W is for Wexford

When in 1765 or thereabouts my 4th great grandparents Matthew Cavenagh (1740 – 1819) and Catherine Hyde Cavenagh nee Orfeur (c 1748 – 1814) were married, they first lived in Innishannon, a large village in Co. Cork. Sometime in the 1770s they moved to Wexford, a seaport on St George’s Channel, where they lived in Back Street, now known as Mallin Street, at that time a fashionable part of the town.

Like his father James (1702 – 1769) before him, Matthew Cavenagh held office in the Irish Customs as a ‘gauger‘ (excise inspector) and later as Surveyor of Excise Wexford. On his death the Accounts and Papers presented to the House of Commons, relating to the Increase and Diminution of Salaries, &c. In the Public Offices of Ireland, in the year ending he first of January 1820 recorded the death of Matthew Cavanagh the previous year. The diminution in salary paid to him as Surveyor of Excise Wexford was 46 pounds.

A family story has it that in 1793 when a large body of men demanding the release of two prisoners approached Wexford, Matthew Cavenagh accompanied the commander of the garrison in the hope of using his influence to prevent bloodshed. When, near the entrance to the town, the commander was piked by the insurgents, Cavenagh was at his side. While Wexford was in the hands of the rebels Matthew and his family were in danger of their lives.

They were hidden, however, by the Roman Catholic bishop and passed safely through the crisis. The 1793 rebellion is sometimes called the first Irish rebellion. In 1798 there was a second rebellion, centred on County Wexford, against British rule. In this rebellion the town of Wexford was held by the United Irishmen (republican insurrectionists). It was the scene of a ghastly massacre of local loyalists by the United Irishmen, who executed them with pikes on Wexford Bridge.

I do not know what role, if any, Matthew Cavenagh had in the 1793 rebellion. It is worth noting, perhaps, that there were Catholics among the United Irishmen and Protestants among the opponents.

Matthew’s oldest son James Gordon Cavenagh became a surgeon and joined the British army. He lived in Hythe, near Folkestone, at the barracks there. About 1837 he returned to Wexford, where he lived at Castle House.

James Gordon Cavenagh’s son – my great great grandfather, Wentworth Cavenagh (1821 – 1895) – was educated at Ferns Diocesan School in Wexford.

Extracts from the “Topographical Dictionary of Ireland” by Samuel Lewis, 1837(retrieved through Ireland Reaching Out):

WEXFORD, a sea-port, borough, market, post, and assize town, in the barony of FORTH, county of WEXFORD, and province of LEINSTER, 74 miles (S.) from Dublin and 30 ¼ (E. N. E.) from Waterford; containing 10,673 inhabitants. This town, which, as far as can be inferred from the earliest historical notices respecting it, was a maritime settlement of the Danes, is thought to have derived its name, which was anciently written Weisford, from the term Waesfiord (Washford), which implies a bay overflowed by the tide, but left nearly dry at low water, like the washes of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire.

… the entry in the history of the town includes the following:

After the battle of the Boyne, the town declared for William III. and was garrisoned by his troops. In 1793, a large body of the peasantry proceeded thither to rescue some Whiteboy prisoners: on their approach, a detachment of the garrison was sent out to disperse them, the commander of which, Captain Valloton, having ridden in advance of his men, for the humane purpose of expostulating with the insurgents on their conduct, was cut down by a scythe: a monumental obelisk erected on the Windmill hill commemorates this deplorable event.

… under schools of the town:

The Diocesan School for the See of Ferns, situated to the north of the town, on the road from Ferry-Carrigg, was built in 1800, at the expense of the county, on a piece of ground leased by the late R. Neville rent-free for 30 years, with a right reserved of charging it with a rent not exceeding £50 per annum at the end of that period, which has not since been demanded by the present proprietor, Sir W. R. P. Geary, Bart. The school has accommodation for 40 boarders and 6 daily pupils, and has a large play-ground attached: the master receives a salary of £70, paid by the bishop and the beneficed clergy of the diocese: an additional salary of £100 was paid by the corporation until the discontinuance of the payment of tolls.

