Hello Marieac/Colette,
Nice to hear from you. I believe that we are cousins - 2nd cousins, if I have it right. Ellen Coyle (Mulcahy)'s mother is our common greatgrandmother. Her name was Elizabeth and she was married to Patrick Coyle from Westmeath who was a kind of haulier. He was born in the 1840s. I can check on the date and let you know in due course.
Apart from Ellen they had other children: Elizabeth Ann (my grandmother), Lilian and Mary (Polly). This is not in age sequence as I have no idea when they were born, apart from Elizabeth (1875). There seems to have been another sister, if I read a photograph correctly. There was also one boy in the family, Patrick, usually known as Pap.
The Coyles had land 'in the north of the county'. This apparently was the area now known as Cremore. Here there were two dairy farms. Behind Hardwicke Street, on the south side, there were some lanes with small cottages, and it was here that the dairy yard was situated.
There was a very nasty situation in the family over inheritance. The land was left to Pap. Presumably it was expected that the girls would marry and their husbands would look after them. However, they conspired to cut Pap out of their lives altogether. It seems they made some kind of pact to stick together on this. However when Ellie (Ellen) and Elizabeth Ann softened their stance and resumed normal contact with their brother, Lilian held firm. This led to another nastiness. My grandmother never spoke again to her sister, although Lilian lived mere paces away in Dorset Street. This lasted for over 60 years. It is singularly unpleasant, and continued into the Monks line where similar situations were not unknown.
Polly, as you know, died in 1914. Elizabeth Ann on 28 Feb 1960. I have no information on Ellie or Lilian, except that Lilian lived beyond 1960. I kick myself that I did not have the interest or knowledge then to get in contact with her. A lot of valuable family history will have died with her. I do know that she married. The joke was that she changed only one letter of her name - from Coyle to Coyne. Do you know if she had any family? If so, they would be our cousins.
I met Ellie on one occasion when she was visiting my grandmother in 46 Hardwicke Street. I remember her as a lady dressing in black, good carriage, although she was using a cane. Perhaps it was just an accessory... She lived in Connacht Street, in Phibsborough. Apart from the child who died young, she had at least two others - two sons, Patrick and James. I have the vaguest recollection of being with my mother, grandmother Eliz. Ann and the wife of one of the Mulcahy sons in the Phoenix Park. I fell on some steps and this rather grand lady put a sticking plaster on the abrasion that I had sustained. That is the total of my information on the Mulcahy family. Obviously I would be delighted to learn more, especially dates of birth/death/marriages etc.
I think I have dates of death for our Coyle greatgrandparents. I think Patrick would have died about 1920. G.grandmother Eliabeth I think would have died before then. There is no mention of her being present at Polly's funeral in 1914. By any
Pap married a lady called Johanna. I have no further information on him.
The taxi driver was correct about the musical house. Elizabeth Ann played piano, organ and violin, and she had soirées Sunday afternoon/evenings. I have inherited that love of music, although I never managed to learn the violin.
Eliz. Ann's husband was Peter Monks who had a cabinetmaking business in Little Denmark Street (covered now by the Ilac Centre). He died in 1929 so I never met him, being born in the 1940s.
If you like, you can PM me. My material on the family is in a state of disarray at present because I am having the family tree drawn up. I will start rearranging the documents and getting them into coherent sequence again.
In the meanwhile I can tell you that you have other cousins in my family line, one of whom comes here from time to time. But I will not go into this on the open board.
I am delighted to meet you here. Perhaps when I am next in Ireland we can meet and show each other the material we have on the family. I would also be very happy to get to know you in a more personal way than on the Rootschat board.
Xotan/Cousin David
