Family information required

Hello Luke.

I was looking to see if I could find anything on the Grogans in Loughrea, but I didn't see anyone living there in the 1901 census nor in the Griffith's Valuation.  There are, however, families in Ballinasloe and Athenry areas in the census, as well as, other towns in Galway County.

I was curious on how you found the specific dates for all of the kids of John and Catherine.  Did you find their baptism records, or are these estimates, and/or dates that the Fahey family supplied to your Aunt? 

Also, do you know exactly where the Grogan farm is, I mean what road it was on?  That would help to identify the family in the Griffith's Valuation maps and clarify which church they might have attended.  If you know if the family was Catholic or Church of Ireland, it would help to determine how you would go about looking for everyone's baptism records.

I don't know if you've tried any of the above, but I could help search if you'd like.

Mary Van Dyke

Hi Mary,

Thank you for your message, I was delighted to see it. I must say that as far as I know, all of my family of the Grogan's were believed to have left totally as late as the 1880's-90's.

The best detail I can give you, if you can bare with me, is from the transcript that my great Aunt Sister Mary John wrote from a letter in 1974 while she was visiting Loughrea, it goes:

"I set out from Galway by car and travelled to Loughrea. Here we travelled through very different country, green and lovely. I asked a man at Loughrea if there were any Grogans in the area and was told "No". I then asked him if he knew where Moyleen was, and he said "oh yes, about a mile along the Dublin Road, well now! Moyleen! I'm not sure if Moyleen or Fairfield comes first but if you go out along the road for about a mile you will come to a group of four or maybe three houses, one of them is down in a hollow, and there you will find an old man, a Mr. Houlahan, he may know something". So off we set. After we had gone about a mile, we started looking for a hous in a hollow and of course we couldn't see any. So we went into a house and asked where Mr. Houlahan lived-"oh you have passed it. It's back about, now let me ee, don't count my house or the next one, but after that there is Mr. so and so and then Mr. so and so", naming each one.. "the eighth house, now be sure you don't count my house or the next one, it's eight after that..." Well we got back into the car and went into fits of laughter because we thought couldnt she have said nine or 10? However, we were grateful and turned around and counted our way back until we came to Mr. Houlahan's house which was no more in a hollow than any of the others, but this was not important now. We went in and knocked and of course no one answered. Sister Cabrini was with me so she went around the back of the house and found the lady washing potatoes. She came through and let me in and inside there was the old man that we were looking for. He was sitting by the fire and even though he was only 80, he loked much older. I sat in front of him and asked did he remember ever hearing of anyone by the name of Grogan? His old head was bent down and he made a funny little noise first like old people make sometimes before speaking, like "e-e-e-", then he looked sideways at his wife and said "Didn't they live up at the bend years ago? Grogan's Bend? My mother used to say they went away to America or somewhere. Sold out to Faheys. She, my mother said they sold out for only 25 pounds. They wanted to get away. Old Fahey bought it. Now you might go up to Fahey's, they still live up there. The grandson, he my be able to tell you more". Can you imagine how I was feeling at this yime? Fahey's was a two storied house, we were told, the second one. It was easy to find this time.

We went in, and out rushed a big dog barking it's head off and inside the house we could hear another dog barking away, we felt surrounded. Then from the side of the house where the first dog had appeared, came a woman with a lovely smile. She had big boots on, I mention this because I have never seen so much mud as I saw in Ireland. Mrs. Fahey gave us a great welcome. She invited us to come inside and sit beside the fire. We told her then we had been to Mr. Houlahan's and he had directed us to see Mr. Fahey and could we see him? She went out and called him, saying "wipe your boots, John". In came John Fahey. I asked him if he could tell me anything of a family of Grogans who lived here at Moyleen many years ago? "Yes", he said, "they lived in a house next to us here, not this house we now live in, this one was built in 1921, we demolished Grogan's old house and used the stones in the building of our new home. our old hous was further up the road on the right of this house". He then told me that his grand father had bought the place from our grand father. The block was not very big. Mr. Fahey grows potatoes on it. I asked him if he knew Fergus and Brigid Quinn (Patrick Grogan's god parents). He said they were the grand parents of the Mahoneys who lived in the first two storied house. Fergus Quinn, Michael Grogan and ? Fahey lived in three cottages and worked on the estate of Sir George Burke as herdsmen. The estate was a very large one and the main house was like a castle. We went outside then we climbed over a stone wall into the potato patch. Mr. Fahey said "if you stand here", leading me to the exact spot, "you will be right in the centre of Grogan's old home".

Mr Fahey at that time was in his 50's, they has a daughter who was studying at that time also.

Mary, I am afraid this is the best I can do, as far as I know the births dates are accurate as they were extracted from the book I have been transcribing and our family was and is still Catholic.

If there may have been anything else I have missed, please let me know and I will do my best to look some more.

Thank you so much once againfor you message.

Luke Grogan

luke.grogan76@gmail.com

56 Oxford St, Umina Beach, NSW, Australia 2257

Hello Luke.

I've found your tree on Ancestry.com, and will leave a message on your "uncle" Thomas Grogan's page.  I don't think that's him with his mother in the 1861 England Census, and I'll explain that in my "comment" on his profile page.

