Heather,
I had a wee firtle about for you.
----
There are plenty (!) of documents mentioning men named RA in the UK National Archives.
However none threw up an "old soldier" pensioner, supported by the Chelsea Hospital.
[He would have qualified for help/discharge due either to long service (21+ years) or through being declared unfit to serve further, perhaps because of injury on active service or decrepitude i.e. "worn out"!]
Ref:
www.nationalarchives.gov.ukDocument WO 97/1554 covers the discharges of men with surnames beginning Ada-Exo for the 54th Foot, during 1855-1872. It will be a large box full of groups of papers, one for each man.
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A search of the UGHG (was UHF) databases proved more fruitful.
[It appears to have got its general search capability operational once again, at last.]
They list an entry for a "Richard ASHTON",
in the Irish Will Calendars of 1858-1878.
[So, a will made by such a named person was "proved" in Ireland.
If it was your RA, then he must have died before 1879.]
Sadly, as you are probably aware, almost all of the Irish Wills went up in smoke in the Four Courts building in Dublin in the early 1920s, leaving only the indexes (the calendars) and some memorials in the Registry of Deeds.
However, for Northern counties especially, there is a ray of hope.
A record agent, named Tenison GROVES, wrote up summary extracts from many of the wills made in Ulster.
These are available for consultation at PRONI in Belfast.
Also on 54 LDS microfilms.
Groves, Tenison (Main Author)
Genealogical collection of muster rolls, householders, wills, deeds, parish registers
Families Armstrong-Ball p. 502-1328
FHL BRITISH Film 258472
----
The UGHG also have a research file on a Richard ASHTON.
This is work that someone commissioned them to perform.
You could try requesting a copy.
However you may draw a blank.
Currently they "indicate the existence of such reports only
in order to make customers aware of what is possible"!
[They are trying to attract funding for work to enable
such reports to be accessed online - presumably for a fee.]
Ref:
www.ancestryireland.com----
The CoI building in Randalstown is situated on the edge of the town.
[With the unusually-shaped "Oval" edifice of the "Old" Pb congregation's Meeting House located immediately opposite.]
These lie to the West of the town, so may be (just) inside the townland of Tannaghmore.
----
Lord O'NEILL was Colonel of the Antrim Regiment of Militia.
[This would have been formed during "Volunteer" times (early 1780s) to protect the land while the American war was active (1774-1783), then reformed once again when the Napleonic wars broke out in 1793.]
He built a parade ground and barracks in 1816.
These buildings were on the East side of Randalstown.
The barracks were atypical, looking more like a row of houses.
Its accomodation was designed for his staff to live in, together with their families, after the force was disembodied following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.
Some of these facilities were still in a reasonable state of repair in the 1830s, and may have been in use still 40 years later.
Perhaps RA was stationed in Ulster during his soldiering career, meeting his wife there, requesting later that his name be put down to be allocated one of the houses in his old age.
Perhaps the idea was to be near to his wife's family homelands.
[Given the fixed location of the barracks, these may not necessarily have been conveniently closeby.]
Ref: Parish of Drummaul (pps 33-93), especially P. 43, in ...
ORDNANCE SURVEY
MEMOIRS OF IRELAND
PARISHES OF COUNTY ANTRIM VI
1830, 1833, 1835-38
South-West Antrim
Vol. 19
1993
Angelique Day & Patrick McWilliams eds.
Institute of Irish Studies, QUB
ISBN 0 85389 458 2 ppb ~£8.75
----
There were a lot of MOOREs about!
All the best with your researches.
John
