The McNay Family

Of

Ayrshire

Ennis

Limerick

Nenagh

Cork

&

Elsewhere

ContentsCensus of Ireland - March 31 1901..............................................................................................................3

Census of Ireland – April 2 1911..................................................................................................................3

Origins.........................................................................................................................................................4

Marriages..................................................................................................................................................10

Ennis County Clare.....................................................................................................................................10

Spirit Dealers & Grocers............................................................................................................................12

Limerick.....................................................................................................................................................15

Children of James and Edwina Warren McNay..........................................................................................17

Nenagh......................................................................................................................................................23

Cork...........................................................................................................................................................26

Bridge Street circa 1910............................................................................................................................29

I’m grateful for the publicly available research of David Reid and Jan Vernon which formed so much of this narrative.

Census of Ireland - March 31 1901Living above his boot and shoe shop at 4 Bridge Street in Cork was William McNay and his family. William gives his age as 70 and his birthplace as Glasgow. His wife Marion gives the same age and birthplace. Daughter Jane is 46 and also from Glasgow. John (36), Elizabeth (33), Margaret (25) and Ellen (21) are all Limerick born.

On the other side of Cork at Dean Street, in the shadow of St Finn Barre’s Cathedral, is son William McNay, born in Limerick in 1861. His wife Anna Maria Wolfe is there along with my grandmother, Marion (Mernie) Wolfe McNay and two younger sisters. William also ran a boot and shoe business.

Census of Ireland – April 2 1911William and Marion are still living at Bridge Street. In this Census they appear to have shaved a few years off their ages – he says he is 77, she is 76. John McNay, boot salesman and Y.M.C.A. Librarian had died of fever in 1902. Jane McNay is still living at home and is now 48 – having aged only two years in the last decade. Daughter Elizabeth (Lizzie) had married and been widowed in the intervening years. She is back at Bridge Street with her 9 year old daughter, Marion Reid Hamilton.

William and Marion are married 50 years according to this return, with 5 children still living out of 13 births.

Son William is still in Dean Street. His family has grown to seven daughters and a son. The ‘Religious Profession’ column states ’All Protestants and all are Methodists’.

Daughter Margaret (Gert) had married a Church of Ireland clergyman, Thomas Chatterton (T.C.) Hammond in 1906. Hammond had been mentored by the late John McNay in the Cork Y.M.C.A. They are living in Dublin with two of their three children. Their eldest, four year old John Coleman Hammond, is staying with Janet Kemble in Bloomfield Avenue, between the South Circular Road and the Grand Canal. Gert’s birthplace is recorded as County Tipperary.

So what was the path that brought a young Scottish couple to Ireland and ultimately to Cork? I hope to document as much as possible of that in the following pages.

OriginsThe 1851 Census of Scotland has the following return. At 58 Main Street in the Gorbals district of Glasgow lives Willam McNay (25), baker, employing one man. He is Glasgow born as is his 22 year old wife, ‘Marrion’.

Figure 1- Marriage register - November 18 1849 “William McNay, baker, Calton + Marion Reid, residing there.”

Marion Reid was born in Glasgow on December 18 1828, the daughter of James Reid, weaver of Calton, and Marion Smellie. She was baptized on January 18 1829. James and Marion had married in Barony in Glasgow on January 18 1818.

James Reid was born in Doune in Perthshire in 1796. He had a weaving establishment, employing 50 men according to the 1851 Census. He died in Glasgow in 1862. He was the son of James Reid, a cotton manufacturer who died in Glasgow in 1845 aged about 70 years. At Kilmadock in Perthshire on December 21 1792, James senior had married Janet Ferguson. Janet was the daughter of Peter Ferguson and Jean Stirling – daughter of Archibald Stirling and Margrat Buie.

Peter Ferguson was born at St Ninian in Stirling in 1744, the son of Robert Ferguson and Sophia McClarine – the daughter of Malcolm McClarine of Polmais.

Figure 2 - "Robt Ferguson Servitor to the Laird of Polmais & Sophia McClairine lawfull daughter of the deseased Malcolm McClairine indweller in the Kowe of Polmais both in this parish gave up their names to be proclaimed in order to marriage from Campbell”

Marion Smellie was born in Glasgow in 1798. Her parents, Robert Smellie and Marjory McFarlan had married in Glasgow on November 13 1791. Marjory was the daughter of Robert McFarlan and Jean McLintock.

