Charles O'Malley of Cloonane, 1779-1871 ... a detective story

An update to this original post can be seen here.

According to several ancient pedigrees (1) prepared at various times by the Chief Herald of Ireland (specifically, Sir William Betham 1832, and Edward MacLysaght 1946), Grace O'Malley (1530-1603) had 3 brothers - Melaghlin, Donal na Pioba, and Teige. The line of descent from Teige ends with a "Charles of Cloonane". So the key questions I will address in this article are: 

1. can DNA confirm that Charles of Cloonane was a descendant of Teige? 
2. can DNA confirm that Teige was really a brother of Grace O'Malley?

These are the kind of questions that the Finding Grace 2022 Y-DNA project hopes to address. But before we can even attempt an answer, we need to first find and then test a direct male line descendant of Charles O'Malley of Cloonane (or indeed, one of his 6 ancestors back to Grace's supposed brother, Teige). And one way to do that is to publish our research findings below in the hope that we can identify a descendant of Charles (or Teige) among the readers of this article. And if that is you, please leave a message in the Comments section below (or contact me directly via the O'Malley DNA Project) so that we can look into getting you a DNA test.

Melaghlin, Donal & Teige - the 3 supposed brothers of Grace O'Malley (from Betham 1832)
(click to enlarge)

So what do we know about "our Charles" of Cloonane?

The line of descent from Teige to Charles is given as follows: 

• Teige > Murrough > Dermot > Loughlin > Dermot > James > Charles of Cloonane

As there are 6 generations between Teige and "our Charles", and allowing an average of 30 years per generation, and assuming that Teige was born about 1540 (10 years after Grace), Charles would have been born about 6 x 30 = 180 years after Teige, in other words, 1720 AD. There are no birth dates in the various pedigrees (1) so for now we have to make an estimated guess.

We saw somewhere that he married an Alice Bourke but now we cannot find the source (one of those "now where did I see that?" moments). However, the Burke surname will crop up from time to time in the narrative below. The Bourke's / Burke's were probably the most well-known Hiberno-Norman family among the landed gentry of Mayo.

Cloonan (or Cloonane) is a townland half-way between Westport and Castlebar, in the Civil Parish of Islandeady in the Barony of Burrishoole (further useful details & maps on logainm.ie and townlands.ie).

Cloonan and neighbouring townlands (from logainm.ie)
(click to enlarge)

I entered what information we had into the Clan Tree on Ancestry but this did not generate any relevant hints, either among the billions of records or the millions of family trees. A simple Google search is always worth doing but did not throw up any useful leads. So I turned to the newspapers online (2) and that is where I found a wealth of information.

The earliest newspaper article that I came across was from 1833, where a "Charles O'Malley, Cloonan" was one of some 90 signatories expressing a public vote of thanks to Richard Sharp Esq. (3) However, if this was "our Charles" he would have been about 113 years old, if my 1720 estimate for his year of birth was correct. So initially I thought this could be a grandson or great grandson of "our Charles" and possibly the family land had passed down to him through the generations.

The following year (1834), a list of the Cess Payers in each barony included "Charles O'Malley, of Cloonane" for Burrishoole. (4) As a Cess Payer, he would have owned a lot of land and would probably have been considered "local gentry". He also appeared in the list of Cess Payers for 1836. (5)

List of Cess Payers - Mayo Constitution 29 Apr 1836 (5)

Also in 1836, Charles was among 140 local gentry who attended a "public dinner" in honour of the Earl of Altamont. Sir Samuel O'Malley (Baronet) was also in attendance as well as several other Malley "esquires" but without the "O" - John, Edward, William & Charles. (6)

In 1837, this Charles was elected to be Treasurer of the new Islandeady Dispensary (i.e. a pharmacy) to help cater for the needs of the 16,000 people in the area around Ballintubber, many of whom were "destitute of all medical aid" including "the suffering poor of the district (many of whom are at present afflicted with fever)". (7)

The establishment of the Islandeady Dispensary (7)

Several newspaper reports announced this Charles' death. He died at home in Cloonane on 13th June 1871 at the age of 92. (8,9) This is confirmed by his death record. This gives us a crude birth year of 1779 (almost 60 years later than my very crude estimate of 1720). So this again suggested that he might be a grandson of "our Charles". However, one of the death notices identified two of his children - Thomas & J.B. The first was a priest (so more than likely he would not have had any descendants), and the second was associated with the National Bank in Castlebar. This raised the question: might this latter son have living male descendants today that we could DNA-test?

