The Birth Of McCullaghs: Frank, Patrick & Dolly

On 11 October 1910 at 43 Monaghan Street a child was born - Francis, son of Bridget and Patrick McCullagh. The parents did not disclose the fact publicly although there is a legal requirement to register the birth of every child. They were living just a short walk from the registry office. Still, Frank's birth was not registered. Frank was sent to stay with the Troys in Mill Street for a time.

On 3 February 1912 a second son was born to Bridget and Patrick McCullagh at 43 Monaghan Street. He was named Patrick. (My siblings will be astonished to learn the real date of birth of our father, and the fact that he was therefore some eight months older than we had always thought). Patrick's birth was not registered, nor was he brought to the Cathedral for baptism. He was however kept at home. (His older brother Frank was also back at home).

On 11 June 1914 a girl Bridget Dorothy was born to Bridget and Patrick McCullagh at 43 Monaghan Street. Her birth was not officially registered nor was she baptised then.

We must remember that all this happened in the busiest street of a large town to a Catholic couple very much in the public eye, as the house was a boarding and eating establishment providing for visiting farmers from the immediate hinterland. Why were they so secretive?

I believe that Bridget's experience of 1907 coloured her attitude and affected her behaviour (and that of her partner Patrick) for the rest of their lives. The permanent loss of the infant Elizabeth was a grievous blow. They would not repeat their mistake. When their first child Francis was born, they proceeded with caution. Many months after his birth this fact was recorded officially. However only the barest details were provided and the true father was not acknowledged. The baby was recorded as Francis Garvey, still granny's official surname. He was not brought to church for baptism – well, not then anyway..

The same procedure was followed regarding the infant Patrick. His birth was not officially recorded until 1913 when he was registered as Patrick Garvey. He was not to be baptised until 1926 - six years after the death of his father and when he was fourteen years of age. He would have been acutely aware then that something was up but it is unlikely that anything was explained to him. Bridget Daly (Loy), my first cousin, remembers Sonny's confusion and irritation at his ignorance. He often called his mother by her Christian name - instead of “mummy” etc as Dolly and Frank called her. He'd occasionally also be abrupt with her. (Bridget Daly also remembers that he'd often ask her for a shilling to back a horse!)

One curiosity arises from all this. Most of my elder siblings are aware that aunt Dolly was almost universally known outside the family as Dolly Garvey. Frank and Sonny were always known as McCullaghs. Yet unlike her two brothers Dolly was never given the name Garvey.

By 1914 Patrick and Bridget, now safe in the knowledge that their two boys would not be lost to them, retained in Monaghan Street without subterfuge the girl child who was born to them in June of that year. They didn't now even bother about the world knowing that the child was neither officially registered nor baptised.

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To establish whether, when and where our grandparents were married is of some importance. Of all matters researched by me I have devoted most time and effort to this search. I have found no record of this marriage. This is much more significant than the failure to find a record of birth or death because a marriage is a public and legally binding agreement which requires the presence of witnesses and an official/priest/minister whose bounden duty it is to legally record the details. (The main purpose is to prevent bigamy). I have scoured the marriage records (Roman Catholic, other denominations, registry offices) in Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and Britain without success. Although Patrick's death certificate in 1920 recorded him as a married man and Bridget as his widow, I now believe they were such only in each other's eyes - and perhaps in the eyes of all who knew them.

Consider this. Patrick and Bridget are unlikely to have been married prior to 1913 - otherwise my father Patrick in the late registry of that year would have been given his proper surname. It is unlikely they married before June 1914 for in that case, surely the child born to them then would have been registered openly as Bridget Dorothy McCullagh. Just three years later my grandfather Patrick contracted the bacillus that was to cause his death after three years of suffering. Had they married secretly in those final years there would remain an official record. This matter seemed a big issue to me to begin with but not any more. Their experience over Elizabeth was enough to frighten them off church ceremonies, especially true of Patrick. Some years after his death Bridget returned to the church and had her children baptised.

