John DAVIS & Maria ATKIN(S)

This is probably the most imagined branch of my family tree, and if not, certainly the most intriguing, reportedly :

• Links to Thomas Osborne Davis, a barrister, writer and Young Irelander (1)
• A British army officer (2)
• Quakers and a connection to Marconi (3,4)
• Funders of a Carrigaline protestant church (3)
• A three or more times great grandmother who rode with the hounds and taught her daughters, who were over 6 feet tall, to box.(3)

Wonderful! But is any of it true?

Marriage

John DAVIS, a cooper (barrel maker) and Maria ATKIN of Coolamain married at the tail end of the famine on 4^th November 1850 in the Oylegate Catholic parish, Co. Wexford.  The witnesses were John ATKIN[1] and John LACY. Oylegate is south east of Enniscorthy and north west of Wexford town.[2]  There was no civil registration of this marriage as it was not required at the time.

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Children

They had three known children:

1.       John DAVIS

John DAVIS, according to his R.I.C. record, was born around 1853. As yet I have found no matching baptism record. John’s descendants are known to be related within recently living memory.  (See the sections on the John DAVIS and GLANCY families.)

John DAVIS served in the Royal Irish Constabulary from 12 January 1874 to 1 April 1901.

John was taller than his younger brother George at six foot and one and a quarter inches to George’s five foot ten and three quarters.  Before joining the R.I.C. he was a cooper, like his father before him. 

John married Catherine ‘Kate’ O’SHEA in Clonmel and was transferred to Cork where he remained until his death in 1925.

2.       Margaret DAVIS

Daughter, Margaret DAVIS was baptised 22 March 1854, at Ballymore parish, Co. Wexford, which is six miles or 9.6km to the south of Wexford town, servicing the Killinick area.[3]  

The witnesses were John CHAMBERS and Bridget BENNETT.  They were from Assaly in the civil parish of Killinick.

Margaret was a servant. She married James WADDEN (later WADDING) in Wexford town where she remained until her death in 1900. (See the section on the WADDEN/WADDING family.)

3.      George DAVIS

George, my great grandfather, was baptised on 21 July 1856, in the parish of Ballymore, witnessed by Rachel ATKINS[1]  and Barthy (Bartholomew) ROCHE. The location was recorded as Assaly, Killinick.   

Having been a labourer, George, like his older brother, joined the R.I.C, and he served from 1875 to 1891. He married Mary Bridget O’/CALLAGHAN and settled in Cork and lived there until his death in 1912.

Any other children?

I could find no other records of baptisms for children of John DAVIS and Maria ATKIN(S) in County Wexford for the period 1850 – 1864. [4]

I also tested the possibility that John DAVIS may have been previously and recently married and looked for DAVIS births in the Ballymore and Oylegate Catholic parishes from 1845 – 1850, before John’s marriage to Maria.  There were none and nor were there records of a protestant marriage.

What we can see from the marriage and baptism records is that while there were two ATKINS witnesses/sponsors there were none with the surname DAVIS.  Did John have no family in the vicinity?  Was John a convert to Catholicism?

As John and Maria married in Oylegate it seems probable that this was Maria’s home parish. However, their married lives appear to have been more connected to Ballymore parish and the area of Assaly and Killinick.

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(1) Source: Mary (Davis) HYLAND.

The story of a link to Thomas DAVIS probably originated with Fr. O’Flynn. Fr. J.C. ‘Christy’ O’Flynn was a contemporary and reportedly good friend of my grandmother and from the same part of inner north Cork. He established the Shakespearean Co. in 1924, known as ‘The Loft’ due to its location in the loft of Linehan’s sweet factory on John Redmond Street. Fr O’Flynn linked Eve ‘Fluffy’ (Glancy) O’DONOVAN, granddaughter of John DAVIS to her George DAVIS cousins. I think Fr O’Flynn is the priest referred to by my mother’s generation as being a local historian and genealogist.

(2) Source: the older WADDING sisters, daughters of George F. WADDING, Margaret (Davis) WADDING’s fifth child, in correspondence from their youngest brother.

(3) Source: Eve (Glancy) O’DONOVAN, reportedly relaying what her grandfather John DAVIS told her, in letters to a Wadding second cousin in the 1980s.

(4) Younger daughter of Ted DAVIS.

[1] We may assume John Atkin was Maria’s brother or cousin, and Rachel her sister or cousin. Rachael Atkin of Coolamain had been witness in Feb 1850 for the Oylegate baptism of William WALSH, son of John WALSH and Ellen ATKIN. Eve (Glancy) O’Donovan (b. 1912) was aware of there being a Rachel Atkins, so sister may be more likely. Rachel is a name that appears in generations of Margaret (Davis) WADDEN/WADDING’s descendants.

As yet, I have found no state or church marriage record for Rachel. The only spinster Rachel Atkins death between 1864 and 1930 is for a servant b. @ 1828 and d. south Dublin 1908.

[2] The existing St David’s Catholic church of Oylegate was built late 1850s.

In 1885 Bassett’s Wexford County Guide and Directory described the majority of the residents of Oylegate as salmon fishers on the Slaney.  The 1885 population was 123.  There were no ATKIN/S or DAVIS listed as residents in 1885.

Coolamain is in the Electoral Division of Edermine, in Civil Parish of Ballynaslaney, in the Barony of Ballaghkeen South, in Co. Wexford.  It covers an area of 2.3 km² or 0.90 square miles.  It is north-west of Wexford town.

[3]In 1885 Bassett’s Wexford County Guide and Directory the village of Killinick had a population of 146. Located on the side of a hill it was fairly sheltered and the land around was described as good for pasture and tillage.  It then held fairs four times a year.  Ballyrane Castle, quarter of a mile from the village was built by the Waddings, possibly the ancestors of George’s sister Margaret’s husband.

[4] There were also no death records 1864 onwards for Atkin/s children or teens in the Wexford or Enniscorthy registration districts.