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A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DORGANS

IN

EAST COUNTY CORK, IRELAND

By

William J. Dorgan III

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Three people deserve my appreciation for their assistance in my Dorgan research: Patricia Maguire, Johanna (Jo) Cashman of Knockglass, and Pete Morrison of Churchtown South. Patricia Maguire is my father’s cousin and the one who got me interested in the Dorgan’s genealogy. She had seen the old Dorgan properties at Carrigkilter and Ballybraher in the 1970s and 1990s, and I was captivated by her tales. I met Jo Cashman and Pete Morrison on my trip to Ireland in April 2005. Jo took me to various places in East County Cork, where I saw the churches, cemeteries, and earliest Dorgan homes in Ballybraher and Carrigkilter. Pete invited me and Jo to his house on a wet, dismal day, gave us food, and handed me a printout he had made about the Dorgans. It was a wealth of knowledge that helped me in my quest for learning more about the Dorgans in Ireland and later on the internet. Jo and Pete are no longer with us, but they are always in my thoughts as I pursue my research on the Dorgans of East County Cork. May they rest in peace.

FINDING IRISH RECORDS

A two-day bombardment, an explosion, and fire in the Four Courts during the Irish Civil War on June 30, 1922, resulted in the destruction of the Public Records Office in Dublin. This led to the loss of many irreplaceable records for genealogy, such as census records from the 19th century, parish records of the Church of Ireland from hundreds of years ago, and thousands of wills and title deeds. Chancery records, which recorded British rule in Ireland since the 14th century and crown land grants, were also wiped out. The only records of the Dorgans that remained were those held by the Catholic churches in East County Cork. That’s where we first encounter them.

OUR VERY FIRST DORGANS (SO FAR)

The name DORGAN (and its variations) appears in County Cork for the first time in the following records: John Dorgin of Cork City, whose will was probated in 1741, and Lucy Dorgan (alias Saggison) of Blackpool (a suburb of Cork City), whose will was probated in 1772. They are not related to my DORGAN branch in East County Cork.

The first Dorgan I discovered in East County Cork is Timothy Dargan. His marriage is recorded in the Catholic Parish Registers of the National Library of Ireland for the Diocese of Cloyne/County of Cork, Marriages 03 Feb 1786 – 17 Feb 1801, (Microfilm 04990/01). The record says this:

12th February 1793

Married Tim(oth)y Dorgan Ballimacoda and Joan Downey

B.D. (Bans Dispensed) by authority of Rt. Rev(eren)d Dr. Coppinger

present Rich(ar)d Malloney and Will Reidy by M.C.

Timothy Dargan (Dorgan) and Joan (Johanna?) Down(e)y may be the Grandparents of Patrick Dargan. My suspicion is based on the family graves at Ballymacoda Hill Cemetery.

There are three DORGAN graves immediately on the right side after the entrance gate.

One of the gravestones reads:  

? erected (unable to read this line)

To the Memory of

Johanna Dorgan

who died March 9th 1823

Aged 73 years

Rest in peace.

On the contrary, this family could be an entirely different DORGAN family.

Timothy Dargan had two known children: Edmond and Mary.

Edmond is buried in the Hill Cemetery, Ballymacoda, Parish of Ladysbridge, East Cork. His headstone reads:

“Erected by John Dorgan of Killmacahill in memory of his beloved father Edmond Dorgan who died Dec. 24th, 1877 Aged 78.”

Mary Dargan is also buried at Ballimacoda Hill Cemetery.

This is the exact wording of the epitaph on Mary Dargan’s (Dorgan’s) headstone:

This stone was

erected by

Timothy Dorgan

in memory of his

daughter Mary who

Dept. this life Sept.

11th 1800 Aged 21 years

May her soul Rest in peace

Amen.

Here is the reference: https://historicgraves.com/hill-ballymacoda/co-thbm-0129/grave

Edmond Dargan lived through The Great Famine of 1845-1852. He had five children: Daniel, Patrick, Michael, John, and William.

