William FLYNN: Born 20/12/1842: Tramore, County Waterford: lived Dunmore, Parish of Killea, & Knockboy, St Johns Parish, Co Waterford. After leaving Ireland as a seaman in the Royal Navy, he finally settled in Adelaide,South Australia.
William Flynn was born on the 20th of December 1842, the son of James Flynn. He was born in the parish of Tramore but raised in Dunmore.
William Flynn’s family were farmers who farmed land at Kilmacomb a couple of miles north west along the Dunmore Road from Dunmore village and sitting squarely in the Roman Catholic parish of Killea and Crooke. In 1848 during William’s early childhood his father James was recorded in Griffiths Valuation as farming four acres at Auskurra Big on the outskirts of Dunmore village. By 1853 the family had moved 6 miles north up the Dunmore road closer to Waterford Town and settled in the hamlet of Knockboy where in time, young William found a job as a hostler at one of the local inns.
In 1859 William joined a small group of lads including John Mulloy, John Heffernan, and Thomas Irwin who called themselves the “Waterford Volunteers” whose objective was to join the Royal Navy. Together they marched into Waterford Town and 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. William saw service in the Channel Squadron and in the Pacific Station. In 1864 he deserted from the navy following a traumatic shipwreck in the Carribean, and eventually made his way to Adelaide in South Australia where he married a girl from Co Cavan and settled down to life as a miner in the outback town of Broken Hill in NSWS. He died in Broken Hill hospital in1918.
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| Date of Birth | 20th Dec 1842 | |
| Date of Death | 12th Sep 1918 | |
