Dear Jane, I am prostrate with my failure to reply earlier and absolutely delighted to find your post after all this time! Thank you so much for you priceless information. I suspect you may be a professional genealogist, from the let US know. Can you possibly tell me how and where you acquired these facts?
When I was in Dublin and Tullamore last summer I spent much time in the National library, talking with the free service, which was most informative and helpful. I tried getting a baptism certificate from the local parish, the same plus death info. from both the Tullamore city registry of births and deaths (just north of the city centre) and, lastly, from the natlonal registry in Dublin, just north of Trinity College. The person in Dublin even looked up Ann Mary, without luck, so all credit to you! Finally, I found a family burial site in the graveyard of Durrow church a few miles north of Tullamore. There was a single, almost illegible, gravestone, which my iPhone clarified magically, but it was v incomplete and reflected more another branch of the family. I did find and visited my mother's grandnephew and his son, the latter living in my mother's birth home, totally remodeled, which I remembered visiting in the 1950s and the latter in a new house across the road. They still farm cattle. Neither they nor the two grand-nieces, knew anything about Ann/Ana. Indeed, these rural families had never seen, were astonished by and appeared to know only some of the details in the printed 1901 census I showed them. Nothing on Ann Mary or Elizabeth (below). In fact, I knew more than they about the complete lineage. In this regard, I share the same heartbreaking cry as endless others: Why didnt I ask more of my mother, who died in my presence at the age of 85, having played bridge earlier in the day- full faculties!!!!!
Separately, there is also the question of Elizabeth (Lizzy) Heagney, who married the (in)famous politician and 10-fold Mayor of Dublin, Alfie Byrne. What is her relationship to my mother? There certainly was one, since our family stayed with them in ? Rathmines? -he never occupied the Mansion House- in the summer of 1953, when he took us to Croke Park (?spelling) for the all-Ireland hurling final. The Little Museum in Dublin (near St Stephens' Green), is run by Alfie's first and poor biographer- the book is a bust imo, but he claims a second academic one is in the pipeline. Sadly, the first biographer has access to all Alfie's papers and books, donated by his 94 old son, who is totally debilitated by dementia- my visit to him was v frustrating.
Please excuse the tome, but I am SO excited to hear from you. I wish you and all your family, friends and colleagues full health in these greatly troubled times, Warmly, Paddy Ross. Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
