Children of Richard Allen and Margaret Sweeney County Meath- Catherine Allen Byrne Part 1

Catharine Allen was baptized in the Dangan Church in Summerhill Parish on May 21, 1847- at the height of the famine. Her sponsors were Thomas Murren and Ellen Sweeney- likely her mother's sister.

She was the youngest in a family of ten surviving children of Richard Allen and Margaret Sweeney. Times were hard and there were many mouths to feed. She must have watched her parents struggle through those lean years following the famine. As a very young child, she watched Mary, her eldest sibling and only sister marry and emigrate to America. Then, one by one, she watched her brothers go. First Frank and Hugh, then Patrick, Thomas and Richard. There were no prospects for them on one tiny rented plot of land in Umberstown. It could not sustain them or permit them to marry and raise additional families. But the cherished letters that came back from them in America were full of hope and promise. They owned their own farms now, and several of them were married and had growing families. They had great plans for the future. Even her parents, who mourned knowing that they would never again see their beloved children, must have been joyful that their lives in America were so different from the bleak future that would have faced them in Ireland.

Catherine stayed on the farm to care for her aging parents- probably until their deaths. We don't know for sure, but believe that they had both died by 1866. After that only John, Edward, and Peter remained on the farm, and Edward and Peter were anxious to follow their brothers to America. Catherine would have cared for the three brothers; cleaning the house, doing the laundry, and cooking the meals. It was a dreary life for a young girl. After the famine, there were few enough young men of her own age who had the means to go courting. Many of the survivors who had the courage and the means for travel had left Ireland for good. Others stayed single, realizing they could never afford to marry and raise a family.

The man who asked for her hand was settled with a farm but was much older than she. Owen Byrne was 49 years old to her 24. He was a widower with 5 children, the eldest few barely younger than herself. Two of the boys were grown; Richard 21 and Edward 18. James was 15, Elizabeth 12. The baby, Eugene, was only 4; his mother had died after his birth. 

For a time the Byrne family had lived in Dangan, so Catherine knew them from church. She surely understood what her life would be after the marriage. She would take on housekeeping as both a step-mother and a wife. And yet it must have been a good match, for Catherine agreed.

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She married Owen Byrne at the church in Dangan on April 10, 1872.

By that time, Owen and his family were living in Clonmahon, on the edge of the town of Summerhill. Catherine's first son, Thomas Byrne, was born on May 4, 1873.

Her next child was a daughter, Margaret "Maggie" Byrne,  born April 25, 1875. Catharine's brother Edward "Ned" Allen was one of the baptismal sponsors.

A third child followed in June 1877. This daughter was named after her mother, and Catharine's brother Peter Allen was one of the baptismal sponsors.

I cannot find another baptismal record for ten years, but in 1877, Edward Byrne was born.

The 1901 census shows Owen Byrne 78, Catherine 50, Thomas 26 and Edward 13, living in Summerhill Parish in the townland of Clonmahon- about a mile from the Dangan church. Owen and his son are farming, and Edward is still in school. Everyone in this family can read and write, and they live in a nice house with 5 rooms- unusual for this time.

Ancestry.com. Web: Ireland, Census, 1901 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.

In 1907, daughter Catharine, now 30 years old, married Joseph Proffitt at the church in Dangan. Her witnesses were her brother Thomas Byrne, and Anne Sweeney (likely a cousin.)

In 1911, the census shows Owen age 90, and Catherine age 69 with Edward Byrne, age 23, who would now be doing the farming. His brother Thomas, as noted before, is now living with his uncle Edward Allen in Great Umberstown, and helping him with his farm.