V is for volume

One of my 5th great grandfathers was James Cavenagh (c. 1702 – 1769), a gauger [exciseman] at Graiguenamanagh on the River Barrow, ten miles or so southeast of Kilkenny.

View of Graiguenamanagh and the church from the River Barrow. Photograph taken 1997 by Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 3.0, retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

Researching James Cavenagh led me to ‘Postscript to a Graiguenamanagh gauger’s stockbook’ by Edward J Law, which appeared in the 2012 “Old Kilkenny Review“, pp. 61–65.

The article was not online, so I wrote to the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, which kindly emailed me a copy. Law’s Graiguenamanagh gauger was indeed James Cavenagh. Much of the information for the article, based on research by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh in the early 1900s, had been provided by my cousin Diana Beckett. The 2012 article was a follow-up to ‘An eighteenth-century Graiguenamanagh gauger’s stockbook’, published in the Old Kilkenny Review in 2011, also by Edward Law. The Kilkenny Archeological Society librarian also kindly sent me a scan of this. (Edward Law was the Society’s honorary librarian in 2011 and 2012.)

The notebook, of two hundred pages, is in the archive of the Kilkenny Archeological Society. The first 30 folios of the stock book were used for the intended purpose and contain notes relating to the Excise service. The rest of the book was used by James Cavenagh for personal memoranda.

Kilkenny District Thos Town Walk 1737

This stock book containeth 92 pages is for the use of the Division
Com[mencing] March 19th & ends ye 24th of March following 1737

Signed Jas Cavenagh gaugr and per Mark Usher surveyr

• 

• 

• 

Images of the notebook from the 2011 article by Edward J. Law

“Excise duties were imposed by acts of Parliament and collected in accordance with the regulations. The officers employed in collecting the inland excise, the main revenue in a district, were the collector, surveyor and gauger. Each district was divided into ‘walks’, with a gauger assigned to each walk. The gauger went round his walk twice a week taking account of all brewing activity, and the quantity and type of liquor being brewed. He measured all brewed substances in gallons, by which measurement duty was charged to the brewer. Once a month the surveyor visited each gauger’s walk, taking account of the brewings, and the quality and quantity, which he compared with the gauger’s accounts. If the accounts tallied, the gauger and surveyor signed and returned them to the collector, who assessed the duty payable per gallon, and charged the duty upon the brewer.” [McGrath, Charles Ivar Vincent. ‘The Irish Revenue System: Government and Administration, 1689-1702.’ PhD thesis, University of London, 1997. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30695631.pdf]

The notebook has readings three times a week for the town of Graiguenamanagh. Barrels, probably of beer, were counted as were stocks of tobacco. Permits were issued to carry wines and spirits to various towns and villages, individuals, houses, and fairs. The permits were for brandy, rum, French wines, Spanish wines, sack [white fortified wine], shrub [a fruit liqueur], canary [from the Canary Islands], and claret [red Bordeaux wine]. Sometimes the permits mentioned vinegar and sugar. The quantities were in:

•      Hampers of up to six dozen bottles
•      Jars of 2 ½ gallons
•      Caggs [kegs?] of 9 – 18 gallons
•      Casks 43 – 94 gallons
•      Hogsheads 68 – 103 gallons
•      Tierces [an old measure of capacity equivalent to one third of a pipe, or 42 wine gallons] for vinegar
•      Roules [rolls] for Irish tobacco of 12 to 24 pounds
•      There were also bags 100 – 224 pounds and hogsheads of 400 – 920 pounds

On folio 25 of the notebook, James Cavenagh recorded some notes about his family:

•      Elizabeth Lindsay born 16.1.1717 was married to her 17.10.1732 she died 17.4.1734
•      I was married to Ann Lane 20.7.1735
•      Kildare born 24.4.1736
•      Mary Cavenagh born 21.8.1737
•      Matthew Cavenagh born 22.10.1738
•      Wentworth born 18.6.1740
•      Jane born 20.4.1741
•      Margaret born 30.4.1742
•      Ann Cavenagh died 9.6.1742
•      I was married to Elizabeth Archdekin 12.2.1747
•      Langrishe Cavenagh born 26.11.1748
•      Ann Cavenagh born 15.2.1750
•      Wentworth born 17.11.1752 new stile

Some of these names and dates are new to me. I look forward to researching my new relatives and adding them to my family tree.