This picture shows Marion Smellie, centre, surrounded by her daughters and daughters-in-law between about 1868 and 1873. Assuming they are arranged by age, I believe Marion McNay is the individual circled.

The first child of William McNay and Marion Reid was Marion, born in Glasgow on February 10 1852.

Her death at age 9 is the first direct evidence that the family had moved to Ireland:

Limerick Chronicle November 27 1861

DEATHS

In Patrick-street, aged 9 years and 9 months, Marion, daughter of Mr William McNay

An 1865 advertisement in the ‘Nenagh Chronicle’ has William running a restaurant at 24 Patrick’s Street in Limerick:

An 1867 directory has William with a confectionary business at the same address. An 1870 directory has his business at 24 Nelson Street (now Parnell Street) near the railway station of the Waterford, Limerick and Western Railway.

A second child, Jane, was born in the Gorbals on January 15, 1854.

Before we follow the family’s next move to Nenagh in County Tipperary, we will go back in time and in a slightly different direction.

Marriages

In Barony parish in Glasgow, there occurred the following marriages in the 1840s:

Janet McNay married Henry Tullock in 1840. She was the widow of David Smith.

William McNay married Marion Reid in 1849

In Dailly in Ayrshire, James McNay married Ellen McGill in 1844

Through a variety of evidence, direct or circumstantial, we’ll see that these McNays are offspring of an Ayrshire McNay going by Peter or Thomas in various sources.

Ennis County ClareAgainst the backdrop of the Great Hunger, An Gorta Mór, the catastrophic famine in late 1840s Ireland, with its epidemics, riots, confusion, tumult, suffering and death, Peter McNay signed the petition to pardon William Smith O’Brien at Ennis on October 18 1848.

Why Peter McNay (or Thomas in some sources) and other members of his extended family, as we’ll see, chose to move to County Clare at a time of such distress is unknown. They must have seen some opportunity in the circumstances not available to them in Scotland.

The county town of Clare, Ennis saw its population drop from 9000 in 1841 to 7000 in 1861 due to famine deaths and emigration.

The effects of famine on the population and the Ennis Workhouse are described in a letter from Captain Edmund Wynne, District Inspector of the Board of Works for Clare written on Christmas Eve 1846:

“There is no doubt that the Famine advances upon us with giant strides. The effects of the Famine are discernible everywhere; not a domestic animal to be seen. It is an alarming fact that, this day, in the town of Ennis, there was not a stone of breadstuff of any description to be had on any terms, nor a loaf of bread ...I ventured through the parishes to ascertain the condition of the inhabitants. Although a man not easily moved, I confess myself unmanned by the extent and intensity of suffering I witnessed, more especially the women and little children, crowds of whom were to be seen scattered over the turnip fields, like a flock of famished crows, devouring the raw turnips, mothers half naked, shivering in the

snow and sleet, uttering exclamations of despair whilst their children were screaming with hunger. I am a match for anything else I may meet here but this I cannot stand. I have traversed a considerable extent of my district this week and I find distress everywhere on the increase. Without food we cannot last many days longer; the Public Works must fail in keeping the population alive. The workhouse is full, and police are stationed at the doors to keep the numerous applicants out; therefore no relief can be expected from that quarter.”

Clare suffered among the worst mortality rates of all 32 counties.

Even against this background, there must have been enough commercial activity to attract the Scottish families to Ennis.

(Interestingly, on my maternal side, great great grandparents gave up a wholesale butchers business in Edinburgh in 1853 to farm in Ireland, firstly in partnership at Screggan, County Offaly and later “on their own account” at Gloster in the same county.)

Spirit Dealers & Grocers

We have seen Peter McNay was in Ennis by October 1848.

The Griffiths Valuation records for Ennis from 1855 shows James MacNay and David Smith hold a house from Lord Fitzgerald at Church St Ennis and together a stores and yard at Post Office Lane.

Slater's directory of Ennis in 1856 has this entry - MacNay and Smith Church st - grocers and spirit dealers.

So David Smith, son of Janet (Jessie) McNay and the late David Smith was in business with his uncle James McNay.

