Elizabeth Daley Australian convict

HI Stella Maree

just looked at your interesting query. Firstly 1808 is outside the period of civil registration in Ireland which commenced in 1864 for all people. So parish registers for Catholics or Protestants are your main source and this site while requiring a subscription allows a certain amount of searching.

See: http://www.rootsireland.ie/ and you can identify if any Daley's are in the area. The name here now is often spelled as Daly.  A lot of catholic parishs started later than this period.

You mention Down which is a county north of Drogheda which is in County Louth so that is a bit confusing as it is 40 miles away approximately and your mention of Kings County is also more puzzling as this is in the midlands about 65 miles south west of Drogheda. Oddly enough my own daughter shared a house at college in the UK with a young lady from Offaly surname Daly. I am not sure if it is a common name there.

I note in your profile that Tipperary is another interest and this borders Offaly to the south but Tipperary is a large county by Irish standards.

At the period Daniel O'Connell (known as the Liberator) had commenced in 1823 a demand for Catholic Emancipation finally achieved in 1829. Things would have been very rough at the time as the population would have been circa 7 million pre great famine of 1845 to 1848 when it reduced to 4 million and fell even further after now stands at about 5 million for the entire island.

I wonder if by any chance Elizabeth was born in Offaly (Kings County) and for some reason was in Down and convicted of very little and departed via Drogheda which would have been a large port then. But that is guessing. It is possible that the landowner where her parents worked assuming they did also had land in Down.

Kings County became Offaly after the War of Independence in 1921 ans shortly afterwards the country was divided and Down is now in Northern Ireland or the United Kingdom.

As my wife searchs Down websites have you seen these.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rosdavies/  and

http://countydown.x10.mx/html/index2.htm           First site has a lot of Daly's listed.

Please let me know if there is anything I can do this end to assist further even to answer general questions.

Irish records for the period you mention are very sparse.

Regards

Pat

Hi Pat,

Thank you so much for your answer to my query. It gives me some idea of where to look next. I am quite well aquainted with Australian records and how to research here, but the Irish records are proving somewhat more difficult for me. What I do know for sure is that she was tried at Down, held in Down Gaol, at Downpatrick and departed for Australia from Cork (these records match those found from Australian records). I'm wondering if it was common to work in a different county from the county of birth in those days? I've attached the info I've gained from Down Gaol museum...

My interest in Tipperary is due to her husband (whom she married in the colony in Australia) Edward  Toomey who  has his origins there.

Hello Again Stella Maree

thanks for your reply and the interesting attachment about Elizabeth.

A few small things, first are you aware of hte family search website done by the Mormons which is free but I find can throw back too many hits anyway try it if you have not previously.

https://familysearch.org/  There are Daley and Daly there.

Also by chance I was in Dublin during the week at a book sale and picked up a short history of County Down mainly for my wife but I read the piece about Downpatrick and the jail and museum is pictured, apparently the jail is a tourist attraction as part of it is shown as it was then, also it housed many hundreds of people before they were deported.

Another interesting thing is a survey of the town was done circa 1830 (book not with me) and the town had 700 weavers as the linen/cotton industry was really going at that time and may explain why Elizabeth went there as with weavers there would also be many other workers and why she was supposedly stealing yarn.

If you would like me to scan in the bit on Downpatrick you can email me at:ohalloran.pat@gmail.com

The journey she was taken on to Cork while paling in light of her subsequent journey was still over 200 miles to the south in a horse drawn carriage of some sort, probably full of all sorts.

On the two previous sites I sent you you can see the flax growers list of 1796, another site is ASK ABOUT iRELAND and a property register done circa 1852 to 1864 I think but only records the person whose name is given as owner or renter not the family, there are 289 Daly's in Offaly and Daley got no hits.

See http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/

In the war of independence our main registry was burned down and in the following civil war most others were lost when the rebels stored there munitions in the Four Courts which was shelled and boom went the records.

Regards

Pat