The earliest ancestor of our family we can identify is William FLYNN. In the early nineteenth century his extended Flynn family was scattered in an arc centred around the village of Dunmore were they leased farmland in the adjacent townlands of Ballyvoreen (Baile Mhoirín), Knockhouse (Tigh an Chnoic) and Kilmacomb (Cill Mochuma) as well as in nearby Portally (Port Ailigh), Nymphall and Auscurragh (Áth Scortha). But the main branch of William’s Flynn family were the individuals who farmed land at Kilmacomb just a couple of miles north west of Dunmore (Dun Mor).
In 1827 William, along with Michael, and Thomas Flynn of Kilmacomb were recorded leasing 474 acres of land from Alderman Morgan. Early in the nineteenth century William Flynn married Anastasia Murphy and on 20 July 1815 she bore him a son whom they named James.
On 11th January 1842 James Flynn married Margaret Spencer in St Marys church in the village of Knockboy in St Johns parish, Waterford. St Johns was the neighbouring parish only a few miles north from the Flynn’s ancestral home in Kilmacomb.
On the 20th of December 1842, Margaret gave birth to their son. They followed the tradition of Irish naming patterns and called him William after his paternal grandfather.
This was the time of the widespread famine known as the Great Hunger. We are fortunate that baby William survived when many did not. As a child William grew up in the townland of Dunmore [Dún Mór in the Irish language] which is just a mile or so from the ancestral family farm at Kilmacombe. The number of Flynn families living in the parish of Killea at that time had expanded from the original three recorded in the Tithe Applotment Books of 1827 to a total of nine. One of these was now headed by James Flynn who by this time was aged 31. He was now working on his own small lease holding in the townland of Auscurragh covering just over four acres. The total net annual value of this holding was estimated by Griffiths at £7/10/-. James Flynn’s little farm sat on the outskirts of Dunmore and it is here that his son William grew up.
But these were difficult times of hunger and poverty forcing James to abandon his farm. The family left behind their village of Dunmore to move 6 miles north along the Dunmore Road closer to the bustling city of Waterford where James rented a house in Knockboy from Mr James Power for an annual sum of £1/14/0. it was not long before young William found work as a hostler looking after the horses being stabled at one of the nearby local inns.
In May 1859 William fell in with a group of five other boys including John Mulloy, John Heffernan, and Thomas Irwin who together were part of a group called the “Waterford Volunteers” and whose objective was to join the Navy. Brandishing his parent’s approval, William signed on for general service. He was just 17. On the 5th of May 1859 William was taken aboard the gunboat HMS Magpie along with eighteen men and six boys and sailed for Queenstown, Cork. The following day, Friday 6 May 1859 a note in the log of HMS Hawke records “Gunboat Magpie arrived with 18 men and 6 boys for general service from Waterford…” The following morning William and his Waterford companions were transferred to HMS Hawke to start their new lives as members of the Royal Navy.
After serving 5 years in the Royal Navy spent mainly in the Pacific Station, William eventually deserted his ship whilst in Persu and finally made his way to the colony of South Australia where he married Jane McMahon a girl from County Cavan. They settled down in Broken Hill where they raised their large family. Willims descendent are today scattered throughout Australia.
| Additional Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 20th Dec 1842 | |
| Date of Death | 1st Sep 1918 | |