THE BROTHERS OF PATRICK DARGAN

JOHN DORGAN

Patrick Dargan had a brother named John Dorgan, who lived in Garryvoe Lower. The letter “o” in his surname appears for the first time in Griffith’s Valuation. His lessor was John Motherway, a name that later became connected to the Dorgan family through marriage. John Dorgan was baptized on 11 Dec 1839 at Cloyne Parish. His parents were “Edwd” Dorgan and Mary Cusack. The name “Edwd” could be a variation of “Edmd” (Edmond), as the priest’s handwriting was not clear. In 1901, John Dorgan and his wife Ellen (Cashman) and their children lived in a stone or brick house with three rooms and three windows in Kilmacahill. They also had eight outbuildings: a stable, a cow house, a calf house, a dairy, a piggery, a fowl house, a barn, and a potato house. John Dorgan was literate in both Irish and English. John Dorgan and Ellen Cashman were still living in Kilmacahill in 1911, with their son Daniel Dorgan and his family: The inhabitants of #11 in Kilmacahill (Ballintemple, Cork) were: Daniel Dorgan, 36 years old, male; Margaret Dorgan, 34 years old, female; Helena Dorgan, 5 years old, female; Mary Anne Dorgan, 4 years old, female; Abina Dorgan, 2 years old, female; Thomas Dorgan, 0 years old, male; John Dorgan, 74 years old, male; Ellen Dorgan, 67 years old, female.

DANIEL DORGAN

Patrick Dargan had another brother, Daniel Dorgan, who lived in Garryvoe Upper as a farmer. He married Margaret G. Beausang (Boozane) on 14 Feb 1848 at Ballymacoda/Ladysbridge. Patrick Boozane and Thomas Higgins were the witnesses. The Beausang name is also related to the Dorgan family through marriage.

MICHAEL DORGAN

Michael Dorgan was another brother of Patrick Dargan. He was a farmer in Garryvoe Lower, where he appears in Griffith’s Valuation. He married Johanna, whose surname I don’t know. They had nine children. In 1911, they lived in House #14 in Garryvoe Lower, according to the Census of Ireland. Michael spoke both Irish and English, but he could not read or write. Their daughter, Hannah Harrison, and her three children (Hannah M., Michael, and John) also lived with them. Hannah was married for 10 years, but her husband was not present for the census.

WILLIAM DORGAN

According to Griffith’s Valuation, William could have been another brother of Patrick Dargan. I think this because David Dorgan, the son of Patrick Dargan (Dorgan) and Nancy Flynn, had William Dorgan as his sponsor.

PATRICK DARGAN: THE FIRST INDISPUTABLE DORGAN

I will use PATRICK DARGAN to refer to my GGGrandfather since that is how his name is spelled in all the land records that I found. He was the son of Edmond (Edward) and Mary Dargan, and he had four brothers: Daniel, Michael, John, and William. The first record I found of Patrick Dargan was from 1847, in the Ireland Valuation Office Books Transcription. He was an occupier “at will” of three properties (#14: land, #17: house, office & land, #19: land). His lessor was Thomas G. Durdin, an English Protestant landowner. There was a note next to #17 that said “3 leases, made about 1817”. This might mean that Durdin started leasing his land in 1817. The properties were in Carrigkilter, a townland in the parish of Ballintemple, in the Barony of Imokilly, East County Cork. The next record I found of Patrick Dargan was from 1848, in the same source. He had a piggery and a cow house on his land. He also appeared in 1853, in Griffith’s Valuation, as an occupier who leased the land from Thomas G. Durdin. This is a map of Carrigkilter from Griffith’s Valuation. Patrick leased 8A,8B, and 8C. https://tinyurl.com/759f3zds

