GRIFFINs of Newry

My interest in this is because of its likely connection to my JACKSONs. Here are my current conjectures – based on circumstantial evidence which still needs more factual buttressing:

1 Phil GRIFFIN

  + Sarah JACKSON b: 1774 d: 29 Feb 1828

    2 Philip GRIFFIN d: Aft 1836

      + Rachel KIDD b: 1802 d: 21 May 1866

        3 Sarah GRIFFIN b: Abt 1832

    2 Jackson GRIFFIN d: Bef 1851

      + Elizabeth JOHNSON b: Abt 1817 d: 7 Oct 1851

    2 George GRIFFIN d: Aft 1836

        3 Philip George GRIFFIN b: 1830 d: 1905

          + Margaret GILMORE b: 7 Sep 1834 d: 6 Dec 1904

            4 Anna Eliza GRIFFIN b: 20 Dec 1854

            4 Samuel George GRIFFIN b: 3 Sep 1856

            4 John Gilmore GRIFFIN b: 23 Oct 1858 d: 16 Jul 1912

              + Eleanor Sarah PELAN b: Dec 1863 d: 16 Feb 1955

            4 Frederick Richard GRIFFIN b: 23 Oct 1858 d: 10 Jun 1890

              + Mary JACKSON b: 23 Nov 1844 d: 9 Aug 1921

            4 Eva GRIFFIN b: Abt 1860

            4 Nancy GRIFFIN b: ? (she will be added to the Rootsweb tree in my next update).

        3 Richard GRIFFIN

        3 Sarah GRIFFIN

          + James CHRISTIE

        3 Sophia GRIFFIN

Here are the some of the recent clues that I have been referencing:

• I have a photo of Samuel GRIFFIN – who is he? See my post on ROD 1836-8-26.
• I assume that the P. GRIFFIN referred to as a husband of Sarah JACKSON was a Philip GRIFFIN. Died. On Friday the 29th ult. aged 54, SARAH, wife to Mr. P. Griffin of this town, after a long and painful illness which she bore with that patience and resignation ever characteristic of a pure conscience. She was an affectionate wife, a kind and indulgent mother, and is sincerely regretted by all who knew her worth. Transcribed by Alison Causten SOURCE: Newry Commercial Telegraph March 30, 1828.
• Newry Telegraph May 5, 1866. GRIFFIN – on the 21^st inst, at her residence, Queens Street, Newry, after a lingering illness, Rachel, relict of the late Mr. Philip Griffin, aged sixty-four years. NOTE: Est age at death of 64 in BMDs suggests a birth date of 1802.
• Rachel is a fit with The Belfast Newsletter Jan 8, 1830: On the 1^st inst. At St. Mary’s Newry, by the Rev Mr. Glenny, Mr. Philip GRIFFIN to Miss R. KIDD. NOTE: St. Mary’s is Church of Ireland. It seems worth assuming that Rachel was a daughter of John KIDD of this Memorial.
• Belfast Newsletter April 8, 1842: At Newry, of scarletina, on the 19^th ultimate, Sarah eldest daughter of Mr. George Griffin, aged 17 years. Also of the same disease, her sister Charlotte, on the 23^rd aged 10 years, and her sister Jane, on the 28^th, aged 7 years.
• Belfast Newsletter December 30, 1831: On Monday last in St. Mary’s Church Newry, Mr. Richard GRIFFIN, Ballybot to Miss Jane McALESTER, eldest daughter of the late Mr. R. McALESTER of Buckle. NOTE: Richard GRIFFIN may be a son of Phil GRIFFIN & Sarah JACKSON.
• Belfast Newsletter December 30, 1853: December 23 in St. Mary’s Church, Newry by the Rev the Dean of Dromore, Mr. William CAMPBELL, to Miss Sarah GRIFFIN, both of Newry. NOTE: His father was John CAMPBELL and her father was Philip GRIFFIN. Source: LDS.
• Belfast Newsletter November 10, 1851. October 7, at Naahill [sic? Nashville] , Tennessee, US., America, after a lingering illness, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Mr. William JOHNSON, Warrenpoint, and wife of Jackson GRIFFIN late of Newry. NOTE: Jackson GRIFFIN was a painter & glazier in Rostrevor in 1824. So was George GRIFFIN of Water St, Newry; in 1824. The forename of JACKSON makes me strongly suspect that he was a son of Sarah JACKSON. Fred GRIFFIN recollections make it clear that these were brothers.
• daughter of Philip Griffen aged 21 married William Campbell 23 Dec 1853. Newry
• Because of the New Zealand connection, it is worth noting: South Canterbury Cemetery records: David GRIFFIN d, April 29, 1899 a. 28 also Mary KING d. July 12 1894 a. 84 and Margaret GRIFFIN d Dec 6^th 1804 a 70. 6/1548 Pte A.J. GRIFFIN Canterbury Regiment d. 13.2.1955. a. 79. NOTE: The estimated DOB is a fit with Margaret GILMORE whose husband Phillip George GRIFFIN also died in New Zealand.

