have my permission to study the Sneem records there. You are also very welcome to study the registers which I have here in the parish when you come to Ireland.
Looking forward to meeting you when you come in July,

Very sincerely yours,

John McKenna"

Father Jack McKenna was a lovely man. He was a big supporter of the GAA - Gaelic Athletic Association.  These faded letters are typewritten on airmail paper - it weighs less than regular paper so that the postage would be less. Father McKenna left me alone in the Presbytery one afternoon in the early 1980s with the parish records. But I knew so little about the family history that I had no idea who or what to look for! And he was correct – the records are difficult to read. But let’s see what we know in 2013.

According to the civil certificate, Myles Moriarty, son of Michael Moriarty and Mary/Gubby Sweeney, was 26 when he married Ellen Leary (14) from nearby Bohocogram on 26 February 1884 in St. Michael’s Church in Sneem. James Leary and Michael Leary (Ellen’s brothers) were listed as witnesses. 

When I wrote up the short history of the Moriartys, I only made copies of some of the records I had obtained. Unknowingly, I gave away all the originals by mistake – including the civil marriage certificate for Myles and Ellen as well as the marriage certificate from Fr. McKenna. Fortunately, I had included the information in the history so I had the information but not the records. Below is a copy of the marriage certificate that I later requested from Fr. Michael Murphy who succeeded Fr. McKenna as parish priest and who led Sneem - and later  Kenmare - on to win the Tidy Town Competition.

Notice the Church record above from Father Murphy lists Thomas O’Sullivan and Frida O’Donoghue as witnesses – I don’t know who they would be, but this is can't be right. The civil marriage certificate listed Ellen's brothers - James and Michael Leary - as witnesses. 

Later, on www.irishgenealogy.ie, I found the entry for this wedding from the Sneem Parish Register in book 3 page 2 entry 12:

On 26 February 1884 Miles Moriorty of Loughanes (note the spellings made by the transcriber) married Helen Leary of Bohocogram. His parents are Miles Moriorty and Debora Sweeney; her parents are Henry Leary and Mary Leary.             The priest is Reverend R. McCarthy. The witnesses are Cornelius Moriarty and Geofrey Donoghue – but this does not match what Fr. Murphy sent or what was on the civil certificate!

It is interesting that Myles’ father is also listed as Miles (and not Michael) and his mother is Debora Sweeney. Moriarty is misspelled.  I have been told that Deborah, Gobinet, Gubby, Abbie, and Mary were all interchangeable names.

And I wonder who registered the marriage? Odd that there are three different sets of witnesses - but at least we know some of them.

From the information on Con Moriarty, do you remember that we think he immigrated to New York in 1880? He was first listed in the Newport Directory of 1883 – that could have been published in 1884 - did he emigrate after the wedding? Or would this Cornelius be another Moriarty? Would Con have returned home for the wedding? Would it be by proxy? So many questions!

I have seen Geofrey Donoghue’s name as witness on many marriage and birth certificates – I think he might have been a parish clerk in Sneem.

So Myles marries Ellen Leary from nearby Bohocogram, and they settle into Loughane. According to schoolmaster James Moriarty’s diary, his mother Mary Sweeney died in 1881; his father Michael Moriarty died in 1884. Myles sent a telegram to his brother James, the schoolmaster in Inch, to tell him about the deaths of their parents.  Would he send telegrams to the family in Newport or would he write to them? I wonder how expensive it was to send a telegram?

Information from the Valuation Office in Dublin shows the house and land in Glenlough in Myles Moriarty’s name in 1886 – Daniel O.B. (O’Brien) Corkery was the landlord. The local Sneem landlords, the Blands, had sold off some of their estate which originally extended to Castlecove – this is why Corkery is now the landlord for Glenlough.

Myles and Ellen (Leary) Moriarty live in the old cabin in Loughane where Larry now keeps the cows. Larry said that Myles was born in a house down the road going toward Brennans. Did Myles build our old cabin when he married? He married in 1884, and his father died sometime in 1884. So could his father and some brothers and sisters have been living in the original house when Myles built the cabin? Margaret emigrated in 1877; Con emigrated in 1880 – dates approximate. We know James Moriarty was teaching at that time because Myles sent him a telegram when their father Michael Moriarty died. I found that marriage for a Mary Moriarty in 1880 – that leaves Michael about whom I have no information. So we don’t know if anyone other than old Michael Moriarty and his daughter Ellen – who emigrated in 1885 - were in the older house. Perhaps Ellen was caring for the old pair and when they died, she emigrated too - especially if Myles had married.

The land in Loughane was very rocky and there were large boulders just outside the door of this “newer” cabin in the picture above. These were removed sometime since 1997. It must have been hard work to provide for a family and pay rent from this kind of land!