Fenlons in Ireland

Ever since I began researching genealogy and our family's history a goal of mine has been to learn more about our Fenlon ancestors in Ireland. It has been challenging, but I have enough of a picture now to make a blog post and pose some questions for further consideration. 

Edward J. Fenlon Sr.'s Parents

My great-grandfather Edward John Fenlon (EJF), Sr. (1879-1965) was born in Ireland and came to the US when he was just 14 years old  -- he lied and said he was 16! A previous blog post was devoted to him.  In this post I have focused on his parents and siblings that, to the best of my knowledge, never left Ireland.  EJF's parents were Patrick Fenlon and Catherine Ryan. The only evidence of his mother's maiden name comes from his daughter-in-law's (my grandmother Anne Treacy Fenlon) genealogical notes, see Figure 1. 

Figure 1. Anne Treacy Fenlon's handwritten record of the parents of Edward J. Fenlon, Sr. 

Confirmation of his mother's first name comes from his death certificate and his father's name is confirmed by family history of his sister, Anna (Rose/Rosella) Fenlon Ward.  I have requested Anna Ward's death certificate from Onondaga County. This request was made a year ago but Covid caused genealogical requests to be put on hold for much of 2021, however, they have recently resumed fulfilling these requests. I should get the certificate soon and really hope it confirms both parent's names. 

EJF's Siblings

Although I have know the names of some of EJF's siblings for quite some time, within the past year I have had some breakthroughs and know he had at least two sisters and four brothers (Figure 2).  The breakthroughs were facilitated by Ancestry.com and posting several questions on an online genealogy forum called Rootschat. The members of this site are experienced genealogists and they were extremely helpful to me. They located Irish civil records for me and helped me understanding the context of the records and Irish families at this time. In particular, I am very grateful to the Rootschat members with usernames heywood and Wexflyer. I want to give them the credit they deserve for helping me piece together a reasonable picture of our immediate Fenlon ancestors in Ireland. I have summarized the key points from the Rootschat discussion thread below, but feel free to click the link if you want to read or contribute to it. One really cool thing on the thread is that Wexflyer notes that his ancestors were also from the Moneydurtlow area and would have known our ancestors!

Figure 2. The known children of Patrick Fenlon and Catherine Ryan. Sources: Parish baptismal records and Irish Civil records. 

EJF was the youngest of the seven children. The firstborn child was Anna and various records place her birth year as early as 1862 and as late as 1869. Unfortunately, I cannot find birth records for Anna or EJF.  I have placed her birthdate as 25 Dec 1863.  I recently found the marriage record of her parents (Patrick and Catherine) from the Ferns, Co. Wexford parish. It indicates that got married on Friday, 16 Jan 1863 (Figure 3).  Anna was born 11 months later in Dec 1863 as her sister Mary was born 13 months after that, in January 1865. 

Figure 3. Ferns Parish record of Patrick Fenlon and Catherine Ryan marriage on Friday 16 January 1863. Biddy Connor and John Whelan(?) were witnesses. The residence, likely Catherine's is given as Ballingale. 

I have Irish civil records and/or church baptismal records  for all of the children except Anna and Edward. An example of each kind of record is shown in Figure 4 for John Fenlon. These records provide interesting and useful information. John was born on 27 Jan 1870 and baptized the next day. The civil record shows his parent's names, including his mother's maiden name (Ryan), his father's occupation (Laborer), the "dwelling place" of his father  (Ballaman),  and the name of someone who can attest to the birth and their residence (Margaret Beacon [likely a midwife], present at birth, Upper-Ferns). The parish record gives names of the God parents (Martin Neil(?) and Johanna Ryan [Catherine's sister?]) and a slightly different residence of Ballingale. As discussed below, these towns are very close to each other. 

Figure 4. Irish Civil record of birth and church record of baptism for John Fenlon (b 1870). 

