Census Day - 3 April 2022

Katie's Cottage
Eric Shaw

Census Day – 3 April 2022

The value of the Census Return can be judged by looking at the information that is available for this cottage in the 1911 Census.

The walls of the fine cottage still stand on the edge of Ballybeg Woods. In 1911, Thomas Scanlan lived there with his wife Mary (Gleeson) and their three children.The house was thatched, with three rooms and three windows. They had a cow house, a dairy, a fowl house and a car house.

In the 1901 Census, the Gleesons lived in the house. That family was featured in a book, Ballybeg to the Bush, published in 1995. Thomas Scanlan from Quin married in to the house in 1893. One of the Scanlan children, Katie, lived on in the house until her death in 1960. I remember having tea in the kitchen with Katie in the late 1950s. She kept a herd of goats. Descendants of those goats were transported to the Cooley Mountains in recent times but a small herd remains, roaming the woods.

 

No Comments

Start the ball rolling by posting a comment on this page!

Add a comment about this page

Your email address will not be published.