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4. Recording a Tradition: THE CONTRIBUTION OF PATRICK WESTON JOYCE (1827–1914) Lisa Morrissey 44 Patrick Weston Joyce was born in 1827 in Ballyorgan, County Limerick, and was the son of Garrett and Elizabeth (more commonly known as ‘Betty’) Joyce. It is not known exactly when the Joyce family moved to Ballyorgan, but they appear in the 1821 Census of Ireland for the area (North Munster Antiquarian Journal, vol. 17, 1975: 83–90). The census mentions four members of the Joyce family in Ballyorgan: Garrett Joyce (aged twenty-seven), who was a shoemaker and occasionally employed, his wife Betty (aged twenty-seven) and their sons Michael (aged three) and John (aged one). According to Seoighe in The Joyce Brothers of Glenosheen (Seoighe, 1987: 4), ‘Roibeard an Gaeilgeoir’, Patrick Weston Joyce’s grandfather, had settled in the nearby Glenosheen in 1783, indicating that the Joyce family had probably been living in the area from that time. By 1830, Garrett and Elizabeth Joyce and family had moved to Glenosheen, a place that was to have a lasting influence on Patrick and which is mentioned in several of his publications. The first extant birth and baptismal records for Ballyorgan date from 1856 and 1853 respectively, and therefore no official record is available of Patrick’s birth. His age is given as seventy-four in the census of 1901, indicating that his year of birth was c.1827. In the 1911 census, his age is listed as eighty-four, again suggesting that he was born in c.1827. His death certificate , however, appears to contradict the 1827 year of birth: Patrick died on 7 January 1914 and his age is given as eighty-six on his death certificate, thereby implying his year of birth was c.1828. This discrepancy could have been caused by the fact that he died at the beginning of 1914: he could indeed have been eighty-six years when he died, but, if his birthday was after 7 January, he would have died before reaching his eighty-seventh birthday. If this is the case, he would have been eighty-seven at some stage during 1914, had he lived, thus indicating an 1827 year of birth. The census for 1901 and 1911 were taken on 31 March 1901 and 2 April 1911 respectively; 4. Recording a Tradition 45 it would appear therefore that Joyce’s birth date must have been some time between 7 January and 31 March 1827. Most of what we know about Joyce’s lineage comes from a pedigree of the Joyce family that was compiled in 1898 by Michael Joyce, older brother of Patrick Joyce, and which is discussed at length by Mainchín Seoighe (Seoighe, 1987: 1–4). Patrick Joyce was descended from Seán Mór Seoighe, who came from Galway in 1680 to live in Limerick. Over a hundred years later, in 1783, Joyce’s grandfather Robert settled in Glenosheen after obtaining a piece of land when he married Anne Howard. As mentioned above, Garrett married Elizabeth O’Dwyer, the daughter of John and Mary Rosaleen O’Dwyer (née Weston) of Glenroe, County Limerick. John O’Dwyer was the only child of William and Mrs O’Dwyer (née Casey), and Mary Rosaleen Weston was the daughter of Major and Mrs Weston, a wealthy Protestant family (Joyce, 1911, Introduction: vi). Mary later became a devout Catholic, the religion of her husband, a fact which annoyed her father, Major Weston, for some time. Garrett and Elizabeth Joyce had eight sons, with Patrick being their fourth born. Apart from Patrick, only four of the siblings can now be named: Michael (1818–1903); John (born c.1820,1 date of death unknown); Robert (1830–1883); and Garrett (dates unknown) (Seoighe, 1987: 62–63, 80). Unfortunately, the 1901 and 1911 censuses have not provided the names of the unidentified brothers. Patrick and his brother Robert Joyce both affixed additional ‘family’ names to their own: Robert added his mother’s maiden name, thereby becoming Robert Dwyer Joyce, while Patrick took his maternal grandmother’s maiden name, becoming Patrick Weston Joyce. Both brothers also continued the tradition by giving their children ‘family’ names, such as Robert, Weston, Garrett, etc. Patrick Weston Joyce gives an account of his early life and education in his book English as We Speak It in Ireland (1910). Joyce describes going to Mass in Ballyorgan in a church with a ‘clay floor, no seats, walls of rough stone unplastered , thatch not far about our heads...

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