Address/RC church questions. And Gordon (or Gordan) Street, Ringsend?

[CiJaNiPa]

New member, first post. 

I am new to ancestry research and am not familiar with Ireland's geography, although I am learning more about both as I go.

Currently I am trying to find the link between a second and some third cousins in my husband's family. The 2nd cousin's grandparents are from Dublin, and the third cousins' family is from the western part of County Meath. In putting together pieces of the County Meath family puzzle, I came to a woman, Catherine Molloy, who married a John Reilly in Kildalkey, Co. Meath, but they moved to Dublin and had children there. I found a record of Catherine and 5 of their children in the North Dublin Union Workhouse. 4 of those children died in the workhouse in a two-month timeframe, and the oldest one, John Reilly Jr., was discharged with his mother. (The record says they had 6 children, however, so I don't know if they had another child that stayed behind with her husband, or if the sixth one had already died prior. I would think John was their oldest since he was named after the father.) I also don't know if they had any other children after Catherine was discharged. Their address was listed as 68 Church St. It looks like their oldest son listed in the Workhouse record was baptized 23 May 1839 at St. James. It's the only baby with his name and parents' names that would match up with the fact that he was 7 years old at the NDU Workhouse. But it looks like a younger son, Thomas, was baptized 4 May 1843 and it looks like it was at St. Michan. Forgive my ignorance, but would this mean the family moved between births of their children, or not necessarily? When I look up baptisms with the last name Reilly and mother name Catherine Molloy, I get a mix of churches in Dublin and some results that couldn’t be theirs, so there at least one other John Reilly x Catherine Molloy couple having kids around the same time in Dublin. (Oh, and to top it off, I found that the baptism record of their younger son Michael Joseph has O’Reilly as their surname.)

It’s all very convoluted and frustrating, BUT I don’t want to give up because this could be the connection to my husband’s second cousin. (She has Molloy relatives in 23andme, and is related to the Miggin(s) line in County Meath, so it is very possible.)

Her grandfather is Joseph O’Reilly, who was a nurse child born in Dublin in 1908 (estimate). In 1910, he was admitted into the North Dublin Union Workhouse as a nurse child at 2 years old. That appears to have been his first admission - they sent him to nurse with a woman in the house and to be checked out by a doctor. The only information is he is listed as Roman Catholic and his prior residence upon admission is listed as “Ringsend 36 Gordon Street.” So I thought I would check that out in the census records for perhaps a Reilly or O’Reilly in 1901 or 1911, but nothing comes up at all for a Gordon or Gordan Street as an existing location. I'm not sure why?

Even if Joseph O’Reilly is not *the* cousins connection I am looking for, even if he is not related to Catherine Molloy and John Reilly, he is indeed the second cousin’s grandfather. I know because when he was discharged from the Workhouse it was with the Lynch family in Finglas. He is listed in the 1911 census as a nurse child living with them, but he was ultimately adopted by them. When he grew up and got married, he listed his father as Thomas Lynch at Tolka Cottages in Finglas, and the marriage record of him to the second cousin’s mother has Joseph “O’Reilly” Lynch as his name, and he gave his children the surname O’Reilly-Lynch. I really want to find out who his parents were, if I can, and what happened to them (if possible). He wasn’t admitted into the workhouse until age 2, so I’m wondering what happened in those first 2 years.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Jamie

[athacliath62]

The street is off Barrow street where Google is based and listed as Gordon Street (South Lots) in 1901 and Gordon St in 1911

St James is south of the Liffey to the west of the city, St. Michans Catholic church is north of the Liffey and near Church Street and also the North Dublin Workhouse. Ringsend and Barrow street are well to the east, and south of the Liffey

[Sinann]

Looking on Irish Genealogy I didn't see any Joseph Reilly or Unknown Reilly (registered without a first name) born on Gordon St between 1906 and 1909.
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/civil-search.jsp

[aghadowey]

I would think John was their oldest since he was named after the father.

The eldest son wasn't always named after the father in Ireland.

