The Buckleys of Belfast
In the last post I mentioned a thumbnail sketch of my great-great-grandfather, John R. Wolfe, written by his son and published in a county history in 1911. For decades it represented everything my family knew about Wolfe, but once genealogy tools became more widely accessible we found a number of problems. His birth year was off, for one, as was the year he left Ireland. Naturally, this led me to be suspicious of other claims, such as that John R. Wolfe “organized” the revolutionary Young Ireland movement. Or that he had opposed slavery. (Why was that considered particularly relevant in 1911?) The nature of these kinds of county histories, and the biographical sketches contained therein, was to celebrate. They were a kind of immigrant propaganda. So it’s not exactly surprising that there would be embellishments and slippery facts.
Anyway, the short biography also mentions Wolfe’s wife, Honora Buckley:
The Wolfes were tenant farmers in Co. Kerry. I was always a little skeptical that John R. Wolfe’s brother-in-law would be a leading lawyer way up in Belfast. Last weekend, though, I decided to go looking for this Michael Buckley and you know what? I found him.
Searching Belfast newspapers from the mid- to late nineteenth century, I found frequent mentions of a Michael Buckley, solicitor. I wasn’t sure whether this was the right man until I read his obituary from 1886.
“Mr. Buckley was a native of County Kerry and came to Belfast in 1855.” Also, he was Catholic and lived at the right time to have been a brother of Honora Buckley Wolfe. I went about finding everything I could about Michael Buckley, esq.—and it took awhile. The name is fairly common and the relevant records dispersed or sometimes missing. But in the end I can be fairly confident of the following:
He was born in September 1814, in Coolnaleen, a townland southwest of Listowel, Co. Kerry, near where John R. Wolfe was from. On October 22, 1846, Buckley married Mary Anne Gleeson at St. Michael’s Church in the city of Limerick (what they were doing there, I’m not sure!), and they went on to have eight children. The first three were born in Co. Dublin: Edward Joseph (1848–1884), Charles Edward (1849–1934), and John James (1851–1882). As the obituary noted, Buckley moved to Belfast in 1855 and the remaining children were born there: Agnes Emily (1856–1924), Frederick William (1858–1927), Francis Joseph (1860–1899), William Henry (1863–1899), and Michael Augustine (1865–1903).
It’s interesting to notice that five of these eight children died while in their thirties, all it seems of generally poor health. Of those, only one, William Henry, married, and his wife died young, too. In other words, the only grandchild out of the whole bunch, Herbert William Alen Buckley, who was born in 1897, lost his parents soon after. He went to live with Uncle Charles, but Uncle Fred and Aunt Agnes also pitched in. None of them ever married—except maybe for Herbert. He moved to Yorkshire, with Fred and Agnes in tow, but I lost track of him from there. He became a journalist and died in 1973.
The eldest, Edward, followed his father in the law before dying at thirty-six. Charles also became a lawyer and took over the family practice. John James immigrated to Melbourne but it’s not clear what he did there. He died in 1882, at the age of thirty-one.
Still, my real interest was in the connection to my great-great-grandmother Honora. I knew her approximate birth year, that she probably hailed from near the Wolfe family (meaning northern Co. Kerry), and that she had a brother Michael. Could I track down their parents and any other siblings?
According to Michael Buckley’s obituary, he was seventy-one when he died in 1886, meaning he was born in 1814–1815. I found a Michael Buckley who was baptized near Listowel in North Kerry on September 29, 1814, the son of Patrick Buckley and Catherine Lynch.
Crucially, this Michael had a sister Honora, who was baptized November 30, 1822. Previously, I had seen her birthdate as November 1823. One can never know for sure, but it all seems to fit. Other siblings include John (b. 1811), Patrick (b. 1818), and Edmund (b. 1827).
Whatever happened to my great-great-grandmother’s family? And did the journalist Herbert W. A. Buckley marry and continue the line? Are there Buckleys still out there with whom we can connect? I’ll need a few more weekends for that!
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