8. The Carrolls of Kildare

The seventeenth century saw the curtain begin to fall on Celtic Ireland. Events such as the plantation of Ulster, the Cromwellian invasion and the Williamite wars profoundly affected all aspects of Irish life. After the battle of the Boyne vast numbers of Irishmen chose exile in France or Spain rather than the humiliation at home. This became known as the Flight of the Wild Geese and an estimated 120,000 left Ireland between 1690 and 1730. The Irish Legion in Spain had a much longer history than that in the French service although the latter had the distinction of defeating the famed British Grenadiers in one battle. L'Abbé MacGeoghan, the historian and chaplain of the Irish Brigade in the French service enumerates the names of the most distinguished families and quotes the O'Carrolls as having "crowned themselves with laurels at the shores of Tagus".

The loss of these leaders removed the last barriers between the Irish people and their foreign rulers. The eighteenth century in Ireland saw the completion of the process of subjugation as the Penal Laws ended the ancient Gaelic order and the reduction to peasanthood of the once proud Irish nation. Even the personal and family names of the people were changed as the use of the English language, introduced by the Normans in the twelfth century, became widespread and resulted in the Gaelic forms of names being abandoned for anglicised equivalents. The prefixes Mac an O' were widely dropped and thus the ancient Gaelic family name of ó cerball gave way to the anglicised O'Carroll and finally Carroll.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries record keeping at parish level was not an easy matter for the local clergy. This was largely due to the widespread illiteracy among congregations caused by the suppression of the Gaelic language and the Penal laws enacted after the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 which proscribed public worship for Catholics. These laws were not removed from the statute book until the Emancipation Act of 1829.

What records were kept were decimated by the fire at the Four Courts in Dublin in 1922 which destroyed a majority of the parish records together with wills, marriage licences and census returns.

Although the difficulties in tracing Irish ancestry are legion, we know that Thomas Carroll almost certainly lived in Ballyna in County Kildare (as six of his children were baptised in the local Roman Catholic church there) and he was married to Mary Higgins. The occurrence of the name Carroll through northern Tipperary, Offaly and Kildare shows that over a period of time the family spread across the county from their ancient land of Ely and it is almost certain that Thomas Carroll was a descendant of the O'Carrolls of Ely. The children of Thomas and Mary that were baptised at Ballyna with their dates of baptism were:

The Great Famine, usually known as the famine of 1847 actually began in 1845 with the blighting and failure of the potato crop. Potato was the chief means of sustenance for the majority of people and they were therefore totally dependant on it. The loss that year was estimated as nine million pounds sterling which in 1845 was a lot of money. A worse still failure occurred in 1846 and the worst of all in 1847 when the suffering reached its climax. It is calculated that around one million people died of starvation and associated diseases and around another million fled to foreign lands. In all during the fifty years between 1846 and 1896 the population of Ireland halved from around nine million to around four and a half million.

Hugh Carroll, the eldest son of Thomas and Mary, was fifteen when the great famine began and he moved to England a year later. He found work on the canals and building sites in Yorkshire and settled in Southgate, Bradford.

On 12 August 1854, at the age of twenty-four, Hugh married Bridget Cliborn at the Catholic chapel in Bradford. The ceremony was performed by Father Cullimore before the Registrar James Reaney with John Madden and Mary McEvoy as the witnesses. Bridget lived at Victoria Street, Horton and she was also born in Kildare. At the time of the wedding she was nineteen and working as a mill hand in Bradford.

After the wedding Hugh and Bridget lived at 72 Clifford Street, Horton, Bradford. This is where their first child Thomas (named traditionally after Hugh's father) was born on 27 June 1855. Shortly after this they moved to 3 Maritime Street, Stockton where their other ten children were born. Their children were:

On 29 August 1882, Thomas Carroll, the eldest child of Hugh and Bridget married Mary Elizabeth Bolton at St Mary's Catholic church, Stockton in the county of Durham. Thomas was twenty-seven at the time and a stocktaker. Mary Elizabeth Bolton was twenty-five and lived at Portrack Lane, Stockton. She was born at Arden Hall in Yorkshire, the daughter of Robert and Anne Bolton and a descendant of an ancient Saxon family (reference to Bolton family to be inserted when available). The ceremony was performed by Fr. John William Carlile and the witnesses were Robert Bolton and Annie C Bolton.

After the wedding they lived with Thomas's family at 3 Maritime Street, Stockton and they had six children:

Portrack was (and still is) a solid working class area as was Maritime Street. In March 1878, James Carroll was appointed a monitor (candidate for being a pupil teacher) at St Mary's RC Boys School, Major Street, Stockton. He lasted until November of that year when he was sent out to work. In 1914, Francis Carroll was the landlord of the Raby Castle Inn, Maritime Street (I am indebted to V Tompkinson for providing this information and a couple of corrections to the previous paragraph).

Mary died on 29 April 1934 at the age of seventy-six and Thomas died on 18 February 1941 at the ripe old age of eighty-five.

Christopher Aloysius Carroll, the eldest son of Thomas and Mary, married Frances Sleightholm on 28 August 1906 at St Mary's Catholic church, Hartlepool. They lived first in Stockton, then moved to Dulwich in South London, then to Coxley in Somerset then finally to Wookey Hole in Somerset. Christopher was an Electrical Engineer and had the distinction of installing the first electric lighting in Wookey Hole. They had five children, all sons:

Frances died on the 10 January 1962 in Wells, Somerset and Christopher died on 1 April in the same year at Streatham, London. Both were aged seventy-eight and they were buried in Wells.

Bertrand Thomas Carroll, the eldest son of Christopher and Frances was, like his father, an Electrical Engineer. He married Kathleen Frances Barron on 15 September 1934 at St Anthony's Catholic church in Dulwich, London. Kathleen was a Telephonist and the daughter of John Francis Barron and Ellen Wilmsen. The Barron family originated in Waterford, Ireland (reference to Barron family to be inserted when available).

Bertrand and Kathleen lived in Dulwich, London; Coxley, Somerset; Khartoum in the Sudan and again in Dulwich. They had two children:

That's me by the way!

Bertrand died on 27 February 1990 and Kathleen died on 11 December 1994.

Any errors, additions, suggestions or queries please do contact me (see below).