Hugh Allen and Margaret Durney's Marriage- April 25, 1864
When Hugh Allen got married at age 30, his marriage was influenced by Irish cultural patterns that had existed for hundreds of years, some of which changed abruptly after the Great Famine of 1845-1852.
He knew, like all Irish farmers, that acquiring land for farming was the basis on which a marriage was built. He bought his land and established a farm a year before he actually married and started a family. But he had to leave Ireland to achieve this goal.
Before the Famine (Before 1845)
Before the famine, most Irish fathers traditionally divided their farms to provide farms for their married sons. With the willingness to divide land into smaller plots, every son could expect the possibility of marriage by their early 20's. Even if a father could not/would not oblige, a young man could turn to a neighbor to get land. The last resort was to sublet a "conacre" where he would pay a portion of his crop or his own labor to the main tenant in exchange for a short-term lease- but this arrangement offered little security to a young couple. Even holdings of a few acres would likely be enough of a start for a young couple. It was not unusual to see holdings of only 3 acres supporting a family.
Hugh's father, Richard Allen, was much better off than this; he leased a house and 17 acres in the tiny townland of Great Umberstown directly from the wealthy landowner, Charles P. Leslie, and subleased a house and garden to John Allen, who, no longer needing land to farm, was likely Hugh's aging grandfather.
A nearby neighbor in the same townland was Patrick Sweeney, who had 16 acres of land. Since Richard's wife Margaret was a Sweeney, and there are no other Sweeney's in the Parish, we can assume that Patrick is Margaret's kinsman. Richard and Margaret's parents likely followed a traditional pattern of marrying their children to nearby neighbors - often in order to protect their land interests.
Like most couples, Richard and Margaret had probably known each other from childhood. Even those that did not marry a next door neighbor likely knew their intended from childhood. Couples were likely to marry from within the same Parish- in the case of Richard and Margaret, both attended the nearby Dangan Church in Summerhill Parish. Travel was by foot in those times so courtships were almost always within the close community.
Marriages in those days (and those that followed) were rarely a romantic concern. If fathers did not arrange marriages themselves, matchmakers and marriage brokers stepped in to bring couples together. They worked with the fathers of the bride and groom to come to an agreement based on the dowry or "fortune" the bride could offer in order to balance out the value of the groom's farm. Land was the key to marriage; men without land who were just hired laborers were not considered for marriage to a farmer's daughter.
As fathers subdivided their land leases to provide for married sons, many farms became smaller and smaller- some as tiny as those of 3 acres that make us wonder how the families survived.
After the famine (1850's)
After the famine, things changed. So many people had died, been evicted, or emigrated, that the larger landlords began consolidating holdings in order to allow for more profitable pasture land. Small tenant farmers were inspired by the letters from family abroad, many of whom, like our ancestor Hugh, were now very successful farmers. Fathers were less likely to subdivide their farms, and held on to the property until their death or old age.
As a result of this, sons often delayed their marriages, having little of their own to offer a wife. If single, they could more easily save their money for the dream of emigration and hope of a better future. Many sons who did not emigrate abroad moved elsewhere to find employment. Others entered religious orders, which grew dramatically after the practice of subdivision had faded away. Others stayed single, helping as laborers and often contributing greatly to the success of the farm. Some perhaps hoped that they might one day inherit and then left to seek their fortunes elsewhere if they did not. Inheritance was not limited to the eldest son, in fact it was often the youngest son, who stayed on the farm with his aging parents, who ended up the heir.
Marriage was not easy for young girls in these circumstances. Fewer young men were marrying and finding a husband became more difficult. A woman with a good temperament would be an attractive addition to the family; caring for aging parents and providing grandchildren. But a woman who also had a good dowry might allow for others in the family to emigrate abroad, or help provide a dowry for the girls within the family so that they could marry. After the rigors of the famine, parental controls over the practicalities of marriage increased more than ever, and children understood the need to help support and maintain the family as a whole.
We see these patterns in the Allen family. The eldest daughter, Mary, married Patrick Burns at the Dangan Church in 1851 when she was 25. They quickly emigrated to start a family in America. The eldest son, Frank, also emigrated, and by 1861 they were both in Jersey County, Illinois.
The next eldest son, John Allen, stayed on the farm in Ireland with his parents, along with the youngest son, Edward, and youngest daughter, Catharine.
The middle five sons had little hope of inheriting land; Hugh, Patrick, Peter,Tom, and Richard emigrated as single young men, hoping to make their way in the world and find their brides in America. They helped each other out until they could each save enough money to buy a farm and marry, except for Richard Allen, who emigrated but never married, dying in 1872.
Little Catherine, born at the height of the famine in 1847, married in April 1872, when she was 24 years old. But she married a man twice her age; 49 year old Owen Byrne.
The youngest son, Edward Allen, still single at age 36, finally left home in 1880. We might guess that he waited to leave until after his parents death, as they married in 1825 and would have been elderly by that time. Edward married Mary Bryne in 1885 in Jerseyville, later moving to a farm in Nebraska.
The farm was eventually left to John Allen, who never did marry. Richard Allen and Margaret Sweeney had died by the time of the 1901 census, but John was still living on the farm, with a 19 year old cousin named Jane Moran. This goes along with Aunt Helen's stories of writing letters back from her Uncle Tom Allen to John Allen in Ireland. John could not write either (as is noted on the census) but had a young female relative who would write letters for him. But when John reached his later years, he had no children of his own to care for the farm. In 1911, when he was 76 years old, his sister Catherine's son, Thomas Byrne, age 37, was doing the farming. We don't know when John died, or who inherited the family farm in Ireland, as he had no sons of his own.
The pattern of marriages after the famine worked out well for our family in America. Despite (or because of) delaying marriage, most of those who emigrated managed to save money, buy a farm, and marry. Most became successful farmers with large, healthy families. But for those who remained in Ireland, marriage after the famine was so difficult that many never married at all.
The population decrease because of death, emigration, and single adults who never married or delayed marriage, having fewer children had a significant impact in the years to come.
