The Gallaghers of Ballinrobe

The cottage where Pat and Mary (Sheridan) Gallagher raised their family was where our Great-Grandfather Peter
Gallagher and Great-Great-Grandfather Michael Gallagher also lived.
suffered from consumption (tuberculosis) for five months
and passed with her husband by her side. Within the year –
on Sept. 2, 1874 – Owen re-married, to Peggy McCormick,
his brother’s sister-in-law. Peggy was only 24, 21 years
younger than Owen. They had eight children of their own.
The first four were girls. Their fifth, Patrick, may not have
lived to adulthood. Their sixth, “Peter Gallagher Next
Door,” would eventually inherit the land. Peter is the father
of Eugene Gallagher, who still lives with his family along
the boreen. He once told of how his grandmother loved to
smoke a pipe in the cool, quiet of an evening.
Meanwhile, Michael and Bridget Gallagher’s
youngest child, Honor, married blacksmith Pat Malley on
Feb. 23, 1854. They lived on Chapel Street at the northwest
end of town heading toward the old church. They had at
least seven children, though there may have been more
before the first we could confirm in 1862; those we know
were Patrick, Mary, Owen, Margaret, John, Peter and Kate.
Honor and Pat Malley were both alive at the time of the
1901 census. Patrick, Owen, Peter and Mary Kate were all
living at home at the time. Honor died in October 1906 at
age 73; her husband passed in 1912.
Which brings us back to Peter Gallagher, our
great-grandfather.
In 1861, Peter married Bridget McCormick, of
Roundfort, which is about six miles east of Ballinrobe and
two miles south of Hollymount. Her father was Thomas.
Peter and Bridget’s first born, Mary, died when she was
about a year old, on Oct. 10, 1864. Bridget so loved Mary
that she never fully got over the loss. Uncle Jim once said
of his grandmother, “She could often be heard outside at
night crying and praying for the soul of her baby daughter.”
Peter and Bridget Gallagher had two other
children. Our Grandfather Pat was born in December 1864
and Michael on Feb. 26, 1867. Michael went to America,
probably sometime around 1890. He stayed in New York
and got married, but we are not sure to whom. Tragically,
Michael would soon pass away. His wife wrote his mother
and father about the sad news and sent his silver pocket
watch with a gold chain home to Ballinrobe. It is still being
passed along to the next generations.
EVENTFUL TIMES
Before the next generation of Gallaghers began
(our aunts and uncles), those living along the boreen would
have been affected by or known about many important
events going on in the region, or Ireland in general.
In 1879, another “mini potato famine” reinforced
deep fears of starvation in the West. Many of Mayo’s
farmers were still reliant on the potato because the soil
could not support any other crop sufficiently to feed their
families. In the weeks before the 1879 harvest, the telltale
signs of browning leaves on the plants led to panic through
the county. The harvest was the lowest in a decade and
under half the previous year’s. Fortunately, the mini-famine
resulted mostly in hunger rather than death, due mainly to
changes in society, including resources sent back to “the
old country” from those who had left for America during
and after The Great Hunger.
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