Maria ATKIN and John DAVIS married in the Catholic Oylegate parish at Coolamain making it probable that Oylegate was Maria’s home parish. Maria’s first marriage was November 1850.  As the full age for marriage was 21 years her birth could have been as late as 1829. Given her last child was baptised in 1866 a birth in the earlier years of the 1820s may be more likely.

Unfortunately,  there is a gap in the Oylegate parish baptismal records between 3 Dec 1820 and 10 August 1832 and a similar gap for marriages. There is no record of a birth for Maria prior to 1820.

The Tithe Applotment records show the tithe paying ATKIN men in Coolamain, Ballynaslaney 1826 were:

• Christopher
• John
• Hercules
• Nicholas
• Richard

There were no ATKINS in these records.

In the period from the start of available records (1804) to 1818 there were baptisms of ATKIN children born to:

• Christopher
• James (?)
• John
• Hercules
• Nicholas (Nick)
• Samuel
• Thomas

A Mary was born to Hercules and possibly Betty Notingham in 1805.
Nicholas and his unnamed wife had a Mary and her twin Nelly in 1806 and then another Mary in 1811.
Remember, a John ATKIN witnessed Maria and John DAVIS’s marriage and Rachel ATKINS was a witness for the baptism of their son George (Maria’s name was recorded as ATKINS also). Of the ATKIN men named above, Thomas and his unnamed wife had a son, John, in 1811. Christopher and Margery DOGAN also had a son, John, in 1808, while their daughter Mary Jane was baptised 28 July 1833. If this was Maria it would have made her 17 at her first marriage and only 33 at the birth of her last child, both of which seem unlikely. There is no record of a Rachel. Given the missing records it seems unlikely we’ll ever know.

In 1851, the year after Maria married John DAVIS, John ATKIN and Nicholas, Samuel and Christopher ATKINS were amongst the tenant signatories to a letter to Colonel Arthur Gore, landlord of the Coolamain, Oyle, Coolakip, Martingale and Rahail. (1) Christopher was listed as being on half pay with the 15th Royal Foot (2). Given the older Wadding sisters’ belief that there was a soldier in this line, could Christopher have been Maria’s father? It is worth noting however that the Atkin/s families were heavily represented by naval and militia men.

By 1853 there was no record in the Griffiths Valuation of any ATKIN (or DAVIS) in the Coolamain area. Samuel and John ATKINS occupied other areas of Ballynaslaney at that time and there were related ATKIN and ATKINS families in Wexford town who were merchants and tradespeople, as well as ‘Gentlemen’.

Who were the ATKIN/S?

Without evidence of Maria’s birth it is difficult to be certain which branches of the ATKIN/S family we are related to and descend from.

The early Coolamain ATKIN family was originally Wesleyan Methodist.  Over time, there were a number of related Protestant and Catholic Atkin/s families in Co. Wexford. The list of Atkin and Atkins marriage license applicants in the Protestant diocese of Ferns from the late 1770s demonstrates that forenames in-common circulated through both the Catholic and Protestant Atkins families e.g. John, Hercules, Samuel, Christopher, Mary and Maria. I have even found two brothers marrying in two different churches (Catholic and Church of Ireland) in the 1890s.

Further back, there were a number of landed and reportedly interrelated ATKIN/S families who arrived in County Cork during the Munster plantation which began 1585. About 300,000 acres of land had been confiscated and granted to English Protestants, many from military backgrounds, loyal to Queen Elizabeth and her interests (versus the threat of the Spanish Catholic King Phillip.)

The following is a very brief overview, taken from Burke’s peerage 1800s publications, Walford’s County Families publications, online genealogies and other secondary and tertiary sources. I am not claiming it anywhere near reaches the genealogical standard of proof for linking our family. There are some documents in the National Library of Ireland and National Archives I hope to review, Covid-19 allowing. Failing that, perhaps DNA links will eventually provide conclusive evidence.

Coolamain ATKIN timeline

1715

A Samuel ATKIN, son of Walter ATKIN and (Unknown) RADCLIFFE , was born in Coolnacoughfinny, Co, Cork.  This ATKIN branch reportedly originated in Somerset, England, with Samuel being the grandson of John ATKIN of Leadington (see below). He was a Yeoman of Youghal, marrying Jane BEERE, daughter of Hercules BEERE on 16 June 1697. 

They moved to Coolamain, Co Wexford around 1715.

Children included Walter (1698-1753), Samuel (b. 1703) and John (b. 1708, Coolamain – d. 1778, Oylegate).

1737 and 1740

Samuel ATKINS executed deeds for the lease of land around the ‘Towns and Lands of Coolamain Oyle and Rahaile containing by estimation 924 acres And also the Towns and Lands of Ballyruan containing 51 acres more or less All which lands are situate lying and being in the Barony of Ballaghkeen and county of Wexford‘ … ‘for and during the natural life and lives of the said Samuel Atkin Walter Atkin and John Atkin the sons of him’

Walter ATKIN/S ran a flax mill and bleaching green at Coolamain. (3)

1744

The date of probate for the will of Samuel ATKINS, Coolamain was 1744.

1798

In 1798 there were a number of Atkins who made claims for compensation for property destroyed in the 1798 rebellion. (Remember the earlier blog: https://francesbird.blog/2020/06/24/an-exceptionally-brief-wexford-history/)
In Coolamain there were claims from:

• James AKIN (sic) £56-3-1 Cattle, corn, cash, arms, saddles
• William ATKIN £478-13-8 Loss of bleaching season, linen, cattle, arms
• Jeremiah ATKIN £33-3-6 (farmer) Cattle corn, cloaths (sic), provisions, profit of cows.

