Limerick, the Key?

[Wickerman]

I may be wrong, but is there any evidence it's an older brother in the army? Might it not be a younger brother? And if so, shouldn't we also be looking in the regimental records for men born in Carmarthen/Caernavon/Cwmavon?

Hi Dave.
We are also trusting in Barnett's recollections, he may have misremembered the relationship. If