DANAHER FAMILY HISTORY
Subtitle
Glenagower to Monemohill and beyond
GLENAGOWER.
I have been able to trace my own Danaher family line back as far as Philip Danaher who was born around 1786 in Glenagower and died on 7th August 1884. He lived to be 98 years old. He was married to Bridget Sheehy, born 1795 and died 22nd February 1864 aged 69 years, and they had at least 11 children as set out in
i) John (born before <1824) took tenancy of Monemohill around 1850 and married Margaret Cummane. (not in Tithe Evaluations but in Griffiths Valuations)
ii) James (b1837 took tenancy of Knocknaboola and married Bridget Sheehy
iii) Maurice (b<1830) took tenancy of Moyreen and married Marie Doherty
iv)Hannah (b1839) married David Quaid
v) Maria married Michael Purtill, Gortnadromma
v) Tim married Ellen Nolan and took tenancy of The Mount, near Moyreen. Had up to 1,000 acres but mainly poor land.
vi) William married Anne Cummane, Clounlehard West and seems to have inherited the farm at Glenagore
vii) Bridget became nun in Kilrush, Co Clare
viii) Philip never married but is said to have given money to his nephew pat Danaher to buy Woodcliffe.
MONEMOHILL (‘MONEYMOHILL’)
The earliest mention of the townland that I have found is in Begley’s “History of Limerick Diocese Part 2 - relating to the 1584 Survey of Forfeited lands ‘when Ullig Wall held Dunmoylan including ----------- Monemoell with castle’.
The Civil Survey was a record of land ownership in Ireland in 1640. Its purpose was to facilitate the transfer of forfeited property to adventurers, members of the Cromwellian army, and government. It has land descriptions as well as the names of proprietors and their religion.
According to this survey the lands referred to as Monemohill were bounded on the north by Finnoe, on the west by Clounlehard, on the east by Duncaha and on the south by Glenagower. The proprietor was Richard Stephenson an ‘Irish Papist’. The area owned by Stephenson was given as ‘300 ploughlands’, about 3,900 acres, and the total value was given as £40.
In the Cromwellian settlement of 1649 Monemohill (spelled Monewherille) was confiscated from Richard Stephenson a Confederate ( Catholic ) and given to John Bourke and Brook Bridges.
Footnote
The lands granted to the Bourkes were again confiscated after the Treaty of
Limerick, and they disappear from among the landed gentry of the district, but the Bourkes of Tiermore, near Shanagolden, are commonly reputed to be the present representatives. The Coat of Arms on the tomb of Michael Bourke of Tiermore, born 1724, represent the same arms as those borne by the Bourkes of Clanwilliam. John Bourke was M.P. for Askeaton in James 11 Parliament of 1689.
Land Acts
The Land Acts were a series of measures to deal with the question of proprietorship of land in Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Five such acts were introduced by the government of the United Kingdom between 1870 and 1909. Further acts were introduced by the government of the Irish Free State after 1922.
Continued land agitations throughout the 1880s and 1890s culminated with the passing of the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act 1885, also known as the Ashbourne Act, named after Baron Ashborne, putting limited tenant land purchase in motion. The Act allowed a tenant to borrow the full amount of the purchase price, to be repaid at 4% over 49 years. Five million sterling was made available, and about 25,400 tenants purchased their holdings up to 1888. In all 942,600 acres were purchased, which made an average holding of 37 acres. The purchase price was equal to 17 ½ years rental.
This is likely to have been how our Danaher's acquired their land having been tenant farmers up until then.
ORDNANCE SURVEY 1840 AND GRIFFITHS VALUATION 1852
EXTRACT FROM : Field Name Books of Limerick
Field Name Books of the County and City of Limerick with the Place-Names, English and Irish as explained and fixed by John O'Donovan. Ordnance Survey of Ireland 1839-40
The Field Name Books of the County and City of Limerick is a collection of more than 1,700 pages of notes taken by surveyors during the first ordnance survey of County Limerick, c. 1840. They comprise a vast quantity of data on the geography, placenames, antiquities and other miscellaneous information relating to Limerick. Supplementary to the Field Name Books are the Ordnance Survey Letters, correspondence between the surveyors in the field and the central office in Dublin - these letters contain useful additional materials. It is interesting to note the different spellings of the townlands used by locals, clergy and different past surveys and reports.