Patrick and Bridget had at least fourteen years together. Their relationship was close and loving. Their devotion to their children was absolute. Their first son was named for Patrick's father Francis who was recently deceased. He became known just as Frank. Their second son, because he was younger and smaller (perhaps Frank McCullagh, even as a child had that commanding presence which distinguished him in adult life) became known as Sonny rather than Patrick (he was called for his father - which I am proud to say I was too, after both men) and their young daughter became known as Dolly instead of her given name Dorothy - not just because it derives from it, but apparently also to express what the parents thought of her.

Patrick worked as a baker as long as his health allowed. He suffered from tuberculosis for three long years and three months. The end came slowly and painfully. After a month and seven days of haemorrhaging he died of exhaustion on 18 August 1920. He was forty-three. Bridget was present at his death. At the young age of forty she was left to face life without her partner, the love of her life.

It is notable that on his death certificate, she is declared his widow, present at his death on 18.8.1920. It is specifically stated that they were married, though that data may just have been offered. He was, it stated, a baker. The Registrar Mr Smartt signed.

Bridget continued to develop her business at 43 Monaghan Street. Indeed she had no option as she had no other income now. As time went on there were fewer boarders of necessity as with four children living in the house with her, space was at a premium. She still kept boarders though for very many years to come. I know the names of some who stayed there briefly - such as Paddy Carragher - now mum's neighbour in the Meadow. Her chief income was from the meals she served in the front room to small farmers, mainly from South Armagh, in town for the markets. It was known simply as an “eating house” and she must have been quite a cook for she was never short of customers. Most of them would have been acquaintances of hers, if not friends. I remember long after granny's death when Dolly was running the eating-house, walking slowly down the hall so that I could peer curiously at the patrons eating their meals at the many tables arranged about that room. They would be just as curious about me for they would have a duty to bring back to the womenfolk on the farm all the news from the town. Bernadette remembers some of the boarders making jigsaws at those tables of an evening. She was allowed to help and thereby developed a love of jigsaws!

Bridget's main task in life remained the rearing of her children. At the time of Patrick's death her eldest daughter Mary (Maisie) was seventeen, Frank was ten, Sonny was eight and Dolly just six years old. There was of course another child Elizabeth. She was thirteen. Bridget must have thought of her often but it is unlikely she ever met her again. Elizabeth was living out her young life less than three miles away on the tiny barren farm in Ballymacdermott. If she climbed the hill of the road to the nearby Bernish viewpoint she could see Newry spread out below her. Her natural parents lived there though she would have known nothing of them. She occasionally came to town on her ‘father's' cart with a churn of milk to sell.

The next momentous occasion in Bridget's life was the marriage of her daughter Mary Garvey to Joseph Vickers. She could not have been aware that exactly two months before this happy event her second daughter - in much less happy circumstances - was married just a few miles away.

That Bridget had done well for herself was evidenced by the substantial wedding gift she bestowed on her eldest daughter and her groom. [It is likely her aunt Bridget O'Brien bequeathed her home to her. Bridget O'Brien died about this time].

Joseph was a barber and granny granted the lease of what is now Gorman's barber's shop to set him up in business. She also furnished and equipped the building - which was the newly-weds home as well - with the items and implements appertaining to her son-in-law's trade. The details of the transaction are known because the present owner - Hugh Gorman, a grandson of the original Tom Gorman who was to take over after Joe Vickers's departure - possesses the original bill of sale to his grandfather in 1933. Photocopies of some legal papers in relation to this are in my possession. (See Source File). The shop's lease was agreed for the sum of £12, including fixtures and fittings - i.e. the furniture and tools already alluded to. This was to be paid at the rate of ten shillings a week. If this seems a derisory sum today, it certainly was not. Remember Bridget Loy (my cousin, and cousin of the woman of this house Mary Vickers) was working then - and happy to be in work - for one pound a month. This was the hungry thirties, following upon the stock market crash of 1929. Ten shillings per week would have contributed substantially to a household's domestic requirements. Mr Gorman then received 1d for a haircut. He needed to cut 20 heads a day in a six-day week just to pay the lease. (It was a tall order but he managed, as did his son after him, and now his grandson. Tom Gorman of O'Neill Avenue [they no longer lived over the shop since the forties] became a family friend and raised a large family in the last house of the “red row”. I know several of his children, including of course Hugh the barber of today). I will return to Maisie's wedding shortly. First, her half-sister, Elizabeth.