The Gallaghers of Ballinrobe

Francis Sheridan,
Leon and Patsy
DeAscanis, and
Aunt Ann are
together for the
wedding of Uncle
Pat's daughter,
Mary Kathryn, in
Philadelphia in the
1960s.
was among those hired to do the work for Michael Malley
of Lissanisky, who was ill. Hauling another cart of manure
was John’s twin brother, James.
The gate in dispute was along a boreen off the
main road from Ballinrobe to Cong, according to the story
in the Ballinrobe Chronicle. Accompanying John Sheridan
on his task was Mrs. Malley. Witnesses to the event
included Pat Leonard, who was loading another cart, and
Mary Sheridan. She may have been John's daughter (our
grandmother) or John's niece (James Sheridan's daughter).
A confrontation happened when John was
“knocking the gap” in a stone wall on the Sullivans’
property to get to the Malleys’ field and pick up the manure.
The passage was the only access to the Malley field; John
Sheridan testified the gap was there for the past 300 years.
But Pat Sullivan, the defendant in the case, objected.
“(John Sheridan) said Mrs. Malley and he were
about knocking the gap in the field to admit the horse and
cart when Pat Sullivan came up,” the story reads. “He
carried a large stone and grasping it in his hand, he struck
witness on the forehead; he put up his hand to guard
himself from the blow. Defendant then caught hold of two
of the fingers of his upraised hand and commenced to eat
his hand ‘like a dog.’ Mrs. Malley rescued him by taking
Sullivan tightly by the nose and thus ‘smothering him.’”
Sullivan testified he was at the scene to witness a
formal objection by his family to the Malleys’ use of the
passage. He admitted hitting John Sheridan’s clenched hand
across the wall, but nothing else. He said Sheridan then hit
him several times in the face.
John Sheridan denied he hit Pat Sullivan during
the confrontation. Sullivan’s own mother testified she had
beseeched her son to go home before he ever struck a blow.
As part of the case, Mrs. Sullivan had accused
James Sheridan of assaulting her during the confrontation.
Asked to point out her assailant in court, she hesitated. The
newspaper account says she looked back and forth from
John to James with some confusion because they “are twins
and are as alike as two peas.” She eventually identified
James as the one who hit her.
The case ended with acknowledgment that local
prominent landowner Charles H. Knox should rule on the
right to use the passage. Pat Sullivan was fined 5s and 10s
court costs. All other summonses were dismissed.
JAMES SHERIDAN
John Sheridan’s twin brother, James, was listed in
the 1901 Census as the head of a household of mainly
women and girls. The listing says they lived in Lissanisky,
but other records indicate the family considered themselves
residents of Ballinaya.
In 1901, James lived with: his wife, Bridget,
whom he married in 1884; Mother-in-law Mary O'Brien;
four daughters, Mary, Catherine, Bridget and Annie; and a
son, Michael. A fifth daughter, Maggie, would be born
within the year. A son Ned, named for his grandfather, died
of convulsions at five days old in 1890. James himself died
of pneumonia in 1903.
By the 1911 Census, Mary O'Brien is listed as the
head of the household, which also included her daughter
and Bridget's three youngest children, Michael, Annie and
Maggie. Mary O'Brien died in 1913. Bridget's oldest
daughter, Mary, who was 16 in 1901, immigrated to
America. She lived there with her uncle and aunt Ed and
Esther (Larner) Sheridan in Philadelphia before marrying a
Thomas Brown. Mary's sister Annie also immigrated to
America but never married. Their sister Bridget came to
America in 1910 but returned to Ballinrobe and married a
John Walsh in 1921.
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