Death notice for Charles O'Malley 1871 (9)

Charles was buried in "the family burial ground at Church Island", which turned out to be in the Old Section of Islandeady graveyard in the townland of Islandeady, just east of Cloonan. More on this to follow.

Islandeady graveyard on "Church Island"

Subsequent death notices were found for this Charles' children. His eldest daughter, Maria Alicia O'Malley, died at Cloonane in March 1875. (10) His son, Joseph B O'Malley (presumably the J.B. referred to at Charles' funeral) died at Cloonane in 1887. (11) Another daughter, Miss Margaret O'Malley died at Cloonane in 1896, (12) and another son, the Reverend Thomas O'Malley (Parish Priest of Islandeady) died at Cloonane in 1897. (13,14) The last member of these siblings was Anne O'Malley, who died in 1918 (aged 97 years old) in the neighbouring townland of Rinnaseer. (15)

Several important pieces of information emerge from the records associated with these deaths that allow us to make some interesting conclusions. 

Firstly, the family claimed a direct association with the O'Malley clan and had been on the land for several hundred years. The death notice for Joseph B O'Malley describes him as "a worthy member of one of the best and most ancient of our Mayo families". (11) The Mayo Examiner (1897) states "Father Tom leaves only a sister after him out of a long family. Miss Anne O'Malley represents this ancient stem of an ancient sept, whose residence in Cloonane and Islandeady dates back for centuries". (13) And the Freeman's Journal (1897) says of Father Tom: "Deceased was connected with one of the most historic families in Ireland, and his ancestral residence, Cloonane, was their home for over three centuries". (14) 

This is further supported by a newspaper report about the state of the tenants on the land of the O'Malley's of Cloonane "which lands have been held by the O'Malleys uninterruptedly for over three hundred years". (16) Furthermore, in a 1989 booklet produced to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the foundation of Islandeady parish, it states that Father Thomas claimed descent "from the de Burgos and O'Malley clan". (17) You will recall that we read somewhere that our "Charles of Cloonane" reportedly married an Alice Bourke (i.e. de Burgo). Finally, the Mayo Examiner (1897) states in regard to Father Tom: "Being the second son of the late Charles O'Malley, he was nearly connected with the Bourkes of Greenhills and Woodville, an ancient stock". (13) So these statements tie in with the ancient pedigrees that we started with, and suggest that this family may very well descend from "royal stock".

Islandeady parish booklet, 1989 (17)

The second important conclusion to glean from these records is that none of these five children of this Charles O'Malley appear to have had any children of their own, and therefore we cannot test any of their living descendants ... because there aren't any. The civil registration death records for each of the children identified above indicate that they were either bachelors or spinsters when they died (i.e. all unmarried). Note that the death record for Joseph B O'Malley reveals that his middle initial "B" stood for "Burke" - another link to the Bourke / Burke family.

(click to enlarge)

It is certainly possible that this Charles had other children and they in turn may have had children, but this does not appear to be the case, based on the funeral notices for Joseph Burke O'Malley and Father Thomas (11,13,14) In both cases, the chief mourners were cousins rather than siblings, nephews and nieces. And among these cousins there were no O'Malley's. So it looks like there was no surviving immediate close family of the siblings .. and therefore no descendants from O'Malley 1st cousins to test either. However, at both funerals, their older sister Anne is not included as a "chief mourner" and she was most definitely alive and living in the area in 1898 (18) and presumably stayed there up to her own death in 1918, because she died in the neighbouring townland, Rinnaseer. (15) So maybe the term "chief mourners" only referred to men? and then, only men of higher social standing?

At Joseph Burke O'Malley's funeral in 1887, the chief mourners were "Rev Thomas O'Malley, PP, brother of deceased; Messrs John B Sheridan (cousin), Thomas Burke Gaffney CE (cousin); Henry W Jordan, JP (cousin); Augustus Jordan (cousin)". (11) And at the funeral of Father Thomas in 1897, the chief mourners were "Messrs H W Jordan, J P, Myles J Jordan, solicitor; J B Sheridan, J C Sheridan, I H Sheridan, Dr W D’E Jordan, Dr Myles D’E Jordan, Edmund Jordan" (13) and "Mr Myles J Jordan, solicitor; Mr John B Sheridan, postmaster; Dr W de Exeter Jordan, Dr Myles de Exeter Jordan, Mr Edmond Jordan, Mr J C Sheridan, and Mr T M Sheridan". (14) No O'Malley cousin is mentioned in any of these three reports, although one report (14) does record some O'Malley's in attendance at the funeral - A M O'Malley, JP; M M O'Malley, O O'Malley. These could conceivably have been more distant cousins.