James’ older brother was getting into the same business but on the other side of the River Shannon. John McNay was a Witness at Tipperary Town Petty Sessions September 15 1853. Later court records of Tipperary Town Petty Sessions list those getting permits to sell alcohol in 1855:

October 11, 1855

*Surname First Residence*

McNay John Tipperary

This is confirmed by the 1856 Slater's Directory of Tipperary Town - John MacNey - 49 West Main St- Grocer, Spirit & Wine Dealer.

On July 12 1859 in Cork, John married a widow, Hanora Tortle nee O’Brien. The certificate lists John’s father as Peter.

An 1867 directory shows that John McNay’s shop at 49 West Main Street was now operated by John’s brother-in-law, Henry Tulloch, Jessie McNay’s second husband.

John had relocated to Cork, his wife’s home. Records of the Encumbered Estates Courts in 1882 show John McNay leasing 6 & 7 Caroline St Cork . Guy’s Directory of 1891 lists John McNay of Caroline Street as a cabinet maker’s shop.

John McNay died in Cork in 1892.

James McNay married Ellen McGill in Dailly, Ayrshire in 1844. They had one son, Peter, born in 1847. Nothing further is known about Peter at this time. Ellin died in 1852 as reported by the ‘Limerick Reporter’:

February 20 1852

DEATHS

Mrs McNay at Ennis - wife of James McNay grocer

On March 30 1854 at Ennis, James married again. Edwina Rebecca Warren was the sister of the town’s Presbyterian minister. Thomas Warren was born in Holywood, County Down in 1825. After ordination he spent three years in Baltimore Maryland as pastor of the Aisquith Street church. He was then sponsored by the Presbytery of Baltimore to return to Ireland and organize a mission. He settled on Ennis and started Clare’s first Presbyterian congregation in 1853.

Around this time, James left the Ennis partnership with his nephew, David Smith, and moved to Limerick. We can deduce this as all James and Edwina’s children were born in Limerick.

David Smith continued in the spirits business on his own. His early death in 1878 was recorded in the newspapers as follows:

Clare Journal April 1878DeathWe regret exceedingly to record the death of Mr. David Smith, merchant, Church Street, Ennis, which occurred, after a brief illness, on yesterday. The deceased gentleman had endeared himself by his many sterling qualities, and his demise is regretted by a large circle of friends and acquaintances. The funeral is appointed to take place tomorrow.

Clare Journal 29 April 1878Funeral of Mr. David SmithOn Friday last the remains of Mr. David Smith, merchant Church Street, whose demise occurred after a brief illness on the previous Wednesday, were conveyed

for interment in Drumcliffe Cemetery, and were followed by an unusually large cortege. Nothing can better show how much one is regretted than when we see all denominations assemble to pay the last tribute of respect to the dead. A long period has passed away since Mr. Smith came amongst us; a period of more than a quarter of a century, during which time he had endeared himself to all. He was a sincere friend; a good charitable man; honest, upright, esteemed and hard-working in his business; and best of all, a loving and fond husband, and an indulgent, good and careful father. At three o'clock the remains were removed from his late residence, the coffin, which was of polished oak pannelled and richly mounted, being borne for some distance by members of the Masonic Body, of whom, the deceased had been a member. It was also borne at intervals by the Oddfellows of which society he was also a member.

Amongst those present were Hutchinson Chadwick, and Andrew Kingsbury, brothers-in-law to the deceased, Henry Tullock, Stepfather, and John McNay, uncle. The right Hon Lord Dunboyne, L. Colonel Marcus Paterson, Captain Stacpoole, M.P., C.W. Studdert, Messrs Jonas Studdert, J.W. Scott, Thomas Crowe, W.H. Crowe, R.H. Crowe, T.N. Keane, James Menzies, John Hill, J.H. Havery, T.B. Keane, C.P. Bolton, Albert Miniken, Edward MacBeth, S.E. Pressor, JL Wright, H Faircloth, John Cullinan, John Cullinan,Waterville, John Cullinan, Bushypark, Drs M. Greene, P.M. Cullinan, W Cullinan, W. Daxon, P.W. Dillon, J.B. Molohy, Captain J. Healy, Captain McTernan, Thomas Greene, Timothy Bunten, Rev. P. Dwyer, R.V. Humpherys, Rev. G. Courtney, Rev. R. Copley, G.R. Milward, Thomas Mohom, John Lepdell, F. O'Connor, B.T. Walker, C.W. Quinn, R. Close, R.H. Lett, T. O'D Kelly, J.L. Vernon, C.B Fitzgerald, A.T. Warren, C. Know, J.B. Knox, J. Burkett, L. Spicer, H.B. Harris, Henry Petty, John St. George Joyce, J. Morony, J. Fay &c., &c. The funeral service was read by the Rev. Mr. Warren; Presbyterian Clergyman, who delivered an eloquent and impressive panegyric after which, amidst general regret, the remains were consigned to their last resting place.

