Hi Jo,
I think I may just possibly be able to help a little bit.
My great great grandfather Daniel Leahy was born in Bruff in about 1800, joined the army in 1823, married Mary Hyland in Dublin in 1828 and was posted (as a guard!) to a convict ship the Lord Melville in 1830. He arrived in Sydney in 1930 and his wife Mary and son John (born Chatham 1830 - my great grandfather) either travelled with him or joined him in Sydney. Daniel and Mary's second child Mary Elizabeth was born in 1833 and baptised (as a Roman Catholic) on 14 July 1833. Daniel was travelling with his regiment to Bombay in April 1836 when he died at sea of cholera. His widow Mary and children arrived in Bombay and she shortly afterwards married an Ebenezer Aexander. Mary died herself in 1838 aged 25., and the children were brought up by Ebeneer Alexander and his second wife in India.
According to letters written by Mary Elizabeth Leahy in 1894 and 1896 and by my grandfather William Henry Gladstone Leahy in 1934, my ancestor Daniel Leahy had 2 brothers one named John who went to America leaving his family, and one named William (who presumably stayed in Ireland) who left a widow and 2 children Daniel and Mary (possibly your great grandfather and his sister). One 1894 letter says that this Dan was sent [by my great grandfather John] to "Medical College in Bombay India, but after a few years he left and became a station master. He left that and went to Brazil and was an assistant master in a Roman Catholic Boys School. He left that and came back again to Bombay 3 or 4 years ago [ie about 1890}, and said he had left his mother and sister [Mary??] in Brazil. His sister was an assistant in a Milliner's shop". Does any of this tie up with anything you know?
My Daniel Leahy also had a sister Mary who married an Edward Collins who was a Liuutenant in the army in Bombay. Edward and Mary Collins left India (some time after 1838) but both died of cholera on the voyage back home. They had 5 daughters and a son Michael. One of the daughters Helena (born in Australia in 1833) married a Rev Charles T Mayo in England in 1859 and had 4 children. Another daughter Catherine/Kate married a John Villiers Tuthill in Limerick Ireland in 1852 and they later emigrated to Ontario, Canada with their 6 children in about 1860, 2 more being born later in Ontario. I have been in communication with a couple of Tuthill descendants who are also DNA matches with me on Ancestry.
It also appears from Googling "Leahy Bruff,Limerick" that there was a Patrick Leahy 1796 - c1853) on geni.com as born in Bruff, husband of Alicia Leo. Possibly a relation???
Regards
Roland Lawrence
