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Shane, again, many thanks. i didn't know that "births" would be registered in Rathdrum. Things are done quite a bit differently than here in the U.S.; thus its hard to figure out all the relationships, townland, parish, etc....

I saw as you did that the 1901 and 1911 census have different "ages"..seems strange, but again i don't know the political or cultural things that might cause that kind of discrepancy on the census. From what I "think", Mary Anne "wrote" in the information on the census forms and signed them....and she indicated she knows how to read and write so i "assume" that she would know those dates very specifically.

But with all that said, Mary Anne and the kids are "Laurence's" wife and offspring. Still living where he left them when he died.

You noted, again as I recently learned, that the 1854 "Griffiths valuation report" has Laurence Byrne living at this same Ballinagappogue address then.  This is Laurence's father--the 1st husband of Anna (Doyle).

What I'm thinking is that Laurence (Senior) and his wife Anna (Doyle) lived there, had Laurence (junior) c 1852, then Laurence senior died around 1861; Anna married her 2nd husband, James O'Brien around 1863.  Did he move in with her on the Byrne family farm?   Laurence the III (son of the junior) returned to this same house from America c 1890 and died there in 1896. Does this make this a likely farm property that stayed in the byrne family...even when Anna married her 2nd husband?
They (Anna and James O'Brien had three more kids, all O'Brien's including my great great grandfather Peter J. O'Brien in July 1864.

My Great grandmother, Anna (Doyle) married Laurence Byrne and had three children prior to 1862. Two sons: Laurence (b: 1852) and James M Byrne (b: june 1861); the daughter's name remains  unknown. When mr. Byrne died, Anna (Doyle) Byrne married James O'Brien (my great grandfather). Anna had three more children with Mr. O'Brien, all boys; one was my grandfather Peter J. O'Brien (b: July 1864) .  All 6 children were born in Ireland in wicklow or dublin counties.

Anna (Doyle) and Mr. O'Brien along with "her" 6 children (3 Bryne from 1st marriage & 3 O'Brien children from 2nd marriage) came to United States reportedly between 1868 and 1872. She settled in New York state.

Mr O'Brien, as in James, Anna's 2nd  husband died a few years after arriving in the U.S (c 1875).  He reportedly was a farmer and owned land in New York state.

James M. Byrne (d: 1930) & Peter J O'Brien (d:1943) are 1/2 brothers via their mother Anna (Doyle). These two boys lived as "adults" in the Madison, Wisconson area. Their mother (Anna) and the one sister and two brothers (both O'Brien's) continued their lives in New York state.

Jame's older brother Laurence was the 1st to move to Wisconsin as an adult. He was followed by James soon thereafter. There they bought 120 acres of land together in the mid to late 1880's, as is noted on a 1890 Fitchburg township plat map (dane County). This farm land remained in the Byrne family for better than 100 years; they sold it in the late 1990's.

Laurence, James M Byrne & Peter J. O'Brien's brother eventually left the United States and returned to Ireland. He died on October 11, 1896. Decendants of James M. Byrne have the original copy of this deathbed last will and testament. He died in "Ballinagappogue, Aughrim, county Wicklow, Ireland".

The importance of where and when Laurence died, since he returned to ireland, is that no modern day "Byrne" or "O'Brien" family member from Wisconsin know whatever happened to the New York Byrne & O'Brien family members, nor where exactly "we" collectively came from in Ireland.

So my thought has been to follow "laurence byrne" back to ireland thinking he was returning to an area familiar to him when he was a child--recalling that he was born in 1852--which then made him 16 to 20 years old when the family immigrated.

I need contacts for Aughrim area Doyle, Byrne and or O'Brien family.

trust me, that was the short version!