Smith was buried in Drumcliffe Cemetery in Ennis. The vault is inscribed:

"Erected to the Memory of David Smith who died on 23rd April 1878 in the 50th Year of his Age"

Smith had been a Shareholder in the Ennis Baths Company (Ltd) from 1869 to the failure of Turkish Baths in 1878. A liquidator was appointed two months before his death.

David Smith’s widow, the former Anne Chadwick and his children emigrated to Australia in 1892. They were Maud Smith, Henry Young Smith, Alice Mary Smith, George Smith and Hutchenson William Smith. The eldest brother, David Chadwick Smith qualified as a doctor and practiced in England.

LimerickIt is unclear whether James or his brother William was the first to settle in Limerick but we know that William moved on to Nenagh in County Tipperary about 1870.

James was a spirits dealer and hotelier. He had a property at 15 and 16 William Street called the “Globe Hotel”.

From the newspapers, we see the following events:

Limerick Chronicle April 13 1861

DEATHS

At Tipperary, aged 82 years, Mr Thomas McNay, formerly of Ayrshire, Scotland, and father of Mr McNay, of William-street, in this city.

(Presumably, Thomas (Peter) was living in Tipperary Town with his son John).

Limerick Chronicle June 10 1862

DEATHS

At William-street, John Ridley McNay, third son of James McNay, spirit merchant, of this city.

The 1867 and 1870 editions of the Coughlan directory of Limerick have the following entry:

Hotels - Globe Hotel 15 & 16 William Street James McNay prop.

Figure 3- Grove Hotel at 15 and 16 William Street- 2009 Google Street View

The Petty Sessions records show one brush with the law. On April 24 1868, James was charged with having his house open and selling drink during prohibited hours on April 19. He was fined 10 shillings plus one shilling costs.

Children of James and Edwina Warren McNayJames McNay and Adina Rebecca Warren had nine known children:

Edward Warren McNay was born in Limerick in 1856. He joined the British Army. In Surrey in 1877 he married Amelia Wasp from Ipswich. In the 1891 Census he is a sergeant and living with Amelia in married quarters in Colchester Barracks. Later he left the Army and from about 1897 on managed the Cross Keys public house in Colchester. He died in 1907, Amelia in 1909. They had no children.

Figure 4 - Building that housed the Cross Keys public house - since demolished

James Fife McNay was born in Limerick in 1857. At the time he got his Second Mate's ticket in London 1876 his address was listed as 21 Shop Street Galway.

A passenger manifest shows him arriving in New York on December 23 1901 aboard RMS Celtic in order to visit his sister Mrs Drew at 302 Alamo Rd San Antonio in Texas

The 1911 Census has him a boarder in Toxteth, Liverpool.

James Fife McNay died in 1914. This notice was published in the Liverpool Echo on September 2 1914:

GOODS JAMES FIFE McNAY, late the Bengali, of Liverpool, and formerly Limerick, Co. Ship’s Quartermaster, Deceased ”� Pursuant Section 29 of Act 22 and 23 Vict., Chapter 35.”� Notice is hereby Given, that all Persons having any Claim or Demand on the Estate….

James McNay and Edwina Warren’s next child was John Ridley McNay, born in 1858. His early death was recorded in this newspaper cutting:

Limerick Chronicle June 10 1862

DEATHS

At William-street, John Ridley McNay, third son of James McNay, spirit merchant, of this city.

Their next child was Mary Moore McNay – born in 1859. Together with her younger sister Jessie (born 1865), she moved to Toronto. Here she married another emigrant from Limerick, George Robert Drew, a cabinet and piano maker. They had four children while in Toronto: Angus McLeod Drew (1889), Alexander Harkes Spence Drew (1891) known as Alec, Dugald Drew (1894) and George McNay Drew (1895). The last two died in infancy.

By 1900 the Drews were living in Texas when, as previously noted, they were visited by Mary’s brother, James Fife McNay.