And that brings us to our third conclusion, somewhat more tentatively than the others. There were apparently no close male O'Malley relatives living at the time of either funeral and therefore it could be that this particular line of the family died out. And that would mean that there are no survivors today for Y-DNA testing.

However, it is possible that there may have been more distant cousins living who were not considered "chief mourners" but if there were, we have not found any record (as yet) to support this possibility.

Death notice of Joseph B O'Malley 1887 (11)

Funeral notice of Father Thomas O'Malley 1897 (14)

Death notice of Anne O'Malley 1918 (15)

So who were these chief mourners? and how were they related to "this Charles" O'Malley and his family? The surname "de Exeter Jordan" was easy to find via a Google search, and via trees on Ancestry, and ultimately via Burke's Landed Gentry. (19) It soon became clear that many of the chief mourners were related to each other via Dominick Burke of Cloggernagh c.1730-1803, whose daughter Bedelia married Myles de Exeter Jordan, and whose son Theobald had grandsons called Sheridan. I then found a brief reference to the Burke-Jordan marriage (without naming Bedelia) in O Hart's Irish Pedigrees (20), but with some additional important information: 

33. Dominick [Bourke] of Cloggernagh who died in 1803 m. Ismay Taaffe and had two sons: 1. Theobald of Woodville in the county of Mayo and 2. Joseph of Greenhills, with several daughters one of whom m. Myles Jordan of Rosslevan Castle in the county of Mayo and another Charles O’Malley of Cloonane.

So this is how the chief mourners are connected to "this Charles" O'Malley ... via his wife, who was another daughter of Dominick Burke c.1730-1803, and thus a sister to Bedelia & Theobald. The connections can be represented thus (mourners in bold):

• Dominick Burke c.1730-1803
• Bedelia Bourke c.1775 m. Myles de Exeter Jordan 1762-1829 of Rosslevin Castle
• Myles Jordan 1813-1881 m. Margaret J. Graham 1830-1882
• Henry W Jordan, JP 1858-1901
• Augustus Jordan 1865-1895
• Myles J Jordan, solicitor 1859-1906
• Constantine Jordan c.1800 m. Anne M O Finglass
• Dr Myles de Exeter Jordan 1834-1903
• Dr W de Exeter Jordan 1863-1899
• Theobald Burke c.1790 m. Isabel Deane
• Isabel Bourke m. John Martin Sheridan
• John B Sheridan, postmaster
• female Burke c.1780 m. Charles O'Malley of Cloonane
• Joseph Burke O'Mally 1821-1887
• Rev. Thomas O'Malley 1822-1897

So this connects the Jordan and Sheridan families to the O'Malley family, and makes "this Charles" O'Malley a brother-in-law to Bedelia, Theobald & Joseph Burke. And thus, his children would be 1st cousins once removed to most of the chief mourners described above.

But what was the name of the Burke sibling who married "this Charles" O'Malley? Could it have been Alice? (which would fit with the mystery "Alice Bourke" mentioned at the top of the article).

Charles' death notice (8,9) mentions that he was buried on "Church Island" and this turns out to be in the Old Section of Islandeady graveyard. Luckily, this burial ground has been surveyed by both Ireland Genealogy Projects (IGP) and IrishGraveyards, and Charles' grave is easy to find. (21,22) The inscription on the gravestone in plot 65 reads:

O Lord grant eternal ... | unto the souls of those | whose remains are underneath interred | CHARLES O'MALLEY | Died 15th June 1871 aged 92 years | ... O'MALLEY Alias ROURKE [i.e. Bourke?] his wife | ... Aug 1867 aged 89 yrs | Also their son | DOMINICK O'MALLEY | Died 10th Jan 1866 aged 52 | CHARLES O'MALLEY | ... Dec 1871 aged ... [49] (21)

Gravestone of "this Charles" O'Malley (from IGP-web.com)

We still cannot make out his wife's first name, but there are two new sons buried in the same plot (Dominick & Charles) bringing the total number of his children to at least seven. The death records for the four people in this grave reveal additional useful information:

• Dominick was recorded as being 50 years old when he died in 1866 (see partial transcription of record here - no image available, as yet ... but this could tell us if he was a bachelor)
• Charles junior was also 50 years old when he died in 1871, six months after his father (see digital image here). He also was a bachelor.
• and finally, Charles' wife is recorded as being 90 years old upon her death in 1867, and her first name was ... Alice (see transcription here - no image available, as yet)

Civil Registration Death Record for Charles O'Malley junior

So, given the various pieces of evidence, it seems highly likely that "this Charles" above is "our Charles". We still cannot rule out the possibility that we are looking at a son or grandson, also called Charles, who also married into the Burke family, but we may unearth further evidence in time that will answer this question.

