A tale of two headstones

American researcher visits Silvermines to trace family roots

Silvermines Historical Society's 'Mining the Past' series has unearthed some fascinating accounts of emigration over the years, many of them penned by descendants of those who left in search of new lives overseas.

Among them is Gus Conroy, who wrote about his great-grandfather Edward Cornelius Conroy in the most recent volume of the series. Gus had never been to Ireland before. This summer he followed up his article with a visit to his ancestral homeland and meeting with the person who inspired him to write it, Betty Gleeson of Silvemines Historical Society.

"Betty was the catalyst for getting me involved and encouraging me to write. I'm not a writer!" said Gus, who attested to having little or no interest in family history prior to the pandemic. He spent half his life in the Asian Pacific working in an international marketing role, from which he retired last year. He relocated to live in Texas about four years ago.

Like many people, Gus went in search of new things during the recent period of confinement. And, again like many, he found them in the past when a casual interest in his Irish ancestry was stoked by Gus' father.

FAMILY PHOTO

Gus is the third Augustine Edward Conroy in his family; his father was the second and grandfather the first. The family had a photograph in which Gus' grandfather (aged 8 at the time) was pictured, yet little heed was paid to it until Gus' father - who was suffering from dementia while also isolating due to the virus - started talking to his son about it over the phone.

"I started researching and trying to understand where they came from in Ireland," Gus said. "I found an obituary that said they came from Silvermines. That's how I reached out to Betty. In learning more about Edward Conroy from Silvermines, I was able to share that with my dad."

Sadly, Gus' father passed away last year. But their avid discussions about that photograph and the people in it became a lasting legacy, one that gave Gus cause to delve deeper into his family history.

"In some ways, it's a parting gift that he gave me - it was because of him that I got into it. Because of him I met with some wonderful people, and the first was Betty of the Silvermines Historical Society, and she was the one who encouraged all of this."

SILVERMINES FAMILY

Betty was able to inform the novice researcher, much to his surprise, that his great-grandfather had 10 siblings. Edward Cornelius Conroy was born in Silvermines in 1858. His parents were Edward Conroy and Honoria Ryan, headmaster and teacher at Silvermines National School for almost 40 years.

All of their children left the area - Cornelius and five of his siblings emigrated to the United States. Four of those who remained moved elsewhere in Ireland in search of work, one of them a daughter, married a RIC constable and moved to Westmeath, to where her father also moved after the death of Honoria.

No Conroys were present in Silvermines in the 1901 census, indicating that all of Gus' family were gone by then.

CONNECTING DOTS

This information amounted to fascination for Gus, hitherto more or less oblivious to his Irish roots. "My dad loved potatoes and joked a little bit about being Irish but we never went back to Ireland and it wasn't a big subject," he recalled of growing up. "It was only in discussions I had with my dad at the end of his life that he shared more about EC Conroy, his grandfather and what had become of him."

Once he began exploring and documenting the story, it became a "passion" for Gus, who wanted to visit Ireland not just to see where his forebears came from, but to "connect dots". He came here for three weeks this summer, the first part of which were spent in Co Tyrone tracking down the woman who married Cornelius - Alice Augusta Treacy. This element of the visit was largely motivated by Gus' desire to complete the inscription on a headstone over his great-grandparents' final resting place.

Cornelius and Alice Treacy were buried in Lawrence, Massachusetts, to where the former emigrated from the 'Mines in 1879, aged 21. He worked in a woollen mill there, saved hard and at the age of 40 graduated as a medical doctor.

No doubt driven by the education he had received at his parents' school back home - and the year he spent at Rockwell College before emigrating - Cornelius went on to head the prestigious Andover School Board, the story about which can be read in Gus' contribution to 'Mining the Past'.

Tragically, the first land that Cornelius bought at Lawrence was a cemetery plot for his son Edward, who died little more than a year after his birth in 1884; and his infant daughter Mary, who died a short time later.

Cornelius and Alice were buried there too (he died in 1923) but there was no family headstone. Gus elected to put a headstone in place this year. He had his paternal ancestor's details but did not know where his great-grandmother came from.

DNA research traced her back to Tyrone, where Gus was delighted to meet with some of the Treacy family descendants on his visit to Ireland.

When he came to Tipperary - via Galway and Clare - Gus was made aware of another missing headstone involving his family ancestors. The remaining one of Edward and Honoria's 11 children, Margaret, died in 1870 at the age of 6. She was buried in Killoscully cemetery alongside her grandfather (Honoria's father James Ryan) but, here too, there was no headstone, and this subsequently led to commotion in the local parish.

"A body was buried there that wasn't a Conroy," Gus explained, having read about the matter in the Nenagh Guardian archive. "There was a big deabte and court session to try and resolve the issue. Someone had been mistakenly buried there. They had to find the person and what to do about it

"So, we have missing headstone in Killoscully that was replaced and now we have one in Lawrence too, so I'm not sure what it is about the Conroy headstones!"

Members of Silvermines Historical Society showed him the grave in Killoscully and washed the headstone so that the inscription was legible. Gus described this as a "very moving" experience; the family headstones here and in America in many ways symbolised the circumstances of his visit.

"I feel like I'm ready to complete the story," he said of returning to Lawrence to erect a headstone with an inscription referencing both his Tipp and Tyrone ancestors.

POSITIVE IMPRESSIONS

While staying here - at historic Lissanisky House, Ballymackey - Gus and his wife Grace also visited Rockwell College in Co Limerick, where Cornelius spent a year before his emigration to the US. They searched the college archive for information about him and his older brother James, who also went to Rockwell; the brothers probably got a scholarship but Gus was unable to confirm this.

The American visitors also spent some time at the county library in Thurles, and Betty and Denis Gleeson brought them to a hurling match - the league final between Burgess and Ballina in Dolla. While he only saw the last 10 minutes, the match left a lasting impression on Gus, a baseball player, who had never seen hurling played before and was intrigued by the dexterity and strategy involved. "Getting to watch in person was much more exciting than I could ever imagine," he commented.

They visited Nenagh too, and gorged on more local history with Kevin Whelan's walking tour of the town - "he is a great advocate for all things Nenagh and bringing that to life".

While this was Gus' first visit to Ireland, he assured it would not be his last. He left feeling that he had built good friendships here as well as strengthened links to the past, and he is very much looking forward to coming back again.