Series 5 - Hogan-Doyle-McCarthy-Malone letters

25pp

Mary Teresa Kelly of the Doyle family bequested copies of the Hogan-Doyle-McCarthy-Malone letters to Seamus Murphy of Carlow, who donated reproductions of the letters to Kerby A. Miller per letter of 29 August 1989. Miller created his transcripts from the reproductions.

Transcripts of 9 letters written by Lewis Doyle and Mary Malone (née Kelly, later McCarthy) to their relatives John & Anne Doyle in Pollerton, County Carlow between 1876 and 1894. Doyle emigrated to Kilkenny, Minnesota; and Malone (whose sister was married to Doyle's cousin) emigrated to Chicago.
Per Kerby A. MIller: 'Unfortunately, I have not yet done detailed research on the Hogan family's background in Ireland, so I cannot determine how many acres they rented. However, the fact that both the Hogans and the Doyles were able to transport their entire families overseas at once, at a cost of £20 or more, clearly indicates that they had been fairly substantial farmers, probably ca. 30-50 acres, and, despite the Famine, still retained sufficient capital to emigrate comfortably. On the other hand, families such as these were not affluent; small misfortunes could beggar them. For example, Mary Malone, one of Michael Hogan's cousins, who remained in Ireland initially, had to leave two of her children in the Carlow Poor House when her husband's death forced her to emigrate to Chicago in 1874.' Later research shows that the family achieved reasonable levels of success in the United States; Malone's letters focus largely on the economic mobility of herself and her children.

Reproductions and transcripts of 12 further letters from this collection, as well as extensive research on the authors and their families, are located in P155/35/10.