Fred GRIFFIN (1889-1946), a well-known journalist in Canada and great-grandson of Philip GRIFFIN, wrote down a great deal of what he knew:

     Father's forebears were, if not gentry since they were in business, at least genteel.  They were an old Newry family, Mother loved to tell us.  My great-grandfather and his brother had a business as decorators and sent painters all over Ireland, England and Scotland, even to France -- though why the French should have hired Irishmen to paint their houses I never could understand, unless it was in gratitude for Fontenoy.  Mother relished the shadow, however faint in her day, cast by this nobility of her husband's folk and gathered to her heart every little scrap of information about it  she could find.

     "Your great-grandmother and your great-great-aunts," she would tell me in a tone that never failed to inspire awe, "all wore white silk stockings," This in a period when only rich and great ladies wore even black silk stockings, lesser women being content with woolen or cotton stockings.  "They were magnificent women, your great-great-aunts being very tall like your Aunt Eva in Dublin, and were very proud.  When they passed in their carriage or walked through the streets of Newry people turned their heads."  Poor Mother!  Newry people had ceased to turn their heads when a Griffin passed.

The New Zealand part of the saga is also described by Fred GRIFFIN:

In the meantime my gay grandfather went from bad to worse. Neither by training nor temperament a farmer, he lost his stock and land.  Then, little more than a year after my grandmother had borne him a fifth child, he left her, left Ireland and sailed for New Zealand with another woman.  And what do you think my fool grandmother did?  She found a job as nursery governess with an army officer and his family going out to New Zealand and followed her errant husband, leaving behind five children.  Aunt Eva just learning to walk, the twins, Father and Uncle Richard, three years old, the other two a little older.  Whether my grandmother, when she was looking after the army officer's children on the way out, ever thought of the children she left behind I cannot say; in the years to come they must have often haunted her for she never saw one of them again.  She reached New Zealand and there joined my grandfather and his light o' love.  Nothing that I could ever learn threw light on the coming together; the scene that may have taken place must be imagined.  It is sufficient to know that for some time the three of them, grandfather, grandmother and his concubine lived together in apparent amity.  He certainly must have been a man of parts and of charm.  In the course of time, according to the gossip which reached distant Ireland, either the other woman left or died and Grandfather and Grandmother found themselves once more alone as man and wife.  In the course of the years she bore him four or five more children, but only one of the original family, the second one, Aunt Nancy, years later, when she was grown up, joined them.  The other four never saw their parents again or were seen by them, though the latter lived to be old, old people. NOTE: Philip George GRIFFIN would have left his Ireland-based family in 1861. Perhaps Mary KING was the concubine. Perhaps David GRIFFIN was a son of either his wife or his other partner.

Ros Davies listings for GRIFFINs from Newry. NOTE: I have shaded the ones in the family tree.

CR = Civil Registration

POD = Post Office & Trade Directories

IIW# = Index Irish Wills 1484- 1858

MI = Monumental Inscriptions from various graveyards

NCT = Newry Commerical Telegraph newspaper- from a transcription by Alison Causton, by permission of the British Library; see http://www.irelandoldnews.com/

PPNZ = Papers Past New Zealand