John Cassidy
John Cassidy (1802-1881) of Kilmore was a schoolmaster in Wexford Town at St Peter’s (1826, probably 1823-36), in Castlebridge until 1842, and then back in Kilmore. He joined his younger daughter Margaret Cassidy Kilroy (my gt gt grandmother) in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1877. He married Margaret Rea in Wexford Town in July 1826. Margaret Rea’s mother must have been Margaret Devereux; certainly the family were closely connected to the Deveruxes and Redmonds.
He lived at Ballyask, Kilturk as a tenant of Robert Rossiter, and kept up a lively correspondence with other educated folk in Kilmore until his death. It seems that his eldest daughter Ellen stayed on in Castlebridge as the local schoolteacher when he and his wife returned to Kilmore; she married a bone setter called Moses Murphy, and I believe the family persists in Castlebridge. I don’t know if any of his sons (Nicholas, Richard, Robert) lived beyond infancy. I have followed th fortunes of his daughters Bridget (1831-1913) and Margaret (1838-1926) in Canada and the USA. John Cassidy had a sister Catherine (1813-about 1890) who married Raphael Byrne of Carnew and emigrated to Ontario in 1850. John Cassidy seems to have been a much valued person - an educator, and a person at the centre of a highly educated circle in the Bargy area in the 19th century. I am trying to find his parentage (he may have come from a townland called Thelo), and record of his education and teaching - as well as the connection of the Rea, Devereux and Redmond families in the area of Kilmore/Tomhaggard/Wexford town. Margaret Rea was also literate, as was her ancestor Richard Rea, whose 1747 prayer book in English was in the family here for some time.