Location, Location, Location

The most interesting thing about the marriage, birth, and other records of are their locations, which appear in a relatively small area of County Wexford north of Enniscorthy and west of Ferns (Figure 5). It is bounded by Ballaman and Moneydurtlow on the north, Ballinastraw on the east, Ballyorrill on the south, and Marshalstown and Ballingale on the west. This area is less than 32 square miles. For context, the Town of Adams in Jefferson County, NY is 42 square miles and the Town of Denmark in Lewis County, NY is 51 square miles. The birth records cover just 13 years (from 1865 to 1878) but no two children are born in the same location. (Needless to say, but all children were born at home at this time, not in a hospital.) This shows family moved around a lot within this small area I am calling the "Fenlon zone." 

Figure 5. Map of the relatively small area in County Wexford where our Fenlon ancestors lived. It is just north of Enniscorthy. 

Patrick's Occupation

Why did the family move so often within this small zone? The answer is likely related to Patrick's occupation, which was listed as farmer on Mary's birth record (1865), but as laborer on male (Thomas?, 1867) and John's (1870) birth records. Rootschat user Wexflyer suggested that this constant movement likely meant that Patrick was a farm laborer or cottier. The cottier tenure system involved a tenant renting a small farm from the landowner with some of the rent sometimes being paid by the labor provided.  The term was applied to many different kinds of farm laborers. An 1841 survey of Ireland defined cottiers as working an average of five acres of land and "laborers" holding an average of one acre, but often without any land. Of course, when I hear the term cottier I think of Father Cotter, the priest at St. Mary's in Copenhagen, NY and in New Boston, NY many years ago. 

Patrick's Eviction

Recently I found a notice in the Wexford People newspaper from 30 Sep 1882 that stated Mr. Michael Sweetman served an eviction notice for Patrick Fenlon of Ballinstraw, see Figure 6. I propose that this is our Patrick Sr. as the location is in the Fenlon zone area (Figure 5). The context of this eviction is very interesting. The newspaper page where this notice appears is filled with letters to the editor decrying the system of landlords charging high rents to the poor oppressed people. I encourage you to read the whole page, it is fascinating. There are many mentions of the Land League, the land war, and the no rent manifesto. This was a period of civil unrest in Ireland where the tenant farmers were involved in a mass protest against the land owners. So, one explanation for why Patrick was being evicted might be that he refused to pay his rent as part of this civil disobedience mass protest. This fits with the hypothesis that he was a cottier. 

Figure 6. Notice in the Wexford People that Patrick Fenlon of Ballinastraw was served with an eviction notice. 

I also did some investigating into Michael Sweetman, the person evicting Patrick. Sweetman appears to have been an appointed Relieving Officer and thus was a government official in charge of dispensing "Outdoor Relief" to the poor. This relief was in contrast to indoor relief which meant that the poor were living in the workhouse, which was more common in an urban environment. This relief was part of the Irish Poor Relief Extension Act of 1847. I am not sure how this fits into Patrick's eviction, but the fact that Mr. Sweetman held this role is perhaps significant. 

Aiden's Assault

The location of Ballinastraw is again associated with the Fenlons in 1889 when an Aiden Fenlon appeared as a complainant in a court case (Figure 7). The location is consistent with this Aiden Fenlon being our relative, as Ballinastraw is less than six miles away from Marshalstown, where our Aiden was born. However, our Aiden in 1889 would only have been 14 years old and this seems too young to be going to court over being assaulted. On the other hand, as explained below, Patrick Jr. was a laborer at the age of 13, so perhaps teenagers were more involved in the adult world at that time. 

Figure 7. Court record from 1889 of an Aiden Fenlon of Ballinastraw pressing charges of assault against a Richard Britton. 

