Hugh Kelly

Hugh was one of an importand group in the history of Scotland's demographics, the 19th century Irish Immigrants.  They were economic migrants, many as a result of the Irish Potato Famine but it had been going on before, in the canal and railway building days, and afterwards in the construction and mining booms.  The Kellys and Kearneys were Roman Catholics and, as such, would have found themselves at the bottom of the social ladder at the time, a situation which has resolved itself over time.  There is an interesting well-balanced article on Irish Immigration which details the difference between the situation regarding the Catholic and Protestant communities. 

Hugh was born in what is now Northern Ireland but was then a part of Great Britain but a part which a large proportion of the population wanted to see as a separate state.  It had suffered a devastating famine in the 1840s and 50s which many people believed shouldn't have happened as Ireland was in fact exporting enough grain to have fed the population.  This fuelled a political drive for independance but the immediate impact of the famine was that many died and many more emigrated.  This economic migration included our ancestors and unfortunately, due to the burning of the Irish records by the rebels in 1922 there is little left and we have lost a wealth of information on our Irish forebears.

One interesting aspect of the move to Scotland is that the family members can be found twice on the Internet, once in Ireland with the mother given as Kearney and once in Scotland with the mother given as Cairney, a more acceptable Scottish spelling.  Coincidentally, on my mother's other Irish line, the Protestant Anderson side, there was a Helen Carnie, a further variation on the name.  There's a kind of symmetry about it.  Her father's father's father's mother was Helen Carnie and her mother's mother's mother's father was Henry Kearney.

Hugh was born in Tanderagee and married in Lurgan and I have to be honest when I say that I don't know where the proof of this lies.  These assertions are stated on the Familysearch site and we can derive the marriage date from his daughter Catherine's birth certificate, as she was born after compulsary registration, but I haven't consulted any original records as they will be in Ireland.

From the dates and locations of the births of his children it can be estimated that he and the older children moved over to Scotland in 1864 or 5, firstly to Airdrie but soon to Uphall, where most of them were born, with a couple of spells in West and East Calders before finishing in Bathgate, where he was noted down as being a hawker of stoneware.

I say finishing in Bathgate as this was his address in 1881 but he died in fairly unusual circumstances in 1882.  He was in Kinghorn Common, which I can't locate on any map of Kinghorn but presumably was common ground originally for grazing to be used by anyone's animals.  However, on an old map of 1832 the area known as Rosslands, between Kinghorn and Pettycur, is marked as Town Lands of Kinghorn and presumably is the common land.  This is also the land on which David The First Street, my wife Sandra's childhood home, was built. 

His occupation was given as Oilworks Labourer rather than the Hawker of the previous year.  There were no oilworks in Kinghorn that I know of so there is little reason for him being there unless he was hawking goods round the town, but why Kinghorn on the other side of the Forth?  His daughter Catherine's death record gives him (though wrongly named as John) as a roadman, which translates as a peddlar so their is strong evidence is that he was out and about selling round the doors.  He died of acute bronchitis at the age of 44.  Was he sleeping rough or in a tent or even a gypsy caravan and became ill as a result?  I don't think we'll ever know.

Note - I think I have the solution to the above Oilworks Labourer occupation. The Burntisland Oil Works were beside the Burntisland Golf Course and the Binn Hill so although not actually in Kinghorn it is close enough to be a valid reason for Hugh being in the area and having that job. The oilworks rapidly expanded under new ownership in 1881, according to this excellent website and this would explain a sudden influx of many men looking for work at that moment in time. I have walked the area in the past and it's quite spooky to find the ruins of the abandoned old village overgrown and with only sparse remains. The works only lasted 16 years. The oil was extracted from shale dug out of the ground, most of the mines being in Fife and West Lothian. Why Hugh died on Kinghorn Common is still a mystery though.