This little girl is the only one of my ancestors, back to 1800, not born in south Ulster.
It brings to mind another little girl, her great-grandmother, who was born in India about 1794 and married 11 years later.
Conolly of Ballyshannon
The career of William 'Speaker' Conolly is well documented most recently by Patrick Walsh in
The Making of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy; The Life William Conolly, 1662-1729.
Here I want to look at his background.
Nat Arch M6917/82 3 Oct 1693
Phelim Conolly, gent, of Edinbrone, Co Monaghan, and William Conolly. It relates to £1,000 loan.
Witnessed by Patrick Conolly & Thomas Atkinson
Edinbrone is in the parish of Aghnamullen
This suggests the possibility that William's father, Patrick, originally came to Ballyshannon from Monaghan
More information on the Coane family can be found in: The Coane family of Ballyshannon, Donegal by Abigail Coane Leibell, National Library of Ireland, Call Number 3B 120
| Rev James Lowry Dickson, great grandson of Thomas Dickson & Elizabeth Conolly, & my 3x great grandfather, was Vicar of Rossinver from 1816-1835. One day returning home from Ballyshannon he became irritated by his wife nagging him about his improvidence and tossed the money he had just withdrawn off the Erne bridge into the river below |
A rental for the Ffolliott estate in Ballyshannon (which William Conolly purchased in 1718) has the following holdings for Conolly's father, Patrick:
Patrick Connelly the Ballybo of Sminver & Mill £9.0.0
Patrick Connolly the halfe quarter of Creevy in ye Megh £6.10
Patrick Connolly the Too parks in the Meadows £2.0
In addition he appears to have owned a tenement
57;375;38940 – 3rd June 1724
Conolly to Dickson – Wm Dickson, merchant of B’sh
Tenement formerly in possession of Patrick Conolly
bounded on N/W with Mr Thos Dickson’s
tenement & on S with John Jennings
Lives of said William Dickson, Henry Dickson of L’derry &
John Dickson, eldest son to Thos Dickson of Ballyshannon
Thomas Dickson was son-in-law to Patick Conolly being married to Elizabeth Conolly
By 1687 William Connolly was leasing the 10 ballyboes of Ballymunterhigin for £16.10
Both Patrick & William were of sufficient status to be attainted in 1689 under James II
The Castletown papers have some letters (C25/14 & 15) to William Conolly described as from his cousin Thady Coane & from Terence Coane. On this basis I have described Conolly's mother as Jane Coane.
Conolly was of course Established Church; at this time the Coanes were Roman Catholic though some later changed.
A series of the rent rolls of the Folliott/Conolly Ballyshannon estates (1687, 1718, 1728, 1748 & 1773) is included in the Conolly section of Legal Papers.
Links to main Family Index / Dickson of Ballyshannon / Rathfarnham
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