Genealogy Chat

Hi Fred B

http://www.myhome.ie/priceregister/13-windsor-terrace-potrabello-dublin-11570

Also on this page a picture of Number 10.

At the time of your Ancestors, this would have been a good place to live, nowadays mixed, mainly all these large properties converted into flats. They are nearly always occupied as very close to the city.
Cathal Brugha Barracks still in use by the Irish Army and not too far away from Windsor Terrace.
If you have your relatives Army Number you could send away for his papers, they may be still be available to purchase copies. I am sure somebody on this site would have the address.

GinaS

To this day Eire remains one of the worst places in the EU to be out of work, down on your luck.

Hi Rollo the Red,

Where did you acquire this piece of information??

Regards, GinaS

Try searching this FREE website for Births Marriages and some deaths.

http://www.irishgenealogy.ie/index.html

Lots of Dublin Parish records on here.

You can also view a lot of the original handwritten parish records too although some of handwritting is difficult to read!

Teresa

Annie Bennett nee Cleary b. 1839 Kildare married soldier John Bennett of Stroud in 1859 at Ballysax. He was stationed at the Curragh Camp.
Henry James b. 1861 Curragh Camp, Maria Clara b. 1868 Dublin, George Edward b. 1869 Aldershot, Charles Albert b. 1872 Aldershot. John, still a soldier, died in 1874 of TB and as far as I can tell the family moved back to Dublin. I have been able to find Henry James in the 1891, 1901 and 1911 census and have traced George from 1885 when he joined the army until his death in 1920 here in Toronto (although there is a gap between 1904 and 1913). I found an army file for Charles Albert - joining at age 14 in 1886 and only lasting 9 months before discharge. Nothing further on him, Maria Clara or Annie except her handwritten note in George's army file dated 1885. Both George's and Albert's army file make the reference to 13 Windsor Terrace.

During a 2 day stop in Dublin last year I went to 13 Windsor Terrace and disappointingly, it was partially torn down and surrounded by graffiti covered plywood fencing.

My quest here is to find out what I can about the life of widow Annie.

FredB...When and where was she married ...Names of the children may help.

Thanks Anne - away from home and just noticed your post. I have wondered if she remarried a soldier as I understand often happened. However, she was widowed in 1874 and in 1885 she wrote a letter giving permission for her son (my grandfather) to join the army and signed it Annie Bennett which was her deceased husband's surname. I also wondered if she used that surname to collect on a promise made by the ASC when her husband died even though she might have remarried. Every question answered leads down another path and more questions.

Thanks Rollo - her sons joined the army at ages 14 and 15. Best way to get them fed I guess.

Fred,
Have you looked at the 1901 census of ireland for Windsor TerrTerrace?http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Dublin/Wood_Quay/Windsor_Terrace/
It may give you an insight

At 1901, here are 5 separate households under No 13.
Three houses were occupied by working class families, but....
In two of the properties, Numbered 13.2 & 13.3 the head of households were serving soldiers.

The army used to pay a small widow's pension depending on the length of service. Sometimes they would make extra payments for kids, sometimes not. There were also various charities linked with the church, seafarers and so on. A lot of people were doing very well if their children had shoes on their feet and they could pay the rent.

The tenement buildings generally had from 4-6 people living in a single room about 10 by 12 feet, shared very basic kitchen and outside bucket privvie.

You need to understand that there was no kind of state welfare assistance whatsoever. To this day Eire remains one of the worst places in the EU to be out of work, down on your luck.

A women would try and get by street trading, laundress, gutting fish, cleaning, working in the Rotunda hospital and of course working at the barracks one way or the other.

It is hardly surprising that so many left to North America, Australia and England. Not much has changed then.

Paddy was going to town
Oh mother dear, I'm over here and I'm never coming back
What keeps me here is the reek o' beer, the ladies and the craic
I come from county Kerry, the land of eggs and bacon
And if you think I'll eat your fish and chips, oh dear, then you're mistaken...

As down the glen came McAlpine's men
With their shovels slung behind them
It was in the pub that they drank their sub
Or down in the spike you'll find them
We sweated blood and we washed down mud
With quarts and pints of beer
But now we're on the road again with McAlpine's Fusiliers

I stripped to the skin with Darky Finn
Way down upon the Isle of Grain
With Horseface Toole I learned the rule
No money if you stop for rain
For McAlpine's god is a well filled hod
Your shoulders cut to bits and seared
And woe to he who looks for tea with McAlpine's Fusiliers

I remember the day that the Bear O'Shea
Fell into a concrete stairs
What Horseface said, when he saw him dead,
Well it wasn't what the rich call prayers
"I'm a navvy short," was his one retort
That reached unto my ears
When the going is rough, well you must be tough, with McAlpine's Fusiliers

From Canada, not the USA. This poor woman was born in 1839 and was a child during the famine. Then at age 34 was widowed with 4 children, 3 of them under 6 years of age. I am trying to find out how she survived.

hi
I can only assume you are in the USA if you are talking about officers living "on the base" lol.
The old Portobello Barracks were built by the English after the Peninsula War and were the main location from where the city was attacked 1916-1922.
In 1922 the barracks were taken over by the Irish Army and later renamed the Cathal Brugha Barracks. They are still there. You can find out about Cathal Brugha here:
http://www.aoh61.com/history/cathal_brugha.htm.
As you say Windsor Terrace is not far from the barracks. Many of the houses dating back to the mid C19 and before are still there. It is considered a nice place to live in Dublin. I like it anyway ;-) My guess it was a good location a century ago as well, quite different to the tenements of central Dublin (now converted to apartments for gone broke Irish bankers.)
The British Army generally provides pretty poor accommodation and that for married men was especially cramped, damp and undesirable. As a result NCOs and upwards tended to rent accomodation near the barracks for their families while maintaining a "billet" in the barracks (for which they paid).
Then and now the organisation of a British Army barracks is so far from the US base concept that there is no real comparison.
good luck
.
By a lonely prison wall,
I heard a young girl calling
Michael they have taken you away,
For you stole Trevelyan's corn
So the young might see the morn,
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay

Low lie, The Fields of Athenry
where once we watched the small free birds fly
Our love was on the wing
we had dreams and songs to sing,
It's so lonely round the Fields of Athenry

By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young man calling
'Nothing matters Mary, when you're free'
Against the famine and the crown,
I rebelled, they cut me down
Now you must raise our child with dignity

By a lonely harbour wall
She watched the last star falling
As the prison ship sailed out against the sky
For she lived in hope and pray
For her love in Botany Bay
It's so lonely round the Fields Of Athenry

Does anyone know if this part of Dublin was a nice area in the 1880's. I know it is adjacent to the Portobello Barracks. Would officers live there or would they live on the base?

http://www.dublincity.ie/RecreationandCulture/libraries/Heritage%20and%20History/Collections/Pages/directories.aspx

If one exists, does it list residents by street and number?

Want to know who lived at the following address – 13 Windsor Terrace, Dublin.

After my great-grandfather, a soldier, died in England my great-grandmother returned to Ireland. The above address appears in the military files of her sons and I know for sure that in one of the files this address was recorded in 1886.

I understand that she probably could not own property but wonder if she might be with relatives since she would be without any income and had 3 children.