Dairy of James Burke-Gaffney

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Preface

I have often contemplated making a few memoranda of incidents in my life which may be of interest to my family in after years.  Inasmuch as I am not a native American, and that they may know something of their trans-atlantic relatives if ever they may be able to visit Europe and Ireland, the land of my birth especially.  There are no very strange or unusual incidents to relate, but the ordinary chronicle of a simple life, calm and uneventful, but exceptionally happy on the whole. Fortunately, my memory holds most strongly to the pleasantest recollections from earliest years to the present time - "I note not the hours unless they be bright" has been a favorite quotation occurring to my mind since I read that it was engraved on a sundial in some old Florentine monastery. I love to remember only the bright side of life and bury in oblivion disagreeable things.

Since circumstances have so changed my manner of living within the past few months, and I am so far removed from home and its attractions, compelled to travel from place to place by the requirements of my engineering work, forced to live in hotels and boarding houses as best I may; - after the days work is done I am necessarily much alone in my room in the evenings, where I read or write letters to offset a sense of utter loneliness. Then having so much time to write, without any domestic attractions to interfere I feel I cannot do better than essay a little autobiography as it were, and a biography of my parents, brothers and sisters and maybe touching on my uncles and aunts and cousins incidentally they are so numerous I may not do justice to them all, not forgetting my many nieces and nephews - that my children may know something of their kindred if their paths in life should cross each other ever.

Naturally I commence at my birth as being the most important event in my life.. though actively present I cannot claim any vivid recollections of this event, and must rely upon hearsay. I was born on the 11th of March, St. Patrick's Day, in 1850, and am now in my fifty-seventh year. My birth place was a little cottage called "Doogarry" in the County Mayo, Ireland. The church in which I was baptize has now become so well known as the "Chapel of Knock", since it was believed, some few years ago in the surrounding neighborhood, that the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared as a vision against the gable end of this church. For a little while it seemed to rival the celebrated Grotto of Lourdes, but the reported miracles occurring at Knock were not sanctioned by ecclesiastical authority, and the Plaster of Knock" taken from the gable of the church, is now seldom heard of as being held in special veneration as a relic. "Doogary was not our regular home residence. My father and mother had gone down there on a mission of charity to look after the poor peasant farmers art1ers of the place who had suffered so grievously in the famines of previous years, and I was born there under these circumstances, which may have unconsciously influenced my whole life, by an inherited love for the poor and suffering, from my dear mothers breast. As the sun sinks in the Atlantic Ocean on the west of the island it casts the shadow of "Croagh Patrick" the "Hill of St. Patrick" on the place of my birth, and I have reason to be proud of my birthplace and of the feast of the great patron saint of Ireland.

My father, Edward, was the second son of Thomas Gaffney, of near Grannard in the county of Longford, Ireland. He had one brother and four sisters, of whom more anon. My father received a very fine classical education, and studied engineering under the greatest engineer of his day, William Lovell Edgeworth, uncle to Maria Edgeworth, the Authoress, and Godmother of my eldest brother Tom. But I am anticipating events. Father travelled extensively in his early years with Mr. Edgeworth in the course of his professional work. On one occasion when in London with his chief, the latter suggested to my father that he would go down to near Birkenhead, where the first steam railroad in the world was being built, and see the "newfangled toy" as he called the locomotive, which was claimed to go at twenty miles per hour. Father did go, saw and was completely conquered by the possibilities of the "newfangled toy", and returned fully impressed that it was to be the future means of travel. His chief felt grieved that his young assistant could be lead so far astray, as he expected so much from him. Father subsequently became the pioneer of railway building in Ireland.

Chapter 2

But previous to this, however, while yet a very young man he was sent to develop the lead mines in Valentia, an island in the Atlantic a little off from Derrynane Abbey, the home of the great Daniel 0'Connell, the "Liberator", as he was called on account of his great fight for Catholic Emancipation in Ireland, took a great liking for my father and insisted on his spending his Sundays with him, that he might hear mass regularly, and sent his carriage to the wharf for him, going and coming. Forty years after this Father returned this compliment to his grandson and namesake, by having him spend his Sundays at our home, when Daniel O'Connell Jr., was a clerk in the National Bank of Ballinrobe.

I am again running ahead in the story of my Father's life, and will return to Valentia.  While here, 0'Connell used my father's talents in his efforts for Emancipation. He induced him to enter for a professorship in Trinity College, Dublin, knowing if he passed, of which he seemed to have little doubt, that he could not accept the test oath which would be tendered him on accepting office -  which implied he believed that the "Catholic religion was damnable and heretical". Of course father refused to a take such an oath - he could not be appointed and O'Connell fought the matter through the courts until finally the House of Lords declared such a test oath unconstitutional: thus my father was the humble means by which O'Connell opened the doors of old Trinity to all denominations.

I must now refer to the romantic incidents of Father's first marriage, for my mother was his second wife.  When about 21 years of age he fell in love with Mary O'Brian, the daughter of Captain O'Brian of the British Navy and niece of Lord Inshaguim.  She was only seventeen, had lost her mother, and was living with two maiden sisters of her father in the County Kerry, not far from B Valentia.  While paying secret attention to the niece, the younger of the aunts thought that she was his special attraction and became devoted to him, while several years his senior. After a while father was sent to the West of Ireland to build a great public highway being constructed by the Government along the West Coast. He and his fiancé promised to write each other as often as the then infrequent mails would permit. But to his great anxiety and pain of heart he did not receive a word or hint from her. Not being able to stand this anxiety longer he started back on horse-back and traveled thus two nights and a day continuously, only to find he had been a single day late. Mary had left the day before with her father to sail for Bermuda, her health failing and fears being entertained by her father that she was going into a decline.

Father met a warm reception from the aunts, the younger upbraiding him with his treachery  as she called it. She had intercepted his letters to Mary as they came, letting the poor girl think that he was a "false young knight who loved as he rode way". Father went down heart broken to the seashore to whisper his sighs, I presume, by the wireless telepathy of the time to his lost sweetheart. Fortunately an old sailor who had carried him across often from the island of Valentia to visit his ladylove met him arid learned the cause of his sorrow, he consoled him by saying he believed the vessel could not have put out to sea the, evening before, as a severe storm had been raging beyond the outer bar and offered to take him out in his skiff to intercept the vessel if she had set sail. They did intercept the boat, which father boarded explained all to the lady and her father, she decided to go back with her lover, and the bluff old captain blessed them heartily. They were married 1mediately, but had only one year's happiness together. She died in giving birth to a daughter, which lived only long enough to be christened Mary, after her mother.

Father remained a widower eighteen years until he met my mother, who was only 18 years of age when he married her, the sane age of his daughter if she had lived. Mother was Brigid Burke, youngest daughter of John Burke of Bekan in the County of Mayo. John Burke, my grandfather, was the last of his name who held the title of "Hereditary Grand Schenacle of Ireland". The office having been abolished by the Act of the Union - that infamous measure by which Ireland lost her own parliament, and was made a dependency of England merely - while the King still remains "King of Great Britain and Ireland" - thereby recognizing her independence in the letter, but denying it in the spirit and true significance of the title.