Patrick McCullagh Comes To Newry

The 1901 census notes that at 1 Upper Edward Street there lived a married couple, Peter Quinn (45) born in Tyrone and Catherine a local lady (40). They had no children. Catherine’s niece Alice Sloan (18) single and a dressmaker lived with them. Also boarding with them was a widower Stephen Marley (60) a shoemaker of County Louth. Peter worked as a baker in Willis’ just behind his back door. Behind that again was Monaghan Street. (See map).

Sometime in the next decade Catherine died. The house was forsaken and Peter moved the short distance to board with Bridget Garvey. The mature Peter with a steady job in Willis’ was an ideal lodger and something of a soul mate. They had both lost their partners. He became a trusted friend and a long-time resident. He may have been a friend and even a relative of her aunt’s friend Henry McCullagh, both from Tyrone. How, when and why did he come to Newry in the first place? This is uncertain but I possess a photocopy of a newspaper clipping of relevance. The following is a quote from a trade unionist, speaking at a public meeting at the time.. To win his anti-trade union struggle in 1890 Mr Willis local bakery owner - “imported five or six strangers, - without character - who were shut up since they came to town.” I believe that Peter Quinn was one of these blackleg workers and indeed maybe Henry McCullagh and Philip Coonagh were too - as a fitter, the latter could have serviced the bakery’s machines.

In any case I am convinced that Peter summoned to Newry from Ardboe in the first decade of the new century a young lad named Patrick McCullagh, with the promise of a job in Willis’ as a baker and a guaranteed place to stay. This is of great significance to me, because this man was to be my grandfather. (It’s just possible that Peter was remotely related to Patrick and this is discussed on the last pages too). Patrick McCullagh had left home before 1901 (as is evidenced from his parent’s census return) but had not yet come to Newry. When eventually he did, his presence was to alter life at 43 Monaghan Street radically. The family reader is again cautioned that the next account will reveal matters new to him/her and because of the absence of hard and fast evidence, matters which remain largely unproven. Such proof is difficult to evince after almost a century especially since every effort - successful it appears - was made to hide the facts in the lifetimes of those most intimately involved. I am personally convinced of the truth of my theories and I will attempt to convince the reader too.

The chemistry worked immediately between Bridget and her handsome new boarder. If one assumes the death of her husband (she declared herself a widow in the 1911 census return) Bridget was of course free to form a new relationship. Nowadays it would be considered natural, logical and prudent while she was still a young woman in her twenties. Though they were in love it seems that Patrick McCullagh was unwilling to make a marriage commitment and they maintained the charade of a proprietor/tenant relationship for years.