Patrick Jr.'s Death

The sibling closest in age to EJF's was his brother Patrick Fenlon, Jr. In fact, if my birth dates for them are accurate, there is only 9.5 months between their birthdates -- "Irish Twins" indeed. My father's first cousin Barbara Smith Levy passed along some interesting oral family history about some of the Fenlon siblings who remained in Ireland:

"I was in Ireland in 1997 and 1999. Before I went Aunt Clara gave me all the information she had and she did tell me that she thought her father was from Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, and she told me that he had another brother, Thomas. I don't know anything else except that Clara said she thought he was killed in some kind of accident in Ireland maybe in the 1910's or 1920's. She really wasn't sure, she did say that she could remember her father getting letters from Ireland when she was young and she said that eventually they just stopped coming."

There is a lot to unpack here. I have taken the information about a brother named Thomas and assigned it to the male child born in 1867 whose civil birth record does not provide a name. I have taken the story about a brother dying in an accident and applied it to Patrick Jr. There is a 1892 death record of a Patrick Fenlon who died of rupture of internal organs, Figure 8. The location of the death was Ballinastraw and Patrick is listed as 13 years old and a laborer. Again, the question is whether or not this is our Patrick. The location fits as it is less than five miles away from where our Patrick, Jr. was born. The age fits pretty well, but not perfectly.  Our Patrick would have just turned 14 years old at the time of death, not 13. I am not sure if the cause of death is consistent with the family oral history of an accident, but it is certainly tragic when a teenager dies. 

Figure 8. Death record of a laborer named Patrick Fenlon who died in Ballinastraw in 1892 at the age of 13. 

Open Questions 

Overall we are starting to gain a picture of EJF's parents and siblings who remained in Ireland. However, like any good research project, this new information simply raises more questions and adds to one's curiosity. As a challenge to myself and anyone else who is interested in pursing this, it is useful to list some of these questions. 

1. Who were Patrick and Catherine's parents, grandparents, etc. Tracing the direct line is always a top priority. I have done some initial research into this. Unfortunately, Patrick was the second most common male name and Catherine was the third most common female name in Ireland at this time. I have found 14 possible fathers for Patrick. Related to this is the interesting possibility that Catherine Ryan was born in Co. Cork as Anne Treacy Fenlon's records indicate. 
2. Did Patrick and Catherine have any other children? There are several gaps in between children being born, e.g., the five year gap between John and Aiden. Perhaps there are other births recorded in the Kilrush, Ferns, or Marshalstown parish records?
3. Did any of EJF's siblings besides his oldest sister Anna Fenlon Ward immigrate to the US?
4. Do we have distant Irish cousins? It seems likely that some of EJF's siblings had children and grandchildren and it would be fascinating to track them down. I have reached out to a few Fenlons in Ireland in an effort to pursue this. 
5. It is troubling that the birth records for Anna Fenlon Ward and EJF have not been found. Again the parish records need to be searched and, since some of these have not been indexed, it will have to be a page-by-page search. Hopefully Anna's death certificate will confirm that Catherine Ryan was her mother's maiden name. 
6. What kind of lives did Mary, Thomas, John, Aiden, and Patrick Jr. lead? There are some interesting possibilities here. For example, there is a John Fenlon listed in the 1901 census as a 32 year old victualler (one who is licensed to sell liquor) who lived on Hospital Lane in Enniscorthy with his wife and son. The age matches well with our John, who would have been 31 years old in 1901; however, the location is outside the Fenlon zone and John was the most common male name in Ireland at this time. I also have a mistaken identity story to tell you about Mary Fenlon, but that will have to wait for another blog post. 

Please comment below or email me with other questions you would like me to research. 

I would like to thank Uncle Brian and Aunt Kate for their sponsor support of this research which helped me find the newspaper notice of Patrick Fenlon being evicted and the information about Michael Sweetman.  

My next blog post will feature a wonderful 1918 letter that Hugh MacDonell wrote to his sister (my great-grandmother) Janet MacDonell Treacy.  I want to thank my Uncle Tim for passing this letter on to me. 

Happy New Year everyone!  

All the best for 2022.

Ed Fenlon

Lancaster, PA

efenlon "at" fandm "dot" edu