McCaughey Kelly Family Tree » Caroline O'Mahony (± 1856-1922)

Personal data Caroline O'Mahony 

• She was born about 1856 in Ireland.
• Resident in the year 1901: Glasgow Robertson Memorial, Lanarkshire, Scotland.Source 7
• She died on March 27, 1922 in Rothesay, Bute, Scotland.
• A child of David O'Mahony

Household of Caroline O'Mahony

She is married to John Joseph Lyons.

They got married on January 18, 1874 at Kildare, Ireland.

Child(ren):

1. William Laurence Lyons  1874-1874
2. Francis " Frank" Lyons  1876-1938 
3. John Charles Lyons  1876-????
4. Louisa Francis Lyons  1877-1935
5. John James "Jack" Lyons  1878-1932 
6. George Patrick Lyons  1885-± 1962
7. Mary "May" Theresa Lyons  1888-1969
8. Henry Lyons  1890-1895

Notes about Caroline O'Mahony

To date no record of Caroline's earlier years has come to light. From her Death Record, we learn that her father was David O'Mahony, a soldier. Her mother's name is not given, which is unusual for Scottish Records.

Her granddaughter, Caroline (Carrie) Lyons, claimed that her grandmother was from Co. Cork. This is very likely to be true as O'Mahony is a very common name in that part of Ireland. Carrie, who was very interested in literature, also loved the sound of words and seemed to enjoy just pronouncing her grandmother's name, Caroline O'Mahony (the stress being on the first syllable not on the second as is customary in the UK and the United States). Her name does have a rhythmic musical ring to it.

The first actual record we have of Caroline is that of her marriage, probably aged 18 years, to John Lyons in the Military Camp in the Curragh, Kildare, Ireland. The record is available in the Curragh Catholic Chapel Records but the record gives no information beyond the names of the couple, the date and the place of the marriage. The date of the marriage, 18th January, is significant, as their granddaughter, Carrie, many decades later, also married on 18th January, and much later again, her great great granddaughter, Aoife, was born on 18th January.

The first 18 years of her married life would have been spent in Army Barracks in Ireland and included 6 years in the East Indies. As Umballa (the present day Ambala) is given as the birthplace of her son, John James and her daughter, Louise, the location were probably in the Eastern part of modern-day India.

Her period in India may have been the most congenial of her life. From 1883 till the end of the century she lived in North Inner City Dublin, which at that period would have been a difficult lifestyle. We also learn from the 1911 Census of Scotland that the Lyons family had 10 children born alive but only five surviving in 1911, namely, Francis, Louise, George, John and Mary Teresa (May). The birth, baptismal and death records of the first baby, William Laurence, born in December 1874 and who died a fortnight later, are available. The rate of infant and child mortality during the 19th century was very high. It was a period, when gastroenteritis was rife, and parents hadn't recourse to the benefits of modern-day medicine. It was customary in Ireland in general for parents to have very large families, as many as 15 or 16 children, in the hope of some surviving. One can only imagine how heartbreaking it was for parents like the Lyons Family, who experienced the death of five children.

Caroline was widowed in 1915 and at some stage between that and her death in 1922 she moved to Rothesay, Bute, Scotland, obviously to be near her daughter, May, who married William Docherty from Bute and took up residence there. We learn from May's travel documents, when she emigrated to Canada in 1923, that her older sister, Louise, was also resident in Rothesay. Louise, a nurse, died of cancer in Rothesay in 1935.

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Timeline Caroline O'Mahony

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