The notebook also includes the placing out of James’s children as apprentices or servants. For example, on 15 June 1747 Margaret was placed with Mrs Richmond at 2s 0d per quarter. Matthew was entered for a second time with Mr Richmond on 27 August 1744 and with Mr Connors 17 July 1750.

The notebook also records income from the letting of property, details of his tenants, and sales of hay and grass. It has details of female employees, presumably maid-servants, with names, commencement dates, and payment It also records payments for shoes, clothing, and various goods and services.

The document is very interesting and I am pleased it has been preserved and researched by the Kilkenny Archaeological Society.

Related posts

• G is for Graignemanach
• L is for Anne Cavanagh nee Lane
• I is for Innishannon
• THE CAVENAGHS OF KILDARE by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh

Wikitree: James (Cavanagh) Cavenagh (abt. 1702 – 1769)

L is for Anne Cavanagh nee Lane

Two of my fifth great grandparents were James Cavenagh and his second wife Anne Cavanagh nee Lane (? – 9 June 1742). An inscription on the family gravestone at the Abbey Graiguenamangh Co. Kilkenny records their names.

Graiguenamangh tombstone 2002

Anne Cavanagh nee Lane died 9 June 1742. She was the second wife of James Cavenagh as mentioned on Inscription on the tombstone of the family vault at the Abbey Graiguenamangh Co Kilkenny. They married about 1735. James and Anne are two of my fifth great grandparents.

James’s first wife Elizabeth had died, childless, in 1734.

James and Anne had at least three children:

• Kildare 1736 –  1769
• Matthew 1740 – 1819
• Margaret married John Howard in 1779

After Anne’s death, James married a third time, to Elizabeth Archdeacon. This marriage produced at least six children.

In his notes on the Cavenagh family Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh records an Indenture dated 15th December 1736 between Henry Agar of Gowran, Co Kilkenny Esquire and James Kavenagh of Graig, Co Kilkenny gent, letting dwelling house, Mault house and 3 ½ acres of land known as Tillots holding at Graiguenamanagh to James Kavenagh for lives of himself, Ann Kavenagh, his wife, and Kildare Kavenagh, his eldest son.

 From this it appears that James and Anne were married about 1735 and that Kildare was born about 1736.

The deed was registered 9 December 1741 and is found in the Irish Registry of Deeds at volume 104 page 24 memorial number 72851 and can be viewed through FamilySearch.

Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh also compiled notes on The Lanes of Lanes Park County Tipperary. He appears to believe that Anne, wife of James Cavenagh, was the daughter of Ambrose Lane of Lanes Park, who died 1724.  He suggests that Anne was the person also known as Amey, daughter of Ambrose’s second wife. (Lanes Park is near New Birmingham and Killenaule, barony Slievardagh, Co Tipperary.)

lane-by-wocDownload

Ambrose Lane married twice. By his first wife, Eleanor Gabbitt, he had three sons: John, Ambrose and Thomas, and three daughters: Eleanor, Sarah, and Mary. By his second wife Amey Ladyman he had a son Samuel and a daughter Amey.

Ambrose married Amey Ladyman in 1721 (Ireland Diocesan And Prerogative Marriage Licence Bonds Indexes for the Diocese of Cashel and Emly). In his will dated 17 December 1724 Ambrose mentions his children Samuel and Amey by his second wife. Amey Lane appears to have been born between 1721 and 1724.

If Amey Lane is indeed the Anne Lane who married in 1735 she must have married and had a child when she was only 14 or 15.

I have found no documents that show Anne Cavenagh nee Lane to be the daughter of Ambrose Lane. There appears to be no marriage settlement, for example. And it is perhaps worth noting that Killenaule Co. Tipperary is about 60 kilometers from Graiguenamangh Co. Kilkenny. Who knows how Amey Lane and Matthew Cavenagh met?

Map showing Killenaule and Graiguenamangh

Wikitree:

• Anne Cavanagh nee Lane
• James Cavenagh
• Ambrose Lane

Related posts

• THE CAVENAGHS OF KILDARE by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh
• G is for Graignemanach

Bridge crossing the River Barrow linking the town of Graiguenamanagh in Co Kilkenny with Tinnahinch in Co Carlow. Image from geograph.org

I is for Innishannon

Two of my thirty-two 4th great grandparents, both Irish, were Matthew Cavenagh (1740 – 1819) and Catherine Hyde Cavenagh nee Orfeur (c. 1748 – 1814). They married in 1765 or thereabouts.

Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh writes in his “Cavenaghs of Kildare” that Matthew and Catherine were wards of a certain Lord Loftus, from whose castle they eloped. One story has it that they were so young and inexperienced that they dismissed the waiter from the parlour of the inn they were staying at rather than display their inability to carve a fowl put before them for their dinner.

Lord Loftus was probably Nicholas Loftus, 1st Viscount Loftus (c 1687 – 1763), elevated to the peerage as Baron Loftus, of Loftus Hall in County Wexford in the Peerage of Ireland on 5 October 1751. Loftus Hall, since rebuilt, is on the Hook Peninsula, County Wexford.  Innshannon, County Cork, is a hundred miles southwest along the coast.

Shortly after Matthew and Catherine’s marriage they lived at Innishannon, Co Cork, where, in 1766, their son James Gordon Cavenagh was born. Catherine, it seems, was a minor at the time of their marriage. Matthew was probably an adult at law.

Catherine Orfeur was the daughter of John Orfeur (1695-1753) of Drillingstown [Dreelingstown], Kilkenny, a Captain in General Phineas Bowles’s regiment of horse, later known as “the Carabiniers” or 6th Dragoon Guards.  Born in Sussex, John Orfeur had settled in Ireland.

In a 1766 deed partitioning the Drillingstown property between his wife and her two sisters Matthew Cavenagh is styled ‘of Innishannon, gentleman’.

An agreement for the division of Drillingstown between Thomas Weston of Clonmell co Tipperary and Dorothy Weston, otherwise Orfeur, his wife of the 1st part, Lieutenant George Waters of the Guernsey Man of war and Mary Waters his wife, otherwise Orfeur, of the 2nd part, Mathew Cavenagh of Innishannon Co Cork and Catherine Cavenagh, otherwise Orfeur, his wife, of the 3rd Part. Whereas Captain John Orfeur late of Drillingstown, Co Wexford, died some years ago intestate, leaving the said Dorothy, Mary and Catherine, his only children, upon whom the interests of Drillingstown estate devolve share and share alike: in order to save law proceedings for a writ of partition, they agree that the said lands be divided amicably between them, the Westons to receive 67 acres, the Waters 68 acres and the Cavenaghs 84 acres, being the worst land. Signed and sealed by the above named parties, 16 May, 1766.

transcribed by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh

Matthew Cavenagh and his father James (1702 – 1769) held office in the Irish Customs as ‘gaugers‘ (customs inspectors), and it is possible that it was in connection with his Customs appointment that he and Catherine were living at Innishannon.

Matthew and Catherine Cavenagh returned to Wexford, where they lived in Back Street (now known as Mallin Street), a fashionable part of the town.

Matthew and Catherine had 15 children, named on the couple’s tombstone at St Patrick’s Abbey Wexford.

Related posts

• O is for Orfeur
• THE CAVENAGHS OF KILDARE by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh
• G is for Graignemanach

Wikitree:

• Matthew Cavenagh
• Catherine Orfeur
• John Orfeur
• James Cavenagh

G is for Graignemanach

Some of my Cavenagh forebears are buried in a family vault at the Abbey Graignemanach or Graiguenamangh County Kilkenny. Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh (1856 – 1935), one of my first cousins three times removed, transcribed the gravestone in 1891. In his family history notes WOC stated the stone was in the pathway leading to the north transept door and was moved 3 feet nearer to the church in 1906.

Underneath are interred the bodies of Wentworth Cavanagh of Ballynomona in the County of Kildare, who died November 1752, James Cavanagh of Graig, who departed this life May 4th, 1769, also the bodies of Elizabeth Lindsay (said James’ first wife) who died April 7th, 1734, Anne Lane, his second wife who died 9th June 1742, and of Elizabeth Archdeacon his third wife, who died 18th March 1787. Underneath are likewise interred several of his children by Elizabeth his third wife, viz Mary, wife of Robert Carpenter of Ross who died April 16th 1787, of Arthur Cavanagh who died the 19th December 1797, and of Wentworth Cavanagh of Ross, who died the 20th August 1793 : also Harriet wife of said Wentworth Cavanagh who died in June 1786.