George Robert Drew appears to have died before 1920. In that year’s Federal Census Mary Moore McNay is widowed and living in san Francisco with son Angus McLeod Drew.

Angus had a peripatetic life. He was living in Santa Barbara California by 1908 working as a clerk and stenographer. He enlisted in the peacetime U.S. Army in May 1914 but was dishonourably discharged in September of the same year. He returned to Toronto but re-entered the U.S. in 1916. With the Americans now in the Great War, he was accepted back into the U.S. Army in February 1918 at Los Angeles. After service in the Quartermasters Corps, he was honourably discharged at Camp Fremont in Palo Alto California in January 1919. As noted, he and his mother were in San Francisco in 1920. Whether a pre-existing condition or brought on by his military service, in 1923 he was admitted to a Veterans’ mental health facility in Palo Alto with an ‘unknown psychosis’. At the time his mother was living nearby in Burlingame. He seems to have spent the rest of his life alternating between institutions and casual employment. In 1926 the courts declared him incompetent and appointed a guardian. In 1930 he managed the unusual feat of being enumerated twice in the Federal Census – on April 11 as an inmate in the Public Health Hospital in Palo Alto and on April 14 while back working as a cook in the University of Nevada in Reno. His mother Mary Moore McNay died in Palo Alto in 1940. Angus himself died in San Mateo in 1955. He is buried in Oak Hill Memorial Park in San Jose under a veteran’s headstone.

His brother Alexander Harkes Spence Drew was known as Alec. He too moved to Santa Barbara before 1910. He quickly settled in Los Angeles where he worked for many years as a surveyor for the County. He married Agnes Stanford and they had one son. Stanford Drew. Alec died in 1953 and Agnes in 1963. Stanford Drew died at Berkeley in 1989.

Mary Moore McNay’s sister Jessie who had moved with her to Toronto in the 1880s later herself moved to California around 1907. In the 1920 Federal Census she was a housekeeper in the Santa Fe Hospital in Los Angeles. She later became a housekeeper in the home of an industrialist in Beverly Hills. She died there in 1940 aged 74 years.

James McNay and Edwina Rebecca Warren’s next child was Dugald Weir McNay born in Limerick in 1864. After a spell as a draper, he enlisted in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers at Naas in 1887. He served for 21 years rising to Colour Sergeant. After several years posted in the East Indies, his regiment, 2nd Battalion R.D.F. was moved to South Africa before the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899. Dugald’s South Africa Medal carried clasps for service in Cape Colony, Orange Free State and the Transvaal as well as actions at Talana, Tugela Heights and the Relief of Ladysmith. After the war the regiment served again in the East Indies, including a spell in the interior of Aden (now Yemen) before returning to Ireland. In Belfast in 1906 Dugald married a

Cork-born widow, Eliza Jane Deely. Dugald was mustered out of the Army at Fermoy in 1908 and moved to England. After Elia Jane’s death, Dugald remarried Bertha Searle in Surrey in 1936. Dugald died in Falmouth Cornwall in 1951.

Dugald’s younger sister was Priscilla. Born in 1866, she never married. In 1901 she was living in Dublin with orphaned Dixon nieces and nephews. She later moved to England with them, dying in Surrey in 1927.

Robert McNay was born in Limerick in 1868. He is believed to have died in childhood.

Last child of James and Edwina was Helen G McNay. In 1872 in Galway (where her brother James Fife McNay was living at the time) she married John Groves Dixon.

John Groves Dixon died in Dublin in 1900. Helen had pre-deceased him. The 1901 Census shows their sons and daughters – ages ranging from 18 to 25 – with their aunt Priscilla living with them in Rathmines. Their eldest, Ellen Jane McGill Dixon, was not in the house at that time. Jennie Dixon, James McNay Dixon, John Groves Dixon and Gilbert McGill Dixon were enumerated. Their brother Joseph Groves Dixon had died in 1894, aged 18 years.

In 1907 Ellen Jane McGill Dixon married Belfast-born civil engineer Alfred Henry Armstrong. They moved to Alexandria Egypt where Alfred worked for the government. They had three children there: Patrick Groves Armstrong in 1909 who died in early childhood, Robert Lawrence Armstrong in 1912 and Norah Helen Armstrong in 1917. Alfred Henry Armstrong died in Alexandria in 1944. Post-war, Ellen Jane McGill Dixon moved to England where she died in Hampshire in 1967.

