25 June 2023
Hi Maureen: You are a gem! You have gone to so much trouble to give me information, and it is very much appreciated. Before going further, I must apologise that in my reply to you above I carelessly misspelt Lizzie as "Lizzy". (I don't know why, as in my searches of quite a few years ago I always wrote "Lizzie").
I understand that her correct full name had been Mary Elizabeth Smyth. I am the eldest child of her eldest child, Annie May O'Connor (later known as Nancy). My mother and siblings were very young children when she died in 1913. My mother must have misheard/misunderstood the surname of Lizzie's family of origin, calling it something that sounded like "Acheson-Smyth" or "Aitcheson-Smyth", with a cousin insisting understandably that it was "Armstrong-Smyth", so all of that had been an obstacle in my searching.
I am puzzled about her year of birth being given in your findings as 1871, yet in the 1901 Census her age was given as 27. I had therefore been searching only from about 1873 as a date of birth.
As a family we had always understood that Lizzie and her brother (whose name we had never known - I now gather it was William) were "orphaned" when very young. You can imagine how surprised we now are to learn, via information given to your good self in another post on here, that there had been a third child, another brother, named John.
You have furnished for us the names and approximate years of life of both of their parents: William Addison Smyth and Eliza Jane Gallery - so interesting and valuable to us. I would suggest that Gallery is an uncommon surname. Your suggestion to email to me with the photo of the Gallery grave in Lisburn is very welcome, Maureen. My email address is annieadams@hotmail.com
My own mother died young, when I also was young. I had enjoyed little childhood chats with her about her background, but never thought to talk about further details with her father, my Grandfather Andrew O'Connor, in later years. My mother and her sisters spoke affectionately of Annie Armstrong, so seemed to know her well as "a cousin". Sadly I do not recollect any mention of the surname Brady. Although records indicate that Annie remained unmarried and childless it sounds as if she was very family-minded and caring, in that she took into her home your grandfather as a child in 1895, her ailing cousin John Addison-Smyth and his sister Lizzie as young children, with Lizzie remaining in her care and later as an adult in her employ at the Railway Hotel in Lisburn. We are of course left wondering about the name and fate of a possible third sibling.
However, I wonder if this little I know is of interest to you: in the year following the death of his wife Mary Elizabeth (Lizzie), Andrew O'Connor re-married a first cousin of Lizzie, named Sarah McLornan. The marriage took place in Lisburn on 16 April 1914, witnesses being Paddy Smyth and George McLornan. Sarah became a much-loved stepmother to my mother and her sisters. As a very young child I met several of Sarah's relatives, some in the Belfast (and possibly Lisburn) area, with surnames of McLarnan (? alternative spelling McLornan) and one branch in Dublin named McCloskey. I feel that Ella McCloskey was a sister of Sarah McLornan; she was known to us as Aunt Ella. On her baptismal certificate (20 January 1872) Sarah McLornan's name is spelt as McLarnon, but we do feel it is the same person. That baptismal certificate gives Sarah's address as Bohill (the marriage certificate states Bohill House the Rock), her father as Patrick McLarnan (note the "a" here) and mother as Elizabeth Orr or possibly Elleanor, and the Sponsors/Informants as William Orr and Sarah Orr. Patrick McLornan (note the "o" here) and Elleanor Orr married 03 August 1869 in Lisburn, the witnesses being Owen Orr and Martha Simpson.
Because of little specific/identifying/recorded detail attached to them, my efforts to locate the grave of my grandmother Mary Elizabeth (Lizzie) in and around the graveyards of Dunmore, where she died, have been unsuccessful. I am now wondering if she had been brought back to Lisburn for burial. And would the "Gallery" family grave you have mentioned, and have a photo of, possibly feature as her resting place?
Maureen, although I have not been of any direct help regarding James Joseph Brady, I do look forward to that emailed photo, and any other comments of yours on what I have written here. Thank you very much for all you have already shared with me.
Every good wish from Anne Adams.