Later, a footpath was made over it, and in 2002 several Cavenagh cousins arranged for a stone with the same inscription to be placed at the Abbey.

Graiguenamanagh  tombstone 2002 – photograph from Diana Beckett

Wentworth Cavenagh (1675 – 1752) was one of my sixth great grandfathers. He was born at Athy, County Kildare and baptised 22 August 1675 at St Michael’s Athy as Wenford Cavenor, son to Mr James Cavenor of Grangemellon.

The following christenings are recorded at Athy parish:

• Wentworth Kavanagh, baptized Athy 23 Sept 1704, died an infant. Son of Wentworth Kavanagh of Ballynomona.
• Kennedy Kavanagh 16 September 1706, parent Wentworth Kavanagh
• Isabella Cavenagh 22 April 1707, parent Wentworth Cavenagh. She was buried 22 April 1709, infant daughter of Wentworth Kavanagh of Ballynomona

Wentworth Cavenagh was active in the parish:

• Signature of Went. Kavanagh amongst other names of parishioners at Vestry held in St Michael’s Athy Oct ye 27^th 1703.
• Wentworth Cavenagh elected sidesman 1706.
• The Minister and churchwardens and Parishioners have confirmed the grant made by Wentworth Cavanagh of half his seat to James Ross. Witnessed by Fran Moore Minister, April 25^th 1707

Map showing Athy, Ballynamony, Kilkea castle and Grangemellon from Google maps

Ballynamony is about 12 kilometers south-east of Athy. From the glossary of words commonly found in Irish place names: baile townland, town, homestead; móin(also: mónaidh) bogland. Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh wrote in the late 1920s:

a portion of the Kilkea castle estate and was held by George, Earl of Kildare, a Protestant, in 1654.  A lease for 3 lives was granted Wentworth Cavenagh of Ballynamony gent by Robert Earl of Kildare in Jany 1724. The lives not being renewed by Mathew Cavenagh of the town and county of Wexford, the estate lapsed to the FitzGeralds. The house once a fairly substantial one is now reduced to be an ill kept farmstead. It is situated about one mile to the NE of the Kilkea demesne, just off the road passing thro Ballynamony bridge.  On the left bank River Greese: to the east of Kilkea Castle.

Google street view of the countryside close to Ballynamony

Kilkea Castle from Antiquities of Ireland by Francis Grose 1792 retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

The abbey at Graiguenamangh is 60 kilometers south of Athy and Ballynamony and seems a long way away. However, Wentworth Cavenagh’s son, James, had been appointed a guager, a customs collector for the canals and waterways. 

Bridge over River Barrow at Graiguenamangh . Photograph from geograph.org

Athy and Graiguenamangh are both on the River Barrow , an inland link between the port of Waterford and the Grand Canal, which connects Dublin to the River Shannon.  In the mid-18th century it became a commercial navigation route, with Graiguenamanagh serving as a base for commercial barges operating on the river.

James Cavenagh acquired Tillots Holding at Graiguenamanagh  in 1736 on a lease of lives renewable for ever, the head rent being paid to Lord Clifden. Tillots Holding consisted of a house, malthouse, and 2 ½ acres of land.  

Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh writing in the late 1920s records that the house had “been let for some years past to the Roman Catholic priests of the Abbey” and that “it is now known as the ‘Priests house’…[standing] opposite the little gate of the churchyard leading to the north door of the Abbey.”

The north of Duiske Abbey at Graiguenamanagh from Google street view. Perhaps James Cavenagh’s house is to the left of the photo.

Duiske Abbey at Graiguenamanagh had been founded in 1204. The Abbey was suppressed under Henry VIII in 1536. Following the dissolution the abbey church continued to be used as a local place of worship. The Church of Ireland re-roofed the west end after the tower collapsed into the nave in 1744. The church was returned to the Roman Catholic community in 1812 and restoration was completed in the 1980s.

Graignemanach Abbey. From The antiquities of Ireland by Francis Grose 1791, at archive.org.

Related posts

• THE CAVENAGHS OF KILDARE by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh

Wikitree: Wentworth Cavenagh and James Cavenagh