About 1840, when he was 18 years old, Wentworth Cavenagh travelled to Canada, Ceylon, and Calcutta. From Calcutta he came to Australia.

Matthew Cavenagh, his son James Gordon, and some other members of the Cavenagh family are buried in a family vault in the ruins of St Patrick’s Wexford.

My cousin Diana Beckett kindly shared with me her photographs of Castle House, the family vault, and some watercolours by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh dating from 1905 and 1906. Castle House was pulled down in the 1930s. Some parts of its wall remain.

Image of Castle House from the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage

1906 sketch by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh of Castle House, Wexford

The Castle, Wexford, from the Lawrence Photograph Collection in the National Library of Ireland. Image Courtesy of the
National Library of Ireland.

Wexford city walls by the former Castle House; the shed was built over the wall of the house.

1905 sketch by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh of the family vault at St Patrick’s Wexford

The Cavenagh family vault in the ruins of St Patrick’s photographed in 1998 by Diana Beckett

In 1998 Diana and her mother cleaned up the tombstone but it is probably overgrown again now.

Related posts

• I is for Innishannon
• THE CAVENAGHS OF KILDARE by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh
• Surgeon James Gordon Cavenagh at Waterloo
• N is for neighbours
• 1892 journey on the Ballaarat

Wikitree:

• Matthew Cavenagh (1738 – 1819)
• James Gordon Cavenagh (abt. 1766 – 1844)
• Wentworth Cavenagh (abt. 1821 – 1895)

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)

O is for outlaw

In the six years following the ‘Irish Rebellion’ of 1641, upwards of two thousand Irishmen were outlawed, among them my 8th great grandfather Dennis Cavenagh (c. 1620 – after 1685).

Dennis Cavenagh is named in two depositions associated with the County Kildare rebellion 1641, part of a collection held by Trinity College Dublin.

Part of the deposition by Henry Peirse of Clane

• Thomas Leigh of Killeclone, co Kildare, deposed 19 January 1642 that losses were inflicted on him by Dennes Cavenagh of Clane, William Fitzgerald of Blackhall, Esqres, and Martin Nangle gent. The total loss valued at £1296. [This was a large sum of money. A historic currency converter suggests that £1296 in 1641 was roughly the equivalent of £297,000 pounds today.]
  • (Deposition of Thomas Leigh, 19/1/1642, 1641 Depositions, Trinity College Dublin, MS 813, fols 223r-223v, http://1641.tcd.ie/index.php/deposition/?depID=813223r152.)
• Henry Peirse of Clane, Co Kildare, gent, sworn 5 March 1642 states that in December last he was robbed and spoyled of his goods and chattels by WilliamFitzgerald of Blackhall in the same county Esqre, Oliver Wogan of ffersnston (fferanston ?) in the same county, Maurice Eustace of Moone, Nicholas FitzJames als FitzGerald of Clane, Lewes Moore of the same, and Dennys Cavenagh of the same, and Dominick 0 of the same, tailor, with divers others whose names petitioner knoweth not, total loss valued at £1173 [estimated £270,000 pounds today].
  • (Deposition of Henry Peirse, 5/3/1642, 1641 Depositions, Trinity College Dublin,   MS 813, fols 384r-384v, http://1641.tcd.ie/index.php/deposition/?depID=813384r320.)

A burning house at the time of the 1641 Rebellion

Some of the places mentioned in the depositions are shown in red as is the town of Athy

The name ‘Dennis Cavenagh’ was included on a list of outlaws promulgated on 19 November 1642 at Athy, County Kildare

… indicted of treason in the King’s Bench Dublin in Hillary Term 17th Charles Rex 1641, and outlawed thereupon:

• Co. Kildare Cavenagh Dionisius of Clane gent.