Monemohill
The Ordnance Survey letter for Dunmoylan Parish noted that there was the remains of a castle wall and a holy well known as " Tobair Ri Na Domhaine" literally The Well of the King of Sunday in the townland of Gortnadroma. There was also an old graveyard in this townland ( near the present Guiney's farm)
Glenagore
By the time of Griffith’s Valuation in 1852 John Danaher, my great-grandfather, held 197 acres at Mone(y)mohill, the largest holding in a townland which totalled 624 acres. The owners of the three largest holding from 1833 had disappeared !. The landlord was Col. Richard S Bateson, presumably a relative or brother of Thomas Bateson ( Sir Thomas Bateson had no sons, only two daughters ). (Richard S Bateson held 1,394 acres in Co Limerick valued at £1,123. Richard S Bateson was a career army man, Lieutenant Colonel and Honorary Colonel 1st Life Guards with an address at Knightsbridge Barracks, London. He was married twice, and seems to have had a distinguished career in the British Army. )
John Danaher who was married to Margaret Cummane died tragically at 56 years of age as a result of a fall from a horse. There are a few versions of how this happened. Some say he was working on the farm with a horse and cart and was able to walk home after the accident but died later that day. The version I heard from my mother was that he was on his way to Shanagolden on horseback and was thrown from the horse into a steam in the townland of Briska. The horse returned home riderless and alerted the family that something was wrong but he had already drowned in the stream. John Danaher and Margaret Cummane had a large number of children as set out in the attached link ;
(When you open this file you may have to enlarge or reduce the image to view)
Notes on these family members ;
i) Bridget Danaher, aged 24, married John ‘Boss’ Danaher, aged 38, on 21/11/1876 at Kilcolman parish church. The witnesses were James Danaher and Catherine Purtill. John Danaher was married previously to May Woulfe who had died in 1876 aged 42 leaving 5 young children under 10 years.
ii) Philip Danaher married a local girl Maria O’Sullivan’ from Tenakilla, Ballyhahill. For a time they ran a pub in Shanagolden before emigrating to Australia ( Queensland ) circa 1881/2 where they have numerous descendants some of whom have come to Ireland in recent years to find their roots.
iii) Johanna married John Hastings from Moyreen and had a large family.
iv) Margaret married James Cleary from Templeathea East. According to Phil Cregan he owned 400 acres and had 10 women coming in every day to milk !.
vi) Patrick ‘Pat’ married Nano Dillon and acquired the Danaher farm at Woodcliffe. He was married at 15 years of age. They had at least 7 children including Dan, Matthew, John, Catherine, Josephine, Hannah and Mary.
vii) Daniel married Margaret O’Callaghan from Feenagh but they had no family. They raised a niece of Margeret’s, Nora O’Callaghan who later moved to Dublin and married an O’Carroll man who had a pub in North Dublin and they lived in the Malahide area. They had one retarded daughter. As Dan had no descendants he eventually left the Monemohill Farm to his nephew Dan Danaher from Woodcliffe.
viii) John became a Medical Doctor and practiced in London until his untimely death from rheumatic fever at the age of 34 on 8th August 1900 at home in Monemohill. My mother told me a story about her mother attending to her sick brother and hearing the ‘banshee’ crying on the night he died !. See attached appendix relating to his funeral attendance.
ix) Catherine - no information on her - did she become Mother Gertrude in Kilrush.
x) Nora - born in 1870 married Thomas Lane sometime after the 1901 census. He was 15 years older than her. They had 5 children including my mother.
The table below shows the number of Danaher households in each county in the Primary Valuation property survey carried out between 1848-64. The highest number of Danaher households recorded was in County Limerick.
Clare 9, Kildare 1, Limerick 26, Limerick City 2, Tipperary 5.
Group taken on the lawn at Monemohill c1960's
SrPauline (Peggy Lane), Michael (Brud) Lane, Mary Al Lane, Josephine Danaher, Frances Scanlon and Donal Danaher