Charles and Catherine (O’)Boyle, Killybegs and Dunkineely

Charles Boyle is buried alongside his wife, Catherine, just inside the gate of Bruckless churchyard; they may have chosen to be buried there rather than in Killybegs so that they would share the grave of children who died young.

He lived his adult life in the area around Dunkineely and Killybegs, but there is a suggestion that he probably came from the Rosses area. Not much else is known of him in our family – he is one of my great-grandfathers – other than the story that at some point as a young man he went to America, and returned with the agency for the Ansonia clock company, and at least a few of those clocks can still be found around the Killybegs area today. He never seems to have been affluent or succeeded brilliantly in any career, and the house he and Catherine shared on St Catherine’s road was a simple enough cottage, but somehow or other at least three of their four daughters had secondary school education as boarders in Strabane and went on to careers in nursing and social work.

Access to civil records online allows us to fill in more details, and these too tell a story of graft and some tragedy.

1895	Marriage	Charles Boyle, a baker, and Catherine Burns are married on the 2nd July in Kilaghtee RC Church. His father is John, a farmer, and her father is Edward, a farmer. His residence at the time of the wedding is Dunkineely, hers is Castletown.
1896	Births	Annie Maria is born on the 2nd November in Dunkineely where her father, Charles, is a shop-keeper. Her mother is Cassie, nee Burns.
1898	Births	Bridget Kathleen Boyle is born on the 3rd February in Dunkineely where her father, Charles, is a shop-keeper. Her mother is Catherine, nee Burns.
1899	Births	Cecilia Margarette is born to Charles O’Boyle, a shopkeeper, and Catherine (nee Burns) on the tenth September 1899. The person who registers the birth is given as Mary O’Boyle.
1901	Census	Charles O’Boyle is 34, his wife Catherine is 30. He is a retired grocer, she is a dressmaker. They are living in Casheltown. A daughter, Cecilia, is aged one.
1901	Census	A three year old girl, Annie M O’Boyle, is staying with her aunt and uncle, Sarah and Edward Burns, at their home, a pub in Dunkineely.
1901	Census	A two year old girl, Bridget K Boyle, is staying with her grandparents, Edward and Mary Burns, at a house in Drumkeelan, Mountcharles.
1901	Deaths	30 May in Dunkineely, Anna Maria Boyle aged four, from Diphtheria and Bronchitis. Registered by her father, Charles Boyle of Casheltown.
1902	Births	The birth of Anne Maria Boyle on 5 September, is recorded. Her father is Charles Boyle, a farmer from Casheltown, her mother is Catherine (nee Burns).
1903	Births	The birth of Sarah Ellen Boyle on the 16 October, is recorded. Her father is Charles Boyle, a farmer from Casheltown, her mother is Catherine (nee Burns). A note in the side of the register states that the surname should have been recorded as O’Boyle, based on information from Edward Burns and Mary Anne Burns, ‘two credible [persons] having knowledge of the truth of the case.”
1906	Births	The birth of Agnes Maud Boyle on the 28 June is recorded. Her father is Charles, a baker in Killybegs. Her mother is Catherine, nee Burns.
1906	Deaths	The death of Agnes Maud on the 1st July.
1911	Census	Charles Boyle is 42, living with wife – Catherine, aged 38 – and four daughters at house 59 in Killybegs Town. They all read and write, and speak Irish and English. He is a Master Baker. Charles and Catherine have been married for 16 years, have had six children of whom 4 are living.
1937	Deaths	Catherine Boyle, Aged 71. Wife of a home assistance officer. (Yes, the record says 71. Perhaps census reports were not accurate, or this is a mistake using the year of her birth).
1938	Deaths	Charles Boyle, aged 66. Home assistance officer. Birth registered by his daughter Anne (Nina).
1940	Marriage	My grandparents, Patrick (Packie) Mulreany and Anna Maria (Nina) Boyle are married in Killybegs. Her age is recorded as 35 (!), she is a Home Assistance Officer, and her father was Charles Boyle who had also been a Home Assistance Officer. Witnesses to the wedding are Dan Gallagher and Peggy Mulreany.
	Passports	Travel documents issued by the UK for Sarah Ellen (Nellie) and Celia state that their surnames at birth are O’Boyle.

I may be making too much of the Boyle and O’Boyle variants but, other than the 1901 census, every time Charles makes an official statement he gives his name as Boyle and my grandmother, the daughter who remained in Killybegs, does the same. But her sisters use O’Boyle, and the Burns family seem to think that the name should be O’Boyle and presumably make an official declaration to that effect in having Sarah Ellen’s record changed.

And who is the Mary O’Boyle who records the birth of Cecilia in 1899 giving the father’s name as O’Boyle? Perhaps a sister of Charles coming to assist with childcare? I suspect that Charles dropped the O’ in his younger days, but in the end it counted for little, his headstone is inscribed O’Boyle.

Catherine Burns was born into a family of dressmakers and cloth-workers, with some of their work including decorative linen picked out to create a lace effect. Her sister and a brother ran the White Horse pub in Dunkineely.

Charles and Catherine had a daughter who was dangerously ill in 1901 and presumably to avoid infection spreading to their other children she was sent to stay with her aunt and uncle in the White Horse. Another daughter (my grandmother) was born in 1902 and given the name of her recently deceased sister.

As an aside, the 1901 census return for the White Horse includes a lodger, John Ward, a tea agent aged 28. There’s a good chance that this is the same John Ward who, in the 1911 census, would be 38 and living in Killybegs as a General Merchant. In which case his nephew would eventually marry the niece of his erstwhile landlords at the White Horse.

The Boyles moved to Killybegs and instead of being a “retired grocer”, Charles returns to work as a master baker, gets involved in the local football team, and eventually is appointed as home assistance officer, a form of social work providing support to families in need, and perhaps dealing with payments for children who have been fostered.

Their daughters enjoyed a relatively privileged education for the time, going to a convent secondary school in Strabane as boarders. Was baking really such a profitable business in Killybegs in the 1910s and 1920s? Or were those American clocks so popular that Charles earned a decent amount in commissions? There seemed to be one in most households in the area, and we still have two of them.

What else can we know of those years? Very little is remembered in the family. Celia and Nellie went to England. Celia married and had two children so that before he died Charles had the pleasure of spending time with grandchildren. Another photograph in a family collection shows a young woman with what may be a crow or raven on her shoulder, and a note suggesting that one of the sisters kept such a bird as a pet. Biddy kept a guesthouse in Mountcharles for a while and then lived in a cottage on the shore near Salthill House. Nina became a Home Assistance Officer for the Killybegs area and beyond. Could she have inherited the job from her father?

That role required travel around a large area which she did on her bicycle, and she is recalled as rowing across Killybegs harbour to buy buttermilk from Walkers; it’s said that she won prizes for rowing in the local regatta. In 1940 she married Packie Mulreany, who may have done much of the courting by using his truck to collect her at the end of each day from whatever far-flung part of the area she ended up in.

One other snippet that I throw in simply because it may prompt information from others, is that Brother Paschal Williamson of Rossknowlagh used to visit Nina and it’s believed that he was some kind of cousin through the Burns family. I imagine he has relatives in the county who might be able to add light on that.