The depositions do not seem to accuse Cavenagh and associates of treason. However, given the timing, the inclusion of Peirse‘s and Leigh’s depositions in the Trinity College collection, and Cavenagh being named as an outlaw, it seems the robbery of Henry Peirse and Thomas Leigh by Dennis Cavenagh and others was part of the rebellion. Henry Peirse / Persse is I believe Anglo-Irish and one of the Persse family which were the subject of a 2016 book “The Persse Family of County Galway Genealogy and History, 1554-1964” by Gerry Kearney. The book blurb states “Revd Edward Persse and his brother, Henry, were fortunate to survive the worst excesses of the 1641 rebellion.”

In 1652, in an attempt to settle Ireland and bring the troubles to an end, the English Parliament passed legislation punishing owners of Irish land who had been involved in the 1641 rebellion. If they had played a major part they were dispossessed entirely. For a minor role they forfeited a proportion of their land. For this forfeiture they were to be recompensed by grants of land west of the Shannon, where they were to be given an area equal to the proportion they were entitled to retain. This was called transplanting.The province of Connacht and the county of Clare were set aside for the Irish rebels to transplant themselves, their families, dependents, livestock and goods before 1 May, 1654. The penalty for not transplanting was death by hanging. By 1 May 1654, 44,210 names were recorded on certificates of transplantation.

Dennis Cavenagh, almost certainly a Catholic and probably involved to some degree in the rebellion, seems to have been treated fairly leniently. His name does not appear on the list of transplanters, and it seems that after his outlawry he continued to live quietly in the district.

In the church registers of Athy, County Kildare. Dennis Cavenagh’s son James was recorded as a Protestant. The attainder of his father perhaps gave rise to this change in religious affiliation.

Dennis Cavenagh was still living in 1685 as he is is named in his son James’s 1685 will.

The will of James Cavenagh, dated the 8th of March, 1685, was proved in the Prerogative Court at Dublin on the 23rd of April 1686 by Elizabeth, his wife and the Reverend James Moore. James Cavenagh is described as of Grangemellon. He left sixteen pounds to his brother Martin, and one hundred pounds to his wife, to be paid out of a bond for five hundred pounds due by Captain Fitz-Gerald. He directed that what lands were then in the actual possession of his father, Dennis Cavenagh, and of his mother, they were to enjoy the same during their natural lives, with remainder to his son, Wenford [Wentworth]; should he die before his grand-parents, with remainder to Elizabeth, his wife; should she predecease his parents, with remainder to his brother, Martin.

Related posts

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

Wikitree:

• Dennis Cavanagh
• James Cavenagh
• Henry Persse

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

THE CAVENAGHS OF KILDARE by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh

Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh (1856 – 1935), a first cousin of my great grandmother Kathleen Cudmore née Cavenagh (1874 – 1951), was the son of Sir Orfeur Cavenagh (1820 – 1891). He was interested in family history and heraldry and he spent a considerable amount of time researching Cavenagh family history in the Irish National Archives.

W. O. Cavenagh

W.O. Cavenagh presented his research to the Office of Arms in Ireland and the original manuscript and typescript (about 175 pages) is held by the Genealogical Department, Dublin, Ireland; it is much used by Cavenagh family historians. His research has also been microfilmed by FamilySearch.

Other family history documents, including many fine heraldic illustrations, are in the possession of his grand-daughter.

Some of the family history recorded by W.O. Cavenagh

Some of his research on the Cavenaghs of Kildare has been transcribed by another cousin, who has given me permission to share it.

wentysdoc-2Download

Family Search

• Cavenagh, W O. Cavenagh Manuscript. Salt Lake City, Utah: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1949. (Family History Library microfilm 100178.)

Related posts

• A is for arms
• An excursion from Lewes

East to Kent

On Saturday 25 May we drove east from Lewes to Hastings and on to Kent.

We did not visit the battlefield of 1066, because, said Charlotte, “It wasn’t National Trust, and there would have been an entrance fee”. My reasons were different. We had already been to a few battlefields on this trip. They make me sad, and anyway, just visiting the scene of the carnage doesn’t help me to understand its place in history.

