Tom Kelly and the Egans of Baltiboys
Home of Thomas and Mary Kelly overlooking their 120 acre farm at
Baltyboys where they reared their seven children
Tom Kelly would have been well known and respected by the people of Baltiboys, where he was born and reared, and in Blessington Co. Wicklow, where he worked in different places. He was born in the year 1891, in a farm house at Baltyboys that was later to become known as Egans. This farm was in the tenancy of Thomas and Mary Kelly ( Tom's grandparents) from as far back as the 1840's.
It originally consisted of one farm of 58 acres but the landlords, The Smyth family of Baltyboys House, took the adjoining farm of some 62 acres from another tenant, George Kearns and added it to Kelly's farm, to make it a more viable proposition.
The Kelly's had seven children,four boys and three girls, and employed as many as eight workers at various times to operate the farm. Maintaining the standard expected of them by the very demanding landlord.
As Thomas Kelly became older (he was 50 when he got married) and possibly infirm, relations soured between him and the Smyth's and they made no secret of the fact that they wanted Thomas and his family out of the place altogether.
Which we will see they were successful in doing, when in the year 1876 the newly married Egan's from Kilbride were allotted the entire farm.
Tom's parents were John and Anne (nee Egan), by virtue of her previous marriage to Bartholomew Egan, the son of Francis and Sarah, who came from the Athdown area of Manor Kilbride. She was Anne Donohue, daughter of Patrick, also from Athdown and they were married in Kilbride Church on the 21st September 1876, by Father James Cassin, C.C. Bartholomew was aged 52 and Anne was 21. The best man was William Brady, the Bridesmaid was Julia Walsh.
They had one son, also Bartholomew, who was born in March 1878, but his father never lived to see his son, because he died in October 1877, at the age of 53.
This unfortunate event left Anne in a very precarious situation with regard to the tenancy of 120 acres, previously leased to the Kelly family, which they had recently undertaken with the Smyth Estate in Baltyboys. A young widow with a small child and no spouse to run a farm of this size would present a serious dilemma for a land agent. However, Anne moved quickly to balance her situation when she fell in love with a local man from a farming background, named John Kelly, and they were also married in Kilbride Church, on the 3rd July 1878, again by Father James Cassin, C.C. John was aged 40 and Anne was aged 23. The best man was Michael Glynn, the Bridesmaid was Kate Donohue.
To recap on these three eventful years in Anne’s life, we see how she was married in Kilbride to Bartholomew Egan, a local man over twice her age, on September 21st 1876. They set up home as tenants of a 120 acre farm in Baltyboys. Her husband died in October 1877, her son was born in March 1878. She married John Kelly on the 3rd July 1878.
John was born in 1838 and their marriage certificate tells us that he was a bachelor farmer, the son of Thomas and Mary from Baltyboys. Thomas was a brother of John and had his origin in Blachditches, where his nephew Thomas faced up to the Healy takeover.
When the Egans arrived in Baltyboys from Kilbride, they could be described as strangers but John Kelly was no stranger to Baltyboys. Nor indeed to the house and farm which he had married into, because he had been born and reared there. He was the only surviving son of his parents Thomas and Mary and for whatever reason he had left home as a young man.
Despite describing himself as a bachelor, he had been married before. To confirm this we go again to the Ballymore Eustace Churchyard and read from one of the family headstones; Click once to enlarge lettering.
This Monument was erected by John Kelly of Baltyboys
In memory of his dearly loved wife Eliza Kelly
Who departed this life 22nd February 1868 aged 29 years
And his beloved children Kate and Thomas who died young
John’s name appears again connected with his cousin Hugh’s farm and we will see that in greater detail in the separate story relating to there. Briefly what happened was that Hugh had died before the Griffith Valuation was started and his wife Mary was the listed tenant in 1865. Mary had transferred the tenancy to John Kelly, then a married man with a young family. He was shortly to face the tragedy of losing his wife at such a young age, coupled with the loss of his two children.
But love was to blossom again for John, out of events happening a short distance away in the house he knew so well. In 1878, John departed the 125 acre farm of his late cousin Hugh and moved with great haste to begin a new life with the young widow Anne.
His father Thomas had died in 1853 without making a will and the farm tenancy was transferred to His Reps.
In 1875 it is recorded as being transferred from Reps. Thomas Kelly to Mary. In 1876 it passed from Mary to her daughter Catherine and by 1888 from Catherine to her brother John Kelly. That was after he had married the widow Anne Egan. In 1911 it was now in the full ownership of the family, and by 1926 it had transferred to John’s stepson Bartle Egan, Anne's son from her first marriage.
