The Presidents’ Letters by Flor MacCarthy is a work of history, social history, a history of letter writing in Ireland and an all-round excellent read. It’s a book you dip into rather than read straight through. The premise is simple, she found that no one had ever collated a book of letters written to or from the President of Ireland and set out to do just that. The book is a delight and I’m not ashamed to say it brought a tear to my eye more than once. These are all real letters written by Irish people, the diaspora and famous people.
The two living former Presidents of Ireland, Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson, both contributed their own personal selections. There are plenty from our current much-loved President Michael D. Higgins.
Some highlights for me included the congratulatory missives on the occasion of Ireland becoming a Republic in 1949 and those surrounding the visit of US President John F. Kennedy to Ireland in 1963 and the condolence letters and responses just a few months later when he came to his untimely demise.
What’s this got to do with ages and genealogy?
Well, the book has a lovely section about letters sent by the President of Ireland to Irish people who have reached the great age of 100. Many countries mark this impressive achievement in some way.
The book notes that the very first person to receive such a letter was a Mrs Anna Delany of Dublin in 1940. Our first President Douglas Hyde (also known by the Irish version of his name Dubhghlas de hÍde) offered a congratulatory note with £5. Life expectancy in 1940 was a lot lower and she was the only person to receive a letter that year. His current successor sent almost 500 such letters in 2020. I thought it would be interesting to see what I could find about this centenarian.
Flor MacCarthy reproduced two articles in the book which helped me through this research. One from the Irish Times noted erroneously that Mrs Delany remembered the Big Wind, which took place a year before her birth! Particularly great was an Irish Press article from 30th Sept 1940, which I was able to access on the Irish News Archive. The photo above comes from it. A few points to note. This woman was listed as both Anna and Anne. Delaney was spelled both with an E and without in some articles. However, it was clear that she was born Ms Anna Eves, daughter of Samuel, on Brabazon Row in 1840. She married John Delany in 1868. By 1940, she had 5 living children and a number of grandchildren. It also noted that having apprenticed as weaver (her father’s profession), she worked in Manchester for many years and was there during the prison van attack which led to the creation of the Manchester Martyrs.
So let’s start with the bad news. I couldn’t find Anne Eves’s baptism. I’m a little disappointed about this because the records for the part of Dublin she came from are pretty good. But it’s a useful reminder of the concept of negative space, which I previously wrote about here. Eaves would be a variant spelling for the surname. Being born in 1840, she would not have had a birth certificate, as the civil registration system only began in 1864. However, I believe I did find the marriage of her parents Samuel Eaves and Mary Burnham in August 1839, which means Anna was likely their first child. They married in St Nicholas de Myra church on Francis St, Dublin. The same site (www.irishgenealogy.ie) also has baptisms for her sisters Margaret and Mary.
In doing my research, I did a broad-ranging search on a few websites. I wasn’t expecting to find this above record on FindmyPast. Anne was in the South Dublin Union workhouse with her mother and sisters in 1851. Mrs Mary Eaves was a lacemaker who had been deserted by her husband. They spent a few weeks there. What we can’t tell here is why he left or if he came back, but this is the only entry for the family in the workhouse. Perhaps this experience led her to go to Manchester but she was back in Dublin by 1869.
Here’s a copy of Anne’s marriage to John Delany. She lived at 16 Brabazon Row, the daughter of Samuel Eaves, a weaver. Both the bride and groom said they were of ‘full age’, which meant 21 or older. The church version of her marriage, available on Irishgenealogy.ie shows her mother was called Mary. One of the witnesses was Mary Eves – either her mother or same-named sister.
From the Irish Press article, I knew that there were children called:
- Patrick (noted as over 70 in 1940)
- William (66)
- Mrs Lee (68, then in Birmingham)
- Mrs Daly (64)
- Martha (unmarried business woman)
The convention of the 1940s to list married women by the surname only feels odd to my modern eye.
Turning again to the baptism registers, I only found 3 of Anne’s children. All 3 had godparents from the Eaves family.
- Mary Anne Delany born 1872
- William Samuel Delany born 1874
- Teresa Margaret Delany born 1879
Anne’s father died in 1885. He was already a widower. There is an index reference to the death of a 50 year old Mary Eaves in 1870 but the image is not available to confirm. (But see below). For a long time now, Irishgenealogy.ie has had a gap in the earliest death images.
Now I have to admit that finding the family on either the 1901 or 1911 census almost defeated me! I even used the advanced search with wildcards to try Ann/Anne/Anna and the different spellings of Delany. And then I tried Annie.
Annie Delaney aged 70 lived with her son William in 1911 on St Kevin’s Avenue. She was a widow and her occupation was silk lace weaver.
As already noted, Anne made the newspapers in 1940 when she received the State’s first Centenarian Bounty and the year later. The newspapers note she was a regular Mass goer and still keeping up with the war news, although by then her eyesight was poor and people read it to her.
Anne died on 9th January 1942 at 44 Patrick St. Her death was registered by her son, Patrick, with whom she lived. Notice of her death appeared in the Irish Press. I looked at the records of Glasnevin for her burial, where she is recorded as Annie. It’s always worth paying to see the extended grave details which will list everyone in the grave. Annie was buried with a number of Eaves family members. This confirmed the death I found in 1870 was indeed Mary’s mother.
So from a chance reading in a book, an interesting case study of a very long life. Throughout this, we don’t have a lot of indicators of Annie’s exact age, though she is consistent. People are often imprecise about age in the past – they just never needed to be exact in the way we do today. When you search for someone, always do plus or minus 5 years from what you expect it to be. While Annie surely didn’t remember the Big Wind, she did live through the Great Famine and was already beating the average life expectancy by the time she appeared on the 1911 census. I wonder how many descendants she has today? An Irish Press article for her 101st birthday (30/9/1941) indicated they were in Ireland, England and America and she had great-great grandchildren.