We went to Hastings‘s seaside promenade instead, parking opposite a villa with a blue plaque which commemorated Thomas Carlyle’s stay there in 1864. At the time he was working on his twenty-two volume life of Frederick the Great, and doubtless his walks along the seafront aided his reflections. Or perhaps not. His biography has been called a “mythopoeic effort”, which I guess means he strayed from the facts; maybe he was distracted by the ladies in their bathing machines.

 

Carlyle lived here

From Hastings we went on to Rye and Rye Harbour, once important sea-ports but silted up over the centuries by strong tidal flows. In the north-west of Western Australia we have ten-metre tides and there’s not a medieval harbour in sight. Without suitable local ports an Australian prime minister named Robert Menzies was obliged to get himself appointed Lord Warden of the English Cinque Ports.

After Rye we visited the church of St Mary in the Marsh near New Romney. The author Edith Nesbit, whose children’s books I greatly enjoyed as a girl, is buried there.

Romney Marsh

Edith Nesbitt’s grave marker

En route to Hythe we stopped to walk on the sea wall near Dymchurch. There has been a sea wall there since Roman times but the new sea defences were built in 2011.

In Hythe after a bit of searching we found Hay House, where my 3rd great grandfather James Gordon Cavenagh (1770-1844) lived for ten years or so from 1830. He seems to have had quite a temper. There was a gate in the fence between his house and the Royal Staff Corps Barracks next door. In 1830 the Royal Staff Corps decided to remove the gate and close up the fence. Cavenagh took exception to this, and drawing his sword, threatened the men removing the gate. “I’ll run the first man through the body that attempts to touch the palings”. There was a brawl but eventually a fence was erected and the gate removed. When the matter went to court a jury found against Cavenagh and awarded 10 pounds damages. The barracks has since gone and Hay House is all that remains of the site. Now subdivided into flats, it looks a bit run down.

We attempted to visit the local parish church of St Leonard where my great great grandfather Wentworth Cavenagh and his siblings were baptised, but a wedding was about to begin and we couldn’t get in.  It seems to have been a fashionable occasion and the narrow lanes and Einbahnstraßen around the church were choked with well-dressed Poms in Range Rovers trying to find a place to park. We somehow got caught up in the tangle, our fat black Mercedes further disrupting the traffic and Anglo-German relations, until we finally shot out of the mess and promptly got lost. Being lost feels better than knowing where you are and not wanting to be there.

Lunch we had in the garden of the Riverside Inn at Ashford. Low clouds threatening rain made it a dismal meal. Charlotte had scampi and Peter had a burger; the cider was warm, flat, and sour but not unpleasant. The inn had a few forlorn gum trees, a reminder of home. You had to imagine the strong bright sunshine and cold beer.

cider on tap

gum trees far from home

We spent the afternoon at Sissinghurst, where the gardens were just as beautiful as we remembered them from our 1989 visit. Greg had predicted that the intervening thirty years of tourism would have ruined Sissinghurst. I’m glad to say he was quite wrong.

Lewes: navigating that twitten again – no paint lost thanks to warnings

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An excursion from Lewes

Today, 24 May 2019, we called on one of my Cavenagh cousins. She and her husband live in a beautiful house near Heathfield in East Sussex with their two delightful Springer Spaniels. She very kindly treated us to lunch, which included delicious fresh juice pressed from their own apples and some lovely shortbread. It was a sunny day; we ate on the terrace, with marvellous views over the Sussex countryside.

a Sussex road

My cousin and I are related through the Cavenagh family. Her grandfather, Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh (1856 – 1935) was an accomplished family historian. His father was Orfeur Cavenagh (1820 – 1891), an army general and former Governor of the Straits Settlement,now known as Singapore. When we were there we walked down to look at the bridge across the Singapore River named in Orfeur Cavenagh’s honour. W.O. Cavenagh was a first cousin of my great grandmother Kathleen Cudmore née Cavenagh (1874 – 1951).

W.O. Cavenagh’s family history endeavours included beautiful heraldry, neat handwriting and he documented his sources. I really need to study the photographs I took and explore the Cavenagh branch of my family history further.