Robert Lawrence Armstrong was a colonial administrator, was married three times and had one child, Julia Helen Armstrong, born in 1959. He died in Dorset in 1994.

Norah Helen Armstrong married career naval officer Derek Harold Edleston in Alexandria in 1941. They settled in England where she died in 2000 in Cornwall.

The Dixon’s other children moved away – Gilbert and James were staying with Ellen’s father-in-law, Robert Armstrong in Belfast in 1911. Gilbert then moved to Canada where he enlisted in the Canadian Army following the outbreak of war in 1914. Returning to Canada, he died in Victoria British Columbia in 1962.

John Groves Dixon died in Dublin in 1948. He was married to Mabel Millicent Morley and they had two daughters, Millicent Kathleen and Helena Patricia. Millicent married Frederick Harrison in Dublin in 1946 and they had two daughters, Penelope and Wendy. Helena married Robert William Prescott in Dublin and had two daughters, Daphne who married Frederick Pfeiffer, and Norah who married George Charles Castle.

Mary (or May) Dixon married a Monaghan-born doctor, William Andrew Simpson, in 1906. They had one son, William Gilbert Simpson.

Nenagh

In or around 1870, William McNay having run restaurant and confectionary businesses in Limerick moved to open a boot and shoe shop in Barrack Street in Nenagh, County Tipperary, doing business as the ‘Glasgow Boot and Shoe House’.

In both 1870 and 1871 William McNay is listed as a committee member of the Nenagh Young Men’s Christian and Literary Association.

As a side note, an 1871 incident involving William McNay as a victim of an assault was recorded by the Clerk of Petty Sessions:

March 1 1871 John W Newport (41) naval officer, Protestant, held in Nenagh Prison for assault on William McNay, assigned to Nenagh Petty Sessions

The assailant had an erratic but interesting history –

(Lieutenant John Wallis Newport's naval career:

The family tradition is that Johnny Newport's 'very quick promotion' to lieutenant came about as a result of the capture of a slave trader and the release of the slaves. He later saw service on HMS Archer as part of the Baltic Fleet, blockading Latvian ports during the Crimean War. His fast track career came to a sudden end on 23 December 1856, when he was court-martialed on board HMS Copack at Grey Town for 'contemptuous and disrespectful conduct towards Captain Heathcote', and 'placed at the bottom of the List of Lieutenants', forfeiting six years' seniority from 12 Nov 1850 to 23 Dec 1856. Then there was an unexplained interlude when he went to India in 1858 to take up a new appointment, fell ill, was treated in the EG Hospital in Bombay for some months, and then returned to Portsmouth only to find that his appointment 'had ceased as of the 6th instant [December]'. On 28 June 1859 he was appointed to HMS Queen Charlotte, the flagship at Sheerness, and then to HMS Monarch at Portsmouth four months later. Johnny Newport retired from the Navy as a lieutenant on half-pay of 5/- a day ('which is not to be increased', according to his Royal Navy records) on 29 January 1861, was promoted to commander on 20 December 1871 and died, unmarried, at Farnham House, a private hospital in Finglas, now part of the northern suburbs of Dublin, on 27 October 1876, at the age of 46.

www.keepmilitarymuseum.org

In the mid-1870s, William McNay may have either temporarily left this business or relocated in Nenagh for a time, based on this newspaper notice:

Nenagh Guardian January 5 1876

TO BE LET

From the 1st January next, (For such terms as may be agreed on), The House, Yard, and premises, Number 20, BARRACK-STREET, NENAGH, at present in the occupation of Mr William McNay, Boot and Shoe Dealer. Apply to John Bull, Barrack-street, Nenagh 18th December 1875.

References to William McNay in the newspapers include these:

Member of Long Panel Nenagh Summer Assizes July 1876

Subscribed 2 shillings to Nenagh Poor Relief Fund December 1876

Juror Nenagh Quarter Sessions October 1882

Subscribed 5 shilling to Nenagh Industrial Fund November 1882

Marion and William’s four youngest children were born in Nenagh – Robert George in 1870 who died in Cork at the age of 21 years, Margaret (Gert) in 1872 who died in Sydney, Australia at the age of 97, David who died in infancy and Ellen, known as Nellie, who married her brother-in-law Robert Wolfe, lived with him in India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and who died in 1930. Nonetheless, by 1889 the boot shop at 20 Barrack St was under Edmund O'Leary according to Bassett's Directory for that year. William and family had moved on to Cork.

