Ennis - Finding Mary Ann Herrolds Madigan

 I have but one actual connection to Ennis apart from the by-election of 1828.

Mary Madigan was tried in Ennis on 28 February 1848. This I knew from her convict record and from her Dublin gaol record. Tracking her down took a few surprising turns.

The first full day in Ennis started with a private tour with historian Dr Jane O’Brien. After finding out my connection, she expressed surprise that we could go so far back in our family trees. But then she said …….

“You know the gaol used to be in your hotel”. Yes it’s true she said that. But not quite true as the ‘Old Ground Hotel’ was a bit of a Lego build. Lots of additions. 

Our rooms appeared  to be in an 18th century manor house but an ugly one, and best covered up with ivy. The reason there is only one image of the hotel on the website - it is quite ugly. And not in an historic way - a more square and modern-like.

But there was a tower block from the 15th century, and our guide took us up by the back stairs to see a storage room with a lovely medieval feel to it and a fireplace - dated 1553 - although from another ruin. Then there was the story about finding dungeons below the Old Town Hall restaurant when they were renovating. Chains intact. I have clued up the reception to staff to ask the owner Mr Flynn when he gets in this morning.

Just look at how thick those walls are in the 15th century tower block.

See below for a bit about the hotel, Mr Flynn buying at age 29 because he used to come here with his mother, accountant PWC in USA, but from Cork, I think. Renovations THR in the 1990s , broke through a wall, found the shackles and chains abandoned on the floor. They were given to Clare Museum in the 1990s, but have since been lost- I am on the trail.

I think this is more likely to be one of the gaol buildings. On the other side it is on O’Connell St, which used to be known as Jail St. prison buildings where on both sides of Jail St, with cells on one side and exercise yards on the other. There was a bridge across the street to allow movement of prisoners.

Image of Jail St, post 1860s erection of O’Connell Monument at the end.

I spent a few hours in the Clare Local Studies Centre. The only newspaper at the time was the Clare Journal (it is not in the NLA). I found just one paragraph about Mary but importantly it gave the date of her crime, her co-accused, the name of the victim and his location! Would this finally nail Mary down to Killofin (home of Catherine Madigan)? Well as the librarian explained, many lesser-known place names being Irish, were mis-heard by the journalists of the day - not generally Irish speakers,

So here are the facts as reported in the Clare Journal, Monday February 1848:

“Arson.

Margaret Leary and Mary Madigan were indicted and given in charge for having set fire to the house of Michael Morrissey on 4 December last.

Michael Morrissey – lives at Kilchelane; was at home in the early part of the night of 4 December last; went out to watch corn that night; on my return home. I discovered my house on fire; when I came up I saw two women one near the house and the other about four or 5 yards from her; they ran away and I ran after them; overtook one of them. Her name is Margaret Leary identify her asked her why she burned the house and she made no answer. Don’t know what became of the other woman witness went back when he saw the house so much on fire and Margaret Leary tour herself away saw the prison next day at the widow Hayes house did not know Mary Madigan the night after the fire  they were arrested by the police soon after, and they then admitted they had burned the house. Several other witnesses were examined in support of the prosecution and the jury without leaving the box found the prisoners guilty. The court then rose.”

I can name her jurors - all men, of course:

William Adams Brew, William Arthur, James McMahon, John Westropp, Jonas Studdert, John Blood, John Gabbett, Robert H. Burrowes, strettle Scott, Hewitt Bridgman, Daniel O’Grady and Matthew Canny. I must assume they acceded to Mary’s wish to be transported. So they gave her 15 years, a long sentence for a woman (well teenager really).

So Mary was imprisoned from 5 December 1847 to some time after 28 February 1848. I have some descriptions of the jail from Clare Library …….

Mary was held in Grangegorman Prison in Dublin, from where she was transported upon the Kinnear 2. The ship did not leave till June 1848, so maybe another three months in a second jail.

Grangegorman opened in 1836 as the first all female prison in the British Isles. Its records are detailed, and provide the detail of her siblings. Strangely an attendant at the Collin Barracks museum in Dublin told me that Grangegorman had never been a prison, but it had been a mental asylum! Its function in relation to convicts was to prepare the women to be useful workers in Australia.

Michael Talty, executive librarian then spent half an hour looking for that location. Because of the clue of Killofin, he focused on the parish of that name in mid Clare, where we had been earlier. He thinks that a possible location is Kilkerin, number 12 in the map below.

It has townlands called Killofin and Kilkerin, which is the one he thinks sounds most like kilchelane. I can’t see it or hear it myself.

However he then went to see what records of Madigans were in Killofin and he says there were ‘many’. Several John’s and Patrick’s were married at about the right age. I have much to do browsing through the parish records on the National Library of Ireland site. But I do think ancestry has an index.