Anne had a total of six children altogether and in 1911 only two of them were still living, adding more sorrow to John Kelly who by now had buried a total of six children.
The 1901 Census records the family as follows;
John Kelly aged 63, Wife Anne aged 46
Stepson Bartholomew Egan, aged 23
Daughter Bride, aged 19 and son Thomas, aged 10.
The 1911 Census records the family as follows;
John Kelly aged 73, Wife Anne, aged 56
Stepson Bartholomew Egan, aged 33
Son Thomas aged 20 and Grandson John Dempsey aged 3.
This confirmed that Bride had married widower James Dempsey and it appears she had since died, leaving Anne to rear her son John.
The 1926 Griffith Valuation records that the ownership of the farm had by then transferred to Bartle Egan, establishing for evermore, what was to become known as:
“Egan’s of Baltiboys”
With this situation now in place it meant that any aspirations Tom Kelly had of inheriting this farm were dashed with Bartle having married Ellen (Nellie) Sargeant, also from Kilbride, and starting their own family.
Tom was now on his own and returned there on visits to the Egan family. The Egan’s went on to have eight children, Anna, Bartle, (Batty) Bob, Frank, Jack, Mary, Tommy and Lil.
Bartle died on 6th June 1951 and Ellen on 20th March 1937 and they are buried in Kilbride Cemetery.
In 1940 the ESB took over 80 acres of the farms, leaving a balance of 37 acres. This was to facilitate the developement of the Blessington Lake, to be used to provide drinking water for the City of Dublin and produce electricity for the ever growing rural electrification schemes.
Tom Kelly took work wherever he got it around the area and in 1939 his cousin John Healy, now with his 125 acre farm in Baltiboys also about to be halved in size by the ESB, and his wife Sarah with the Post Office in Blessington, approached Tom. He needed him to come and manage the farm of some 260 acres at Newtown Great, where John’s uncle Patrick Mullee had just died., failing to make a will and do the decent thing, as promised, and leave the farm to John. Tom Kelly was also related to the Mullee family, through his grand aunt, Mary, who was married to Peter Mullee, Patrick’s father.
Tom took on the task of managing this extensive operation, keeping it in good shape for eventual disposal in 1947, by Patrick’s sister, Alice, and her twin O’Reilly nieces, all of whom came home to make a clean sweep and return again to the United States of America.
After this episode in his life Tom went to work for Millars in Blessington, a family business comprising a farming tradition with a mixed operation spread over a number of places and a substantial grocery and general supply business, providing a service to the farming and local communities. Tom was a part of all this for a number of years and he went to The Forge every day for his lunch, served up to him by Mrs. Tyrrell.
Tom Kelly always bore a grievance over not getting the farm he had been born and reared in at Baltiboys. We are not privy to what happened to confirm Bartle Egan as the heir apparent to the farm. Nor are we aware as to who made the final decision. It would also have been a source of regret to his father, knowing that the farm would go to his stepson, and that his own son Tom, would have to leave empty handed. No matter what way the situation was viewed, it was always clear that Bartle Egan was his mother’s eldest son.
Tom also told of another farm that he felt should have come his way, but never did. This was a farm of some 40 acres that the Mullee family had leased from the Downshire Estate in an area known as Blackhall, adjacent to their farm at Newtown Great. We don’t know how Tom expected to get this place. The census returns for 1901 and 1911 both show an unmarried Patrick Mullee as head of family, living with his sister Julia. These were cousins of the unmarried Patrick Mullee, the then owner of Newtown Great.
Today this Egan farm at Baltyboys is but a shadow of what it was in the days of Thomas Kelly and his wife Mary, tenants of the Stannus/Smyth Estate and subject to the high standard expected of them for the privilege of farming the land and paying the Landlord a high rent for doing so. Standards were also imposed upon the Tenants for the proper upkeep of the family home, out houses, sheds etc.
Most of the Egan family scattered to different parts of the world, leaving the brother Batty and his sister Anna to continue the farming traditions of their parents. Batty died on October 5th 1999 and Anna on May 13th 2008. They are both buried in Kilbride cemetery. As neither of them married there was nobody to continue farming and the homestead is described as derelict and the land is set to a local farmer.
In those years that were important to the people involved in our story, things were happening in other parts of the country. In 1869 the first Galway Races were held and in 1876 the first Rugby Match was played at Landsdowne Road. In 1880 the first Leinster Leader Newspaper was published. In January 1883 the first Catholic National School was opened in Blessington and in 1888 the Blessington Tram began operating.