Figure 5 - Barrack St (now Kenyon St) Nenagh from the Lawrence Collection - about 1890

Cork

William’s older brother John had moved to Cork sometime between 1867 and 1882. William and family now too moved to Cork around 1889. William had two boot and shoe premises. Number 4 Bridge Street and another at 89 North Main Street. His son William eventually inherited the business.

William senior died on September 23 1916. His wife Marion died the following year.

Figure 6 - William McNay with grandchildren Heather and Harry circa 1933

William’s granddaughter Marion Reid Hamilton married Ralph Allshire.

Irish Times September 19 1936

ALLSHIRE and HAMILTON September 5 1936 at Trinity Presbyterian Church Cork by Rev. Andrew Gibson MA, Ralph S R Allshire, eldest son of Mr and Mrs T R Allshire Aberystwyth Wales to Marion R (Mernie) only daughter of Mrs and the late J Hamilton, 4 Bridge street Cork

The Allshires had been grocers in Cork. Ralph was born in Cork in 1903.

William died in 1945. His wife, Anna Maria Wolfe had pre-deceased him in 1939.

William’s eldest child, my grandmother, was Marion Wolfe McNay (Mernie) thereby combining the name that came down from Marion Smellie and Marion Reid with the Wolfes of Cork and the McNays of Ayrshire.

Figure 7 - Mernie McNay outside the family home in Dean Street Cork

Bridge Street circa 1910

This photograph from the Lawrence Collection in the National Library of Ireland is one of my favourites of all the pictures I have uncovered during my researches. There is so very much activity on the street at 11:19 o’clock on a bright morning.

The composition places the poles for the electric supply for the trams as the central vertical axis. Along that central axis lies the manure swept to the middle of the street, horse droppings and other detritus. At the right, behind the wall hung clock is William McNay’s boot and shoe shop at 4 Bridge Street. Its windows are filled with adverts.

Against the backdrop of St Patrick’s Hill, with two motor cars being maneuvered from side streets around a coal cart, we see Coburg Street opening to the left and King Street (now McCurtain Street) opening to the right.

On the Coburg Street corner is a Beamish and Crawford public house managed by K. Twomey. Cork was, and is, one of the few places in Ireland with ‘tied houses’ – where the brewery owned the pub rather

than being owned by an independent publican. Diagonally across on the corner of Bridge and King Streets is another Beamish and Crawford house.

From the left we see Madden’s and Sons grocery shop. Alongside is Landon’s Printing Works and Book Factory.

A horse and trap wait alongside the pavement. Several people stand around the corner. A cart moves up the street. On the corner is John Murphy’s chemist shop. Above Twomey’s public house are the offices of the local branch of the N.S. & F.U. The National Seamens' and Firemens' Union was a British based union not well thought of by James Connolly and others in Irish Labour. A large dray turns right in the direction of King Street. The tram is about to turn in the same direction. A uniformed conductor stands on the back platform. A sign advertises ‘Whitehaven Coals’ with local agent E.B. Wrixton, telephone 244. A man strides quickly across its path.

A couple climb the steps up Patrick’s Hill, and older woman descends. A sign advertises ‘Irish Roll and Plug Tobaccos’. A hotel and restaurant occupy the corner building on King Street.

On the other corner is the Beamish and Crawford public house was run by C. Hemsworth. Thomson’s confectioners occupied numbers 2 and 3. William McNay’s boot and shoe shop is at number 4 and Barriscale’s jewelers at number 5. The splendid clock carries the ‘Barriscale’ name on the face.

A group of well-dressed young girls stand on the corner with King Street. An older man passes a boy carrying newspapers outside the McNay shop windows. Two group of women converse with a large dog looking past the skirts of one. Two dapper men wearing summer straw boaters stroll towards Patrick’s Bridge, one replacing his pocket watch perhaps having checked its accuracy against the Barriscale clock.

A delivery cart for Whitehaven Coals stands at the kerb. Empty coal sacks hang from the side. A small cart trots down the street. This driver wears a bowler hat. Behind is a larger dray with a cloth-capped driver delivering Bass Ale. At the back is a horse-drawn coach with a top-hatted driver.