After lunch we visited Rudyard Kipling’s home ‘Bateman’s‘, about fifteen miles south of Royal Tunbridge Wells. It was a short visit. He was 5’4”, only half an inch taller than me. His wife was 4’8”, and they had to have their dining room chairs put on blocks. My daughter Charlotte confided to her diary that “It was a much cosier place than some of the grand houses we went to. I liked his library / writing room. I was surprised that many of the guides did not like Rudyard Kipling’s writing but were more fans of the house and the history.”

Batemans

dining room

raised chairs in dining room

dining room

Kipling’s library – writing room

Kipling’s library

A Kipling poem in the garden

Bateman’s Estate is 300 acres

rhododendron

Chooks on a bench near the Mill

 

In the evening Greg and I went for a stroll around Lewes where we were staying in East Sussex. Looking back through the photos I took, I’ve just come across one of a book in a shop window with the title “Five on Brexit Island”, one of a satirical series making fun of present-day fads, especially corporate fads. It is striking how the coronavirus plague has pushed so much of what we took to be ‘present-day’ so quickly into the past. When did anyone last hear about Brexitor the Hong Kong democracy protests?

Harvey’s Brewery on the River Ouse

Lewes Castle

St Thomas à Becket Church

St Thomas à Becket Church

Lewes War Memorial

Lewes War Memorial

a very narrow twitten

helping with furniture removal

a cardboard coffi in a shop window

Five on Brexit Island

 

In a supermarket we bought some Abernethy biscuits. These reminded me of our trip to Scotland. My Taylor and Hutcheson forebears lived in Abernethy, near Perth.

Surgeon James Gordon Cavenagh at Waterloo

A guest post by Diana Beckett; great great granddaughter of James Gordon Cavenagh.

Miniature of James Gordon Cavenagh in the possession of a granddaughter of Lt Col W.O. Cavenagh

 

Lt Col W.O. Cavenagh, (Wentworth Odiarne / WOC / Cousin Wenty) who did extensive research on our Cavenagh ancestry, was the grandson of the surgeon. The latter died in 1844 and WOC was born in 1856, so they never met. However, WOC knew as family tradition related by his father (Gen Sir Orfeur Cavenagh) that the surgeon had served at Waterloo, but was puzzled that he never received the Waterloo medal awarded to all those who served there. This therefore raised the question to later generations as to whether it was indeed true.

J G Cavenagh was the Staff Surgeon of the Royal Staff Corps, a regiment responsible for short term military engineering, which was stationed in Flanders from April to July 1815. The Battle was on June 28th.

In his book “The Bloody Fields of Waterloo”, M.K.H Crumplin, a retired surgeon, medical military historian much involved in Waterloo re-enactments,  meticulously lists all the surgeons present at Waterloo or working with the wounded in the aftermath. Cavenagh is listed on page 157 as a late arrival. Presumably he was not ordered from his Flanders base to the battlefield in time.

On page 148 Crumplin explains that surgeons who arrived late were not awarded the Waterloo medal nor the two years added pension rights.

“There must have been many a military medical man who wished he had been present at this monumental battle. The staff who were there, were mostly surgeons both in regimental and staff posts. Some arrived late and would not receive the coveted Waterloo medal and two years added pension rights.” See Appendix below.

Arriving late, Cavenagh would have worked after the battle in one of the several hospitals in either Brussels or Antwerp where the wounded were treated. We do not know how long he stayed in Belgium but WOC records that sometime after the battle he proceeded to Paris where he was joined by his wife. (GO471 p 29)
An internet search shows that at least 3 officers of the Royal Staff Corps did receive the Waterloo medal.

Cavenagh is also mentioned in the Medico Chirurgical Transactions 1816 (Volume 7, part 1) when he was consulted about an operation on the jaw and mouth of a young drummer. The wound healed and the young man was discharged on August 16th.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=XvK3l9ZKvHsC&pg=PA108

P148 Crumplin Bloody Fields of Waterloo.

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