Owen/Eugene McEnery and Mary Collins

I think I am pretty much convinced now that the Eugene McEnery who came to America in 1899 to visit his daughters Bridget Clifford and Mary Shanahan is the Owen McEnery who was the son of Patrick McEnery and Catherine Riordan. Owen and Eugene are English versions of the same Latin name. I do not know what the baptismal records actually say, since the research centers in Ireland seem to Anglicize the names when they send you a report. (This, in my opinion, is a mistake.) A couple of family trees on the Internet have the Eugene who was the father of Bridget and Mary married to Mary Collins, whom I have as the wife of Owen. One of them gives Eugene's death date as 10 August 1906 in Newcastle West, County Limerick, but does not give a source for this information (Grrr!). I am going to change the information on WeRelate to make Eugene identical to Owen. I have to wonder, though, about Eugene being born in 1841 and Mary Collins, his wife, being born in 1830. Highly unusual!

Duh! I have my printed genealogy open in front of me, and realize that a Johanna Collins came back on the ship with Eugene McEnery and his family. She is obviously a relative of his wife. I have been wondering where a Collins would fit in.

Robert Clifford and his son Robert T. Clifford, husband and son of Eugene McEnery's daughter Bridget took a trip to Ireland in 1913. On the same ship were Joseph Shanahan and his son William. I am not sure how they fit in. I think Mary McEnery Shanahan's husband was John.

Fr. Joseph McEnery of Blackburn, Lancashire, England

I may have had a breakthrough with regard to the brothers Joseph E., James, and John McEnery, grandsons of Owen McEnery. There was a Joseph Eugene McEnery baptized at Kilbeggan Parish, County Westmeath, Ireland, on 12 April 1891, son of John McEnery and Kate Karty. We know from Jack that his mother was from Co. Westmeath. Owen did have a son John, and both of his brothers came to America. This fits with what Jack said in a letter to me in 1976. I just have to see if there was a John McEnery teaching in County Kilkenny at the right time.

McEnerys of Newcastle West, Co. Limerick

I've been trying to straighten out the McEnerys of Newcastle West, Co. Limerick. (1) There were three McEnery brothers, Fr. Joseph E., a diocesan priest in England; James, a Dominican priest known in religion as Fr. Bede; and Jack, a teacher who was living in a nursing home in Wales in 1975. They grew up in Co. Kilkenny, where their father was a teacher. Their grandfather was Owen McEnery, but I do not know the names of their parents. (2) Eugene McEnery married Mary Collins, and had a son Thomas, b. 1867 in Newcastle West. This Thomas married Catherine Moore, and they had a daughter Margaret (b. 1903, d. 1982) who married William Joseph O'Driscoll (1905-1987). (3) Are they related to the three Irish priests, Thomas, Patrick, and Dennis McEnery who served in the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota, and are all buried in the cemetery at Abbeyfeale? (4) What about Eugene McEnery who had two daughters in New York, Bridget McEnery Clifford and Mary McEnery Shanahan? He came to NY in 1899, but probably went back to Ireland in 1901. Most, if not all, of these people are related to, and probably descended from, my McEnerys, Patrick and Catherine (Riordan) McEnery of Monagea, Co. Limerick, but it is not entirely clear how.