However, I've had no luck at all finding the Grogan family in Moyleen in the 1856 plot maps of Griffiths Valuations.  You can email me if you'd like, and I can explain more.  Basically, the valuations were done between 1847 thru 1864.  I did find the Quinn and Fahey families living in Moyleen, with a family name of Mannion living between the two.  I think that in 1856, Mr. Mannion lived there, but might have sold property to the Grogans after Michael got back from the Civil War in 1865.  It's even possible that Mannion was a man that one of the Grogan daughters married, to keep the land in the family... don't know, but you MIGHT be able to find a land purchase in that area, if the National Archives has that information.

These 3 families, Quinn, Mannion and Fahey all lived along the road heading to Dublin, just outside of Loughrea.  I used the information that your Aunt wrote about (a LOVELY story, by the way!) and went to "google.maps" and searched the road east of Loughrea until I saw Moyleen.  Then I went to Griffith's Valuation maps and found it, as it was plotted back in 1856 era.

Here is the link for all the residents of Moyleen in the Valuation:  http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml?action=doNameSearch&PlaceID=550337&county=Galway&barony=Loughrea&parish=Loughrea&townland=<b>Moyleen</b>

If this link doesn't work, please let me know and I will try another way.  You will see there are 13 listed names for living in Moyleen, and Grogan isn't one of them.  Now, find Laurence Fahey's name in the list, then look to the right on his line, under the column titled "Map Views", and click the larger of the 2 "search" icons.  A map will appear in a new window.  The first thing you need to do is find the "left to right" scroll bar located in the upper right corner.  Drag that bar a little to the left so it shows 1/2 of the new maps, and 1/2 of the old "redish" colored map. (I mean they literally overlap each other and are opague).  Basically, you want to see the roads/towns as they are called today, as well as, the old style plot map.  Next, in the upper left corner of the screen, click the "+" sign and zoom in about 4 clicks... by this time you should see "Moyleen" taking up your full screen.  Now, drag the "left to right" scroll bar (located in the upper right corner) all the way to the right, and you will only see the old version of the map.  This process allows you to locate your town easier using modern maps, then allows you to see the old version plot maps crystal clear, and easy to read.

So, once you've done all the above, you will notice plots 8, (the Quinn family), 9 (the Mannion family) and 10a (the Fahey family).  Notice that at plot #9, there is a very sharp bend in the road.... I think that's "Grogan's bend" that Mr. Fahey spoke about to your Aunt.  However, plot #9 is very large, and Mr. Fahey said it was a small piece of land... again, a  lot has changed since 1856, and there's no way to determine if another family purchased some of the Grogan land and/or if Mr Mannion was indeed an in-law and kept some of the land for his own kids, and/or Mannion sold some of it prior to Michael purchasing it... Lord knows what! 

I did find that Mr. John Quinn and the Fahey family was living in Moyleen in the 1901 census, and then the Fahey family was still there in the 1911 census.  So, the man your Aunt spoke to back in 1974 was probably talking about his grandfather Thomas Fahey, the head of the house in 1901 and 1911.

What I'd like to know more about is the Tithe Applotment you've got for your gr gr gr grandfather Patrick Grogan in 1827... that shows Moyleen, and I'd be very interested in seeing that original record!  I really think that particular item will pin down and clarify just where the family lived.

To sum up, unless the Mannions were related, I can't find the Grogan's living in that area of Moyleen in 1856.  I can, however, find them in the Loughrea area, but a little farther east and south, located in Carrowroe, in the parish of Kilcooly.  (zoom out of the map a couple of clicks until you see "Kilmeen" directly south of Moyleen, and then you will see "Kilcooly" directly east of that.)  So,  there were Grogans in the area, and there were other Grogans in Galway county, a total of 17 families, some w/in a 25 mile radius of Loughrea.

I also looked on www.findagrave.com, and went to the Garrybreeda Cemetery (link: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&GSmcid=47395800&CRid=2368601&pt=Garrybreeda%20Cemetery& )  as well as, the Carmelite Abbey Cemetery (link: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&GSmcid=47395800&CRid=2335906&pt=Carmelite%20Abbey%20Cemetery&  ), and didn't find any Grogan names listed.  That doesn't surprise me because those very old stones have faded to the point of "can't read it at all".  And Garrybreeda isn't fully documeted and I haven't found a place that has the old internment register yet. 

If you need help with any of the above, please feel free to email me at MNAJPA@aol.com, and I will see if I can't do anything else, or give you other ideas to check.

One thing I didn't mention is that I have access to the films of the old Catholic Church records of Loughrea, and some other towns in the Clonfert Diocese.  In researching my own family from Loughrea, I've ordered the micro films so many times it's now on permanent loan to a local LDS church, and it's litterally a mile from my house.  It would be a few weeks before I could get down there, though, as my daughter is getting married next week and I'm buried in "wedding stuff".  Doing this kind of research, like what I've done for the Grogans, is easy to do from my home and I don't mind at all.  I can also explain how you can acess these same micro films yourself, using the library at an LDS Church near you.  The rates are very low ($7 US dollars) for a 6 week loan, and their hours for accessing the films are flexable.  Films usually arrive (in the US) within 2 weeks.

Another thing I kept thinking about was that if you hunt down Patrick's other children, that didn't go to Australia, you might find more about Patrick.  Maybe one of the other daughter's married and stayed in the Loughrea area... but it will be hard to find if they got married prior to 1864, when Catholic's were "allowed" to register with the civil authorities.  But the old church records will still be there!

Thank you!  I truly loved reading your Aunt's story... she wrote wonderfully!

Mary Van Dyke