Patrick Dargan was a tenant in Carrigkilter, Ballintemple (Churchtown South) in 1855, according to the Valuation of Tenements. He took over the lease from Maurice Cusack, who had rented the land before him. The landowner was Thomas Garde Durdin, a descendant of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. Thomas Garde Durdin would travel from England to East Cork every year to collect the rent. He would stay at one of his estates: Shanagarry Castle or Sunville House. He was the landlord of many properties in Ballintemple, Imokilly, as shown in Griffith’s Valuation, June 1853. Thomas Garde Durdin sold all his land holdings at an auction on 19 June 1855. Among them were the lands of Killderrig, Carrigkilter, Coalvodig otherwise Sunviille, Ballybraher West, Snugborough, Ballyronahan, Ballybraher East, Ballinamona, and part of Shanagarry. This is when Patrick Dargan “bought” his farm at Carrigkilter…a farm that he had previously “leased” from Thomas Garde Durdin. This was the first Dorgan “deed of sale” recorded since the English Reformation in the late 1500s. I have a copy of this deed from the Dublin Archives. Patrick Dargan died at Carrigkilter before his son, Patrick J. Dorgan married Mary Hartnett on November 26, 1886. Their marriage record states that he was “deceased”.

THE SALE OF THE DORGAN FARM AT CARRIGKILTER

The Cork Examiner, Monday Morning, August 17, 1896

On Thursday last Mr. John Condon, auctioneer, Youghal, sold the interest in Mr. Patrick Dorgan’s farm of Carrigkilter,

situated between Ballycotton and Cloyne. The holding contains 27a 1r 30p held in fee simple subject to the payment

of an annuity of £17 6s 2d, to the Irish Land Commissioners, for a term of 49 years, from the 1st day of May 1892.

There is also a half-yearly payment of £1 6s, covering principal and interest, made to the Commissioners of Public Works.

There was good attendance, and after some bidding, the farm was sold to Mrs. Margaret Curtin, Glanturkin,

for the sum of £142 10s.

In today’s US dollars, this amount would be equivalent to 28 acres of land for $22,000.

THE SUMMARY

Patrick Dargan and Johanna Flynn had a family of six: two daughters (Mary and Elizabeth) and four sons (Timothy, Michael, David, and Patrick). The daughters left their parents’ family to join their husbands’ families (Shinnick and Healy). The sons inherited their parents’ assets and holdings. But is this what really happened?

Timothy 

My initial assumption was that Timothy, the eldest son, inherited his father’s land holdings around Carrigkilter. However, his father Patrick sold Carrigkilter in 1892. Timothy had already passed away in 1890 when he was 46 years old. Moreover, Timothy was not a farmer like his father. He ran a shop from his home on Church Street, Cloyne. His son David moved in with his uncle Michael Dorgan and aunt Johanna Garde after Timothy died. Since David was a minor, the land holdings around Carrigkilter went to Michael Dorgan. Later on, David became a National Teacher and moved to Dublin after his first wife, Julia O’Brien, died suddenly before they were married a year.

Michael inherited Dorgan’s (O’Deargain) pub in Cloyne from his father, Patrick Dargan, sometime between 1892 and 1896.  Patrick Dargan bought the pub in 1865. The pub is located at No. 9 and 10 Rock Street, Town Parks, Cloyne, Co. Cork.

It was first sold in 1998 and was called “Auntie Biddie’s”. Presently, Seanie Costine and his partner, Kerri McCarthy bought the pub in 2022. They have created a modern, spacious pub with unique features around every corner called The Rock Bar:

https://www.echolive.ie/corklives/arid-40888121.html

https://www.facebook.com/Therockcloyne

David

Elizabeth Ahern and David Dorgan’s parents arranged their marriage. They were neighboring farmers in East County Cork, with the Dorgans owning Carrigkilter and the Aherns owning Ballybraher. The two properties became one large estate when David and Elizabeth inherited them after their parents passed away. The estate has recently changed hands, and I am looking into the details and reasons for the sale and who now owns the lands.

Patrick

Patrick, the last and unexpected child of my great-great-grandparents, Patrick Dargan and Ann Flynn came into the world 14 years after his brother David Dorgan. With no more land or wealth to inherit, and struggling with famine and hardship, he embarked on a journey to America, landing at Ellis Island, New York on October 28, 1896. This is how the saga of the Dorgan family began in a new land. They were immigrants from East County Cork, Ireland to Providence, Rhode Island, and other states. Now they became citizens of the US and beyond.