If this Charles is the "Charles of Cloonane" described in the pedigrees, then we have a bit of a problem. As mentioned before, my estimate for his date of birth was 1720 AD, based on 30 years per generation and 6 generations back to Teige, the supposed brother of Grace O'Malley. But with a birth year of 1779 for this Charles, it means the average number of years per generations is 40 (i.e. 1779-1540 = 239, divided by 6 = c.40 years per generation). This stretches the imagination a tad, and one wonders if a generation has been omitted from the ancient pedigree ... or if it is true at all. In a subsequent article, we will explore the evidence that Grace O'Malley had 3 brothers. Maybe she did ... and maybe she didn't.

But we still don't know if there are any living male O'Malley's from this particular family who have survived to the present day. We certainly have not found any ... as yet. Maybe some of the O'Malley tenants on his land were related? Maybe they descended from the younger sons of the younger sons and thus did not inherit significant amounts of land (and hence wealth). Maybe they dropped down the social ladder over the generations and the memory (and records) of their elevated ancestry became lost in the mists of time.

So maybe it would be worthwhile testing a male O'Malley whose ancestors came from Cloonane? Is this you? If so, please get in touch - we may be able to sort out a free DNA test for you.

Maurice Gleeson

April 2022

An update to this original post can be seen here.

The 13th century church in Islandeady graveyard
(from Wikimedia Commons, photo Mick Reynolds, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Notes, Sources & Links

1) Pedigree of the family of O'Malley, Lords of Borrishoole, compiled by Sir William Betham 1832. Consulted by MG at National Library of Ireland on 12th April 2022 (MS 632); and O'Malley pedigree exhibited at O'Malley Clan Rally, Claregalway 2017, compiled by Edward MacLysaght, 1946

2) Many Irish newspapers have been digitised and are available online via IrishNewsArchive.com, BritishNewspaperArchive.com, and FindMyPast

3) Mayo Constitution, 11 Apr 1833 - public vote of thanks to Richard Sharp Esq

4) Mayo Constitution 26 May 1834 - List of Cess Payers

5) Mayo Constitution 29 Apr 1836 - List of Cess Payers

6) Mayo Constitution 30 Aug 1836 - Public Dinner to the Earl of Altamont

7) Mayo Constitution, 17 Apr 1838 - Islandeady Dispensary

8) Freeman's Journal 23 Jun 1871 - "Death of Charles O'Malley"

9) Tuam Herald 17th Jun 1871 - death notice for Charles O'Malley

10) Mayo Examiner 19 Mar 1875, page 3 - death of Maria Alicia O'Malley, Cloonane

11) Ballinrobe Chronicle & Mayo Advertiser 23 Apr 1887 - death of Joseph B O'Malley, Cloonane

12) Mayo Examiner 2 May 1896 - death of Miss Margaret O'Malley, Cloonane

13) Mayo Examiner 29 May 1897 - funeral of Father Thomas O'Malley, P.P.

14) Freeman's Journal 26 May 1897 - funeral of Rev Thos O'Malley, P.P., Cloonane, Islandeady

15) Ballina Herald & Mayo & Sligo Advertiser 4 Apr 1918 - death of Anne O'Malley, Cloonane

16) Mayo Examiner 17 Feb 1873 - Tenants on the estate of Sir Roger Palmer and Mr O'Malley

17) Islandeady - 150 years of Parish Records 1839-1989. Available as a YouTube video here.

18) Western People 27 Aug 1898, page 5 - "his Grace very kindly visited at Cloonane his only surviving sister, Miss Anne O'Malley"

19) Burke's Landed Gentry 1871, Vol 1, page 715. Full reference: Burke, Sir Bernard A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, Fifth Edition with Supplement, two volumes 1871. Available online here.

20) O Hart's Irish Pedigrees (1892, Volume 2, Bourke No.4, item 33) ... https://www.libraryireland.com/Pedigrees2/jordan-de-exeter-genealogy.php

21) Gravestone inscriptions & photographs for Old Section, Islandeady Graveyard, Mayo, Ireland, from Ireland Genealogy Projects archive. Available online here.

22) Gravestone inscriptions & photographs for Old Section, Islandeady Graveyard, Mayo, Ireland, from IrisGraveyards.ie. Available online here.