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Ellen Dowey

ArmaghKilmore (Armagh)

I have many Irish connections but my favourite from Ballyloughan my 3 x g grandmother who arrived in Australia under the Earl Grey scheme in 1848 on the ship Earl Grey, her name Ellen Dowey (Doway) from the Armagh workhouse. Her parents a Henry Dowey and Mary Parkes, Eleen born abt 1832 arrived with a ship load of orphans aged only 16 yrs with only the clothes she was wearing. she ended up employed in Sydney and became pregnant as soon as the baby born she was straight on a ship to Melbourne (the father already married) probably paid her fare. Ellen had a very hard but adventurous life on the Victorian goldfields.  In 1857 a girl named Esther arrived in Sydney who I suspected was her younger sister, this I managed to prove after finding a advert in a 1858 Sydney paper searching for Ellen Bendall (Ellen had married a Bendall) when she arrived with her baby in Melbourne the advert requested Ellen to contact a person if she wanted information about her sister Esther Doway.  Esther's parents were also listed as Henry and Mary and Esther had come from Ballybreagh which I found to be only a few kms from Ballyloughan, both were Presbyterians, and I suspect that Esther was baptised at the Aghory Pres church.

I would like to find any info I can on Ellen's and Esther's life in Armagh, I do not know if Esther was also in the Armagh workhouse.

Regards

Kenneth Webb 

 

ironbark222

3 replies

According to the PRONI website, the baptisms in Ahorey Presbyterian church don?t start till 1834, though rootsireland claims to have them from 1832. Either way there?s no record of Ellen?s baptism. There is however a record of an Esther Doway baptised there in 1838. You can see it on rootsireland (pay to view). http://www.rootsireland.ie/

PRONI (the public record office) has the following records for that church:

P. Ahorey Baptisms, 1834-1908; marriages, 1834-1933; session minutes, 1850-57; new communicants, 1837-57; collections and accounts, 1834-7.

 

The workhouse admission records are on microfilm at PRONI. They are not on-line and so a personal visit is usually required to access them.

Ahoghill AntrimIrelandXO Volunteer

Thank you fo your reply, I had seen the baptism for Esther, do you mean she was born in Antrim not Armagh, all I had to go on were the parents names Henry and Mary Parks, and where Ellen in 1848 and Esther in 1857 had come from Ellen from Ballyloughan and Esther later from Ballbreagh, I could not see the location of theses townlands exactly but found a Ballybreagh Road and a Ballyloughan Road near Richill in Armagh, the two roads connect to each other, so I assumed that the Townlands were close to each other.

I have not been able to visit the Armagh workhouse as I am in Australia.

ironbark222

No there?s no connection with Antrim. Esther was baptised on Ahorey, Co Armagh.

You can see the townland boundaries by using the maps on Griffiths Valuation. Search under place name, and then click on the map option. There?s a slider bar in the top right hand corner which allows you to overlay a modern map onto the contemporaneous Griffiths map from the 1850s and 1860s.

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml

Griffiths records a Samuel Parks in 1864 in Ballyloughan. He had a house, and just over 4 acres (plot 39). So subsistence farming. Plot 39 today is between the Ballygroobany and Ballyloughan roads. Griffiths also records Richard Parks on plot 35a, a house, outbuildings and just over 12 acres. William Parks was on plot 36 with a house and just over 6 acres. These 3 farms are all pretty well beside each other so you would expect the families to be related.

Ballyreagh is the next townland north from Ballyloughan.

The revaluation records show that Plot 39 was noted as ?reps of Samuel Parks? in 1881, indicating he had died. Thereafter it was Samuel again (suggesting father and son were both named Samuel). In 1904 it passed to Thomas. Here?s that farm in the 1901 census:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Armagh/Richhill/Ballyloughan/1018665/

Plot 36 changed from William to Martha in 1885, indicating he had died. She also acquired plot 38 in 1887. Here?s those two farms in 1901:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Armagh/Richhill/Ballyloughan/1018666/

Plot 35c remained in Richard Parks name until 1891 when it changed to John Sandford.

Here?s a link to a few photos of Armagh workhouse:

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Armagh/

Ahoghill AntrimIrelandXO Volunteer

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