Gate House Tuam

Hi,

The landed estates are detailed at this site by National University of Ireland (Galway) but yet I find no Gate House.

SEE: http://www.landedestates.ie/

However, a "gatehouse" is defined by Barbara Jean Evans in A to Zax, a Comprehensive Dictionary for Genealogists &  Historians as:

"a gatekeeper's home near or over a gate where he could supervise the traffic flow through it."

I guess it is possible a travelling pregnant woman could have stopped and delivered inside a gatehouse.  I have read that this is a typically a very small building at the gate of an estate.  It was barely suitable for a single resident let alone three.

These are all the TUAMs in the 1851 Townland Directory at www.seanruad.com:

TownlandAKAAcresCountyBaronyCivil ParishPLUProvinceTUAM T. xxGalwayDunmoreTuamTuamConnaughtTUAM T. xxGalwayClareTuamTuamConnaughtTuam 564CavanTullyhawKillinaghEnniskillenUlsterTuam 467RoscommonBallintober SouthKilgefinRoscommonConnaughtTuam Island 10CavanTullyhawKillinaghEnniskillenUlster

You could use the landed estates site at NUIG to find all the estates in the TUAM TOWNS and the Tuam Townlands.

Sorry to say you will have more work ahead to determine which estate this gatehouse was at.  When I get a chance I will review Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of Ireland to confirm there was no other place by that name.

Best wishes,

James McNamara

feakle@irelandxo.com

Thank you for your efforts! I was told that my grandfather was the coach driver for the "Big House" and that is where he met his wife. The Gate House is supposedly where they lived but there have been so many different versions of the tale passed around it is hard to tell fact from fiction. Mum thinks that his wife's maiden name was Conlon/Conron. I would imagine if she died in Tuam she would have been buried in one of the main churchyards as her sisters were at the funeral so it would have been done properly. Thinking about dates I now think it would have been towards the end of the 19th century when all this happened. Realise we will never really know what happened but would be good to know where they came from originally.

Gene 

Hi Gene,

I've checked the Topographical Dictionary of Ireland for GATEHOUSE and found many entries in SCOTLAND only, no entries in IRELAND.

I still believe it is just what I said before and is not an estate name. 

I checked the surname distribution of Galway County in 1855 for the name Conlon and there is one in the civil parish of Moycullen.  You may just get lucky here.  I've checked Brian Mitchell's book Irish Churches and Graveyards and find only two Roman Catholic Churches in this parish, Ballycuirke West townland and in the Village of Spiddle. 

Hope that helps some.

NOTE: Conlon-Conlan are variants of Connellan (found mainly in Connacht province) and are not related to Conran-Condron which originates in Offaly Co.

Best regards,

James McNamara

Feakle Clare Administrator

feakle@irelandxo.com

Hi again Gene,

I checked the surname distribution and found that Byron had only one household in 1855 in Galway co. in the parish of Kilcroan. 

For the surname of Byrom there are only two households in all of Irelan and these are in Cork County.  There are no parishes in Ireland where both Conlon and BryoM are found.

There are four parishes in Ireland where both Conlon and ByroN are found together:

- Dublin City, St Thomas parish (1 Conlon household, 1 Bryon household)

- Sligo, Easky (3 Conlon households, 1 Byron household)

- Sligo, Killadoon (1 Conlon household, 2 Byron households)

- Sligo, Kilmacshalgan (3 Conlon households, 3 Byron households)

All the best,

James McNamara

feakle@irelandxo.com

Hi Gene

I asked my grandmother who is 96 and who has lived in Tuam all her life about Gate House. She has never heard anyone refer to it as a place, so it is probably the/a gate house in one of the big houses around.

As suggested above you could look at the landed estates databases and check/write out the names of the big houses around like Toghermore House etc where there was a coach driver and servants similar to many of the big houses in Ireland at that time.

In 1855 though or thereabout your options are a bit limited in terms of finding names on records; you are left with Griffith's Valuation 1855 or  the earlier Tithes records or details of tenants listed in the Encumbered Estates records for the 1860s in the National Archives, Dublin.

Sorry not a great deal of further help to you : (

mrsdoyle