Historic Boyle Part 5

So we return up the street to where the Bank of Ireland is today.  In 1911 it was the premises of the National Bank.

In No 10 lived Aris Manning and his wife Tempe.  He was 56 and she was 35.  They had two children Dorothy and Norah and a governess for theiir daughters, Lucy Samuels.  They were all Church of Ireland and they had two Catholic servants Joseph McDonnell and Mary Flanagan.  Aris was the bank manager and both him and his wife were from Wicklow, his children born in Roscommon.  Lucy was from King’s County (Offaly), Joseph was from Dublin and classed himself as a groom and Mary from Sligo, both were Catholics

In No 9 lived Mary Lynch and her three daughters, Brigid Agnes,Ellen Margaret and Josephine Honoria and their brother Thomas Henry.  They were all Catholic. Maria was a 66 year old widow and said she was a landed proprietor which meant she had land that was rented out.  She had had 14 children, 9 of whom were still living.  The three daughters lived at home and did not work.  Thomas was still at school.  Mary was born in Sligo, Brigid in Mayo the others all in Westmeath.  She had lodgers, Thomas Gordon Sharpe, a trainee priest in the Church of Ireland, from Dublin.  James McCarthy, a catholic was an itinerant iInstructor in Agriculture fro Cork who could speak English and Irish.  Constance Warnock, a Presbyterian and a County Inspector from Tyrone and a servant Norah Brannon, a Catholic from Sligo who could also speak English and Irish.

At No 8 lived Samuel Robert Hamilton with his wife Anna Jane and their four children all in the Plymouth Bretheren.  He had a grocers shop on the premises.  His brother Henry Scott, a Presbyterian was his assistant.  Sam,uel and Henry were fromMonaghan and Anna was from Sligo.  All the children were born in Roscommon.  They had three servants, Henrietta Miller, Mary Ellen Mulvihill who were Catholic from Sligo and Roscommon respectively and William Young, a Church of Ireland man from Limerick who worked in the shop.  There was also a boarder John J McKeon, a Catholic and an assistant clerk from Roscommon.  An eclectic mix in one household.

In No 7 was William John Sloan, a 73 year old  and his daughter Susan Huston and son William Samuel.  They were all Presbyterian.  This shop is still in existence today under the same name but with a different proprietor Mr Cunningham and his wife.  Mrs Sloan was absent on this day but they had been married for 40 years.  It seems this building was built in 1863 and Mr Sloan started his business from there then  They had had 8 children 6 of them still living.  The Sloans had three assistants in the business all Church of Ireland and a servant Lizzie Lavin, a Catholic.  He ran an ironmongers shop, same as today.  He was originally from Co Down, the children were born in Roscommon.  Of the  three assistants two were from Sligo and one from Fermanagh.

In No 6 was Mary Bridge aged 48 and her servant Peter O’Hara who was 31, they were both Catholic.  She was a widow and had no children and she had a shop on the premises and was also a farmer, Peter was the shop assistant.  She was from Sligo he was from Roscommon.

At No 4 lived William Thompson and his wife Mary Jane, her sister Rebecca and brother Christopher and two servants, Richard Grant and Archibald Ramsey.  They were all Church of Ireland.  There was another servant Harriet Mary North who was a Methodist.  William ran a grocers shop with his servants acting as assistants.  William was from Leitrim, his wife from Cavan and the servants from Cork, Tyrone and Cavan.

At No 3 lived Richard E Byrne, his wife Mary Winifred and their three children, Mary Kathleen, Richard Joseph and Kathleen Josephine.  Their lack of imagination with regard to names apparent.  They were all Catholic and Richard was a Colour Sergeant in the Connaught Rangers.  They had been married for 6 years.  He was from Dublin, she from Galway.  The first child born in Galway the other two in Roscommon.  He had been a soldier now for about 20 years and would have seen service during the Boer War and in India.  He would have been time served by the outbreak of the Great War but could have been recalled and used in a training capacity in either the3rd or 4th Special Reserve Battalions which trained new recruits for the front.

At No 2 lived Michael Carroll, a 34 year old licentiate of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland.  He was from Cork and ran a Chemist’s business from this address.  He had an assistant, Thomas Burke from Cork.  They were both Catholics and Thomas could speak English and Irish.

At No 1 where the closed down Wynne’s pub is now on the corner of Green Street was Elizabeth Keaveny who ran a saddelry business and lodging house.  She was Catholic and a widow born in Roscommon.  That night in April 1911 she had 8 lodgers, Bartley Marks and John Smith, horse dealers who were both Church of Ireland and originally from Yorkshire, Henry Connor, John Connor, Patrick Brody and Joe Mulholland, all Catholics and cattle dealers from Tyrone, Longford and Cavan.  George King, a court cryer from Dublin, Pat Holland, a cattle dealer from from Leitrim and a servant, Gertrude Delaney, a Catholic from Roscommon.  With the presence of horse and cattle dealers thgeir must have been a fair in the town the following day.

So that completes the populace of Main Street in April 1911.  A bustling busy street full of children and shops, entrepreneurs attracted from most parts of Ireland, professional people, bank managers, soldiers and religions.  In the main the middle class of the town,  in those days a town without upper class, all lived on this street, mainly Church of Ireland, nearly all with servants who were nearly all Catholic but all religions lived together harmoniously.  I said of one family that they were an eclectic mix, in fact the whole street was an eclectic mix.  The Great War unable to be seen by most was on the horizon, 130 odd of the customers of these shops were about to die.  The burden of life was thrown onto the old folk and young women.  Do not forget judging by statistics that if 130 were killed there was approximately 700 badly wounded young men about the place who could not work as they were once able.  A dreadful burden to be thrown on a small town which must have struggled after independence through the 1920s and 30s.  Certainly the upper class in their big houses felt it even with their financial buffers.  Those below without financial help must have really suffered which led to mass migration in the 1930s.  The dwellings on this street suffered also until today most are empty with a few shops doing little business telling the tale as time, Sloans and the Bank of Ireland go marching on.