[CiJaNiPa]

Thank you all for the replies.

First, yes, I think the oldest son of Catherine Molloy and John Reilly was actually Patrick Reilly - born in the year prior to John Reilly, baptized at the same church (St. James).

It is all very tricky trying to find a connection, if any. I know Catherine Molloy was born in Kildalkey and that is where she and John Reilly were married. She was born in 1820 and they married when she was about 15. By the time she was 30 she was at the NDU Workhouse with 5 of 6 children. I'm assuming the Patrick Reilly was the first of the 6. (Don't know if he just wasn't admitted with mother and siblings, or if he had died.) Her occupation was listed as "dairywoman" in the Workhouse document and she lived on Church Street. But I haven't come across death, marriage, or anything for John or Patrick (her sons) or a death record for her husband John. Husband John was born in Co. Meath, but I don't know where, his parents' names, or even when he was born. There is a record of a Catherine Reilly who died in the NDU Infirmary who would have been born the same year she was, and another admission record that might have been her with an address of Wellington Street. But it's hard to track people with the last name Reilly in Dublin and know for certain. 

So that brings me to my next step, which is to see if there is a connection between them and the Lynch family, and/or the Lynch family and Joseph O'Reilly. I know that George Lynch was from Co. Meath and his brother married a woman of the last name Murphy whose mother was a Reilly. George Lynch's maternal grandmother was also a Reilly. Seems like a bit of a stretch, but I think I'm going to tease out some of those Reilly threads in his family just to see.

I'm not going to get my hopes up, though. Thomas Lynch also had a nurse child named Edward Walsh with them in 1911 - not sure if he permanently adopted him or not. There was also a Bridget O'Reilly nurse child a year older than Joseph living in Finglas with a different family (last name Bell). It *looks* like in the 1911 census original handwritten document for the Lynch family there was a name written and erased that looks suspiciously like it might have said "Bridget O'Reilly." But I just don't know.

Although Joseph's prior residence was listed as Gordon Street Ringsend (house number 36 was skipped in the census, so I don't know who could have been fostering him), who knows where he was born. A lot of things can happen in two years' time.

[Abhanliath]

It's vaguely traditional in Ireland that the first son is named after the paternal grandfather and the second after the maternal… or it used to be.
There are a couple of reasons for houses to be skipped in the census. One is that the house is empty at the time; the other (in the 1911 census, anyway) is that the women of the house are feminist and are boycotting the census.
Don't forget to look for names in Irish, too, and (as kind people here have pointed out to me) for people who've put the forename in the surname column and vice versa.

[aghadowey]

Household #36 in 1911, which may or may not be street address, is uninhabited in 1911-
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai000118753/

[Abhanliath]

In the 1910 Thom's Directory, the latest one I have, it doesn't give much help, but it may guide you a little: Gordon-street in Ringsend, in the Pembroke section of the book, consists of two shops, two named residents, a rope-maker (this is the docklands) and two sections of 28 small houses and 44 small houses, with their rateable valuation given.
You might see if you can find anyone voting in Gordon Street at http://databases.dublincity.ie/burgesses/advanced_new.php  though that site is as fiddly as feck.

[CiJaNiPa]

Update and further questions.

So, I found out when Joseph O'Reilly was born and who his mother was. In March 1907, an 18yo single servant named Anne Reilly came in with one-day-old Joseph Reilly. They sent him to nurse by order of the Board and discharged Anne Reilly in June.

The Gordon Street address is where he was boarded out for his first two years (with a woman named Margaret Purfield). So the address given at his admission at age 2 was from a boarded out arrangement and it wasn't his first admission as I had originally thought.

My question now is... I'm not seeing any birth registration or baptism records that could be his. Did the workhouses sometimes not register births or record baptisms?

I was hoping to find some sort of record for him or for his mother. She would have been born in about 1889/1890, but I don't know where. Her address when admitted was 60 Queen Street in Dublin. Don't know where she was before or after that, in census records or otherwise.