1817

According to the Minutes of Trustees of the Linen and Hempen Manufacturers of Ireland inspection by Peter Bresnand (1817), there was only one bleaching green left in Co. Wexford, run by a Mr Wheatly at Gorey.
A William Atkins was proprietor of the only bleaching green in north County Cork, at Mitcheltown.

1826

The Tithe Applotment records show that the tithe paying Atkin/s in Coolamain, Ballynaslaney 1826 were

• John
• Christopher – Son of Samuel ATKINS and Eleanor MURPHY
• Hercules
• Nicholas
• Richard

Hercules ATKIN Esq. was the landholder at Ballyhiland, in the parish of Rossdroit (west of Enniscorthy).

1835

Samuel, a freeholder and miller of Coolamain was registered to vote.

1853

Samuel ATKINS and John ATKINS were lessors in other areas of Ballynaslaney at that time, namely Whitefort, Bleachlands, Mill Lands and Ballyrooaun.

1901

There were no ATKIN/S families in the area, with only six families left in County Wexford.  Note: the number of bleaching greens in Ireland peaked at around 357 in 1787 and by the 1850s there were only 40 left.  The Atkin’s flax mill and linen and bleeching green business would have died out.

Plantation settlers

1. ATKIN of Leadington

• John ATKIN was born 1588 in Parish of Old Cleeve, Minehead, Somerset, England. Married Jane (Unknown surname).
• Leadington became the family seat, in the civil parish of Templenacarriga.
• http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/estate-show.jsp?id=2973

2. ATKINS of Firville

• It is from this branch that Thomas DAVIS more immediately descends.
• These ATKINS are believed to have originated in Givendale, East Yorkshire.
• Richard ATKINS, son of Sir Jonathan ATKINS, the Governor of Guernsey, and his wife Mary HOWARD, daughter of Sir William of Naworth Castle, Cumbria were granted lands in Kerry between 1640-1660.
• They settled in Co. Cork in an area of East and West Creaghkerries that Atkins named Fountainville, near Fermoy.
• Their third son John had one son, another Richard, who married Anne, the only daughter of O’SULLIVAN BEARE of Glennarought. John and Anne’s son John’s forth daughter Mary married James Thomas DAVIS and they had four children the third of whom was Thomas Osborne DAVIS – the poet and Young Irelander.

3. Atkins of Carrigaline (Waterpark) 

• Robert ATKINS of Waterpark, Carrigaline was a relative of Robert ATKINS of Firville. (4)
• Descended from an English arrival granted land at the beginning of the 18th century. 

http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/estate-show.jsp?id=2832

 

References to Rach(a)el Atkin in records

1850 – Witnessed the baptism of  Richard Walsh, son of John WALSH and Ellen ATKIN at Oylegate.

1851 – A Rachel ATKIN lost her 123 acre estate at Ballyhiland, in an encumbered estate sale of November 1851. She had seven tenants. (An encumbered estate was unable to meet its financial (mortgage) obligations in the wake of the Great Famine.) In 1825 one of the  landholders of the townland of Ballyhiland, in the parish of Rossdroit, was Hercules Atkin Esq. 

1855 – Wexford Petty Sessions.   A James Cullen, tailor, charged that a Mrs Ellen Welch and a Miss Rachel Atkin of Ballnaslaney had both stolen apples of a value not exceeding forty shillings (£2.00, over £200.00 today).  A Jane Atkin was a witness for the complainant, Cullen.   The complaint was dismissed ‘on the merits and without costs.’

1856 – Witnessed the baptism of Maria and John’s Davis’s son George at Ballymore.

I am currently working on the premise that Rachel ATKIN and Ellen (Atkin) WALSH  were sisters or comrades in arms!  They seem likely to have been sisters or cousins of our Maria and her probable brother John.  The Rachel who lost her estate may have been an aunt, and is likely to have been the widow of Hercules – a Hercules ATKIN married a Rachel Kelly in 1797.
Rachel is a known family name appearing in the WADDING descendants and Eve ‘Fluffy’ (Glancy) O’DONOVAN referenced a Rachel ATKIN link in her 1980s correspondence.

 

http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/search/tab/results.jsp?surname=Atkins&firstname=&county=Wexford&townland=&parish=&search=Search&sort=&pageSize=&pager.offset=0

(1) The Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald Feb 8 1851

(2) The 15^th Royal Foot was first raised in 1685 in Nottingham and changed names over the years.  It served in Scotland and what we now know as Belgium, before first arriving in Ireland in 1697.  In the early 1700s it served in the low countries and France, later Great Britain and by the mid-century in the Caribbean and more latterly America and Canada. It returned to Ireland in 1749, 1774, 1784, 1800, 1822, 1843.

At Christopher Atkins time it would have been known as the 15th (The Yorkshire East Riding) Regiment of Foot.  It spent the 19^th century mostly on garrison duty.

I have not found any record of Christopher and the 15th Foot on Ancestry. Kew holds records of the Militia enrolment lists for Wexford:

(ref) Registry of Deeds

[3] In March 1807 the Wexford Herald ran an advertisement “Linens taken in a H. Boswell, Hosier, Main Street, for William Atkins Bleach Green, Coolamain. All care to be taken of garments.”

(4) I include this family, given Eve ‘Fluffy'(Glancy) O’Donovan’s reference to her grandfather John DAVIS’s claim that his ancestors funded a protestant church in Carrigaline. 

 

Note:

I am DNA related to an ATKIN who believes himself to be the direct descendent of the first Coolamain Samuel ATKIN. This may be our connection but as yet I am hesitant to call this as sufficient proof given his family also originated in County Cork and we have another family name in common.

I have other Wexford DNA relatives the relationship with whom I am still trying to nut out.