Halpin family of Wicklow - Part 1

[BillW]

Ken, without in any way casting an aspersion against Raymond's skills, and if you have not already done so, you could try asking a Laois list or the county library there.  Either way you might unexpectedly unearth  some interesting responses.  (Don't forget to let us know, though!)
Bill.

[BillW]

FREDERICK HALPIN, hotel keeper, Wicklow, 1850s.

Forgive me if Ray has canvassed this before but who was the above Frederick Halpin (see following)?  Was his hotel the Bridge Inn of James Halpin some decades earlier?

Newspaper:WICKLOW - Irish Times May 3, 1859 HALPIN v HALPIN
Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives
http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/copyright.htm
http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/wicklow/
Contributed by Mary Heaphy
________________________________________________

3-5-1859 Irish Times. (For County Wicklow).

Court of Probate--April 30th.

Before the Right Hon. Judge Keatinge.

Halpin V. Halpin.

In this case there was an examination of witnesses to prove the due
execution of a will made by the late Mr. Frederick Halpin, hotel keeper, of
the town of Wicklow, leaving his property in equal shares to his two nieces.
The will was impeached by the next of kin on the grounds that it was not
executed according to the statute.

Mr. Clarke, Q.C. and Mr. Murphy appeared to sustain the will, and Dr. Ball.
Q.C. for the next of kin. The attesting witnesses being sworn and examined,
his Lordship established the will and granted probate. Solicitors for the
Plaintiff--Mr. Littledale. For the Defendant---Messrs Hone and Kinahan.

Bill.

[Shanachai]

     Good suggestion to Ken, Bill - and don't worry about aspertions, I'm not that sensitive.  Ken, I'll approach the authorities again with those variations - there are some first rate assistants up at the national library in Dublin here and I'm sure they'll puzzle it out for us.  On the question of Frederick H., hotel owner in Wicklow - I had thought that he was one of the Portarlington Halpins (see the lineage in Burke's Peerage), but Diane was good enough to place that particular Frederick at the Sandymount preparatory school (obviously carrying on a family tradition of teaching - Old Nic taught in late 18th cent. Portarlington), which leaves our Wicklow Fred a bit of a mystery man...I'd dearly love to know where he fits in to our picture.
     Finally - if anyone has anything to say about Carlow and possible Halpin connections there, please notify us...my own recent research seems to suggest that the Protestant communities of Carlow and Portarlington in 18th/19th centuries were very close.
     Not long now - cheers, Ray.

[BillW]

Re the 1859 Will of FREDERICK HALPIN, hotel keeper of Wicklow Town.

This evidence is only a newspaper precis of the proceedings.

Presumably in the actual court proceedings, the names of the parties - the two nieces and the next of kin - would have been at least stated if not represented by counsel.  Ideally also there would have been explained to the Court of Probate the relationships of the parties and some family history to back up the claims of the nieces as opposed to the next of kin.

Would it be possible to unearth the actual court record?  There just could be a tiny mine of information contained in those proceedings.

Cheers
Bill
Sydney

[kenneth cooke]

Thanks to Bill, Ray & Julia for info & tips.
I have another query which someone may be able to answer. (Not a Halpen this time).
" Michael purchased from his father-in-law's Executors the ‘head rent’ of a 350 acre townland called Baytown, Co. Meath, for £2,950." I would like to know if Michael became the landowner or a middleman. Later his heirs were listed  in the Land Evaluations as the landowners or lessors.
Does anybody know ?
Ken

[BillW]

Presumptive of me, a non Irishman, to answer, Ken, and others will do better.

But, in Griffiths Valuations, reference is made to the immediate lessor.  But this person may be a head tenant who leases from the land owner.   Large swathes of Ireland were owned by landlords (frequently absentee, sometimes the church).  These holdings were leased out in parcels which were very frequently subleased in smaller parcels.

The landlord may well have had an estate "agent" who managed the first tier of tenancy but mostly those who sublet would have been "hands on".  It was common for almost all tenancies to be heritable and it would have caused great upheaval if a landlord or head tenant tried to call in the land without good cause.

I understand that many land title records survive in which you may be able to trace the handling of the land in question.  Another contributor can no doubt explain where and how.

A brother of one of my Malone ancestors in Co Carlow became agent to the Bunbury family at their beautiful estate, Lisnavagh.  He would have been in charge of supervising the tenancy of his brother who held land and a corn mill on part of the estate.  Those tenancies had been passed down through a few generations.  In this case, the Bunburys were hands on, resident landlords.

So, your Michael may have been either, a landowner or a head tenant, but I understand that the means exist to discover more.  I wish you good hunting.  I suspect that if what he purchased was accurately described as a "head rent" then he was actually a lessee from a bigger landlord.

Bill.

[kenneth cooke]

Thanks Bill
All info & tips are welcome. I’m inclined to agree that Michael was a middleman.
I wonder if the ‘head rent’ was a one-off payment or a recurring annual charge.
£2953 in 1762 was a lot of money, like £250,000 today. Hardly enough to buy outright a 350 acre townland in Meath, but surely too much to pay every year.
Maybe it was payment for a 100 year lease.
By the way, Michael was Alderman M. Sweeny, a Dublin merchant and uncle of Eugene who married Eliz Halpen in 1777.
Ken

[tompion]

RaymondCM - Delighted to see your listing of children of Nicholas John Halpin which included my great grandmother Mary Isabella Halpin who, as you say married William David Bradley.  Both Mary Halpin and William Bradley died young leaving my grandmother and the four other children as orphans.  I have been trying for ages to find the parents of Mary Anne Isabella Halpin and was completely stuck, although I did have William Henry Halpin and Caroline Hutton as her brother and sister-in-law.

Only just found this website and Halpin board and still have a lot to digest to make sense of all the possible Halpin connections. I would be very interested to get the ancestry of Nicholas John Halpin and Rebecca Doherty. From your posts the male line goes back through the Rev. Nicholas John Halpin but I not clear where it goes after that and who the brothers and sisters of the two Nicholas Halpins were.  Many thanks if you can help.

To add some further information, Mary Anne Isabella Halpin’s husband, William David Bradley, was a solicitor in Dublin whose family firm was founded in 1780 by William Gordon Bradley and still continues today, although the Bradley family have not been involved since the 1950’s.   William David Bradley died in 16th April 1897 and is buried at Mount Jerome.  Mary Anne Isabella (Halpin) Bradley died 4th June 1897 three weeks after giving birth to my great Uncle William David Bradley.

The children were of Mary Anne Isabella Halpin and William Bradley were:

Alice Maud Bradley (born 8th March 1883, Dublin), died 9th February 1965, Broadoak, East Sussex, England.  Married Major William Jestyn Llewellyn Jeffreys 3rd October 1908. These are my maternal  grandparents.  One daughter.

William Gordon Bradley, solicitor in family firm (born 23rd March 1884, Dublin) died Bray, Co. Wicklow, December 1946.  Married Constance Marguerite Inman 27th March 1912.

Arthur Percy Bradley, born Dublin 3rd July 1887, died  28th June 1952, Dawlish, England.  Engineer and Clerk of the Course at Brooklands from 1929-1939. Unmarried.

Doris Evelyn Bradley, born Dublin 12th February 1894, died 31st July 1983, Broadstairs, Kent, England. Married William Archibald Craig 18th September 1915, died 2nd May 1959, Broadstairs.  One son.

William David Bradley, born Dublin 25th May 1897, died 13th July 1972, England.  Married 4th October 1924 Doris Kitchener Victoria Keeling born 1899, Southend, England.  Worked for Standard Motor Company. One daughter.

[Shanachai]

Welcome Tompion - glad you found our site of some assistance.  It's been a while since I posted anything of value - afraid I got lost in the archives and overestimated my ability to digest everything quickly and re-present it to everyone at rootschat.  I've attempted to take the story back as far as reliable evidence will go, to the decade or so immediately preceding the 1798 rebellion in Ireland, when - according to the lore - the family essentially fractured along political lines and went its separate ways, producing the three branches that feature most prominently here - the Portarlington branch, the Dublin branch and the Wicklow branch of the very extended Halpin family tree.  The key to linking all three families is Dublin, and the events that caused havoc in that city in 1798.  I think I've gone some way to putting George Halpin snr in the Portarlington camp, something I'll clarify when I finally post my discoveries - mind you, my discoveries are not yet definitive proof of a connection; they amount to a tantalizing circumstantial case, which is the best I can do at the moment.  This news should excite Bill Webster, who's done a sterling job of making sense of the mess I make at rootschat...It also has to be said that Kenneth Cooke (among others - all of whom I hope to personally contact soon) made a few vital contributions too, and asked some very telling questions that I'm now in a position to answer. 
     One of the advantages of returning to the original sources is the opportunity it gives us to confirm the claims made for John Halpen (for example) - bookseller, engraver, and would-be actor - in the Oxford Dictionary of Biography.  I consulted Oxford's sources and confirmed what is claimed in its entry on John. But what was also included in that source (and not in the Oxford entry) was the news that along with John there was a certain Paget Halpin working in Dublin as an engraver at the same time, although the source could not say if they were related.  Now this was a lovely omission to uncover, because it links Kenneth's lineage, which can be placed in and around Portarlington, Queen's county, to your's and quite probably Bill's.  I think I can safely say that all of our hitherto distinct family lines appear to meet each other in Queen's county (and Carlow) just prior to the 1798 Rising.  Chronologically, geographically and professionally there is a consistent overlap - and that overlap strongly smacks of a blood link.  All of this will become clearer in due course.  As for my own family branch - it seems to pass through a few brewers and saddlers and tide surveyors - all brothers and most actively supporting the Society of United Irishmen during the years immediately following 1798.  Initially, James Halpin was brewing with his brother William in Dublin.  Both of them attempted to save Robert Emmet from the gallows.  Some years later James reappears in Wicklow town, where he ran a tavern.  I'm strongly of the opinion that a Dublin saddler by the name of Samuel Halpin was either father or uncle to James, and that Samuel hailed from County Carlow, which is next door to Queen's county.  There were strong familial links between Protestant and Huguenot families in Carlow and Portarlington (Queen's Co.), and many Samuel Halpin's were buried in Carlow graveyards, alongside the Keatinge's.  The links here are obviously more tentative than those connecting the families mentioned above, but I think I'm beginning to put the respective families in the same orbit, rounding the same places at the same time and - often - in the same professions.  I realise this is probably confusing - I'm only beginning to give the material some sort of credible shape myself.  That shape should be easier to glean once I begin the no doubt time-consuming task of posting my material on the rootschat site...I suppose it gives us all something worthwhile to look forward to.  In the meantime, all the best - I'll try to get back to you with some answers asap.