Hi everyone
Just been catching up on this thread
I've had no internet this am and been on to BT for the last 1 1/2 hours!....However I digress.
Yes, Carol has identified my man for everyone. There is more to the story which I have only uncovered. John was a tenant of the Drapers Co. The families on this estate struggled for many, many years with bad harvests and large debts accrewed over not only their lifetime but that of their fathers. By the end of the 1800's the Drapers themselves wanted to pull out of their Irish estates and offered to sell the land to the tenant farmers (on 'favourable' terms) through the LPA (Land Purchase Act) many farmers did indeed purchase their property. I had seen the land xfer on the Valuation books and discovered that the land had xfered to a Rose McLoughlin. I had no idea who she was but a family story had described how a neighbouring farmer had agreed to look after the property when the family left (JD dead, Son 1 to Glasgow, Son 2 to England, widow to live with Son 2). The family never returned.
The family that is on the farm on the 1901 census, and I have found through some serious 'sleuthing' was Roseanne McLaughlin a native of Kirley, she was originally a 'Conway' whose father is also a tenant farmer in Kirley. Roseanne went to the States, married and had children. Her husband had been a nightwatch man in NYC and was found dead and his body floating in the Hudson...after which she and her children returned to Kirley. I find them living on the Donnelly farm in 1901 however by 1911 they are gone. Roseanne and children leaving Ireland to return to the USA in the intervening 10 years.
Having gone to PRONI and having looked at all manner of documents. I have just found out John in fact did buy this land off of the Drapers though the LPA scheme some years prior to his death. The LoA do actually mentioned this...and the fact that the wife had 'just sold the land' in 1900 seems to redeem Roseanne and her family (so not land grabbers after all!). So I think John's wife sold the land to Roseanne McLoughlin (or to Roseanne's father Daniel in 1900) but as JD died without a will I think this is why she needed to go through the system to finalise his estate and more importantly sell the farm.
Hope this may clarify the situation some. I have been working on this family for many years, and now feel I could write a book on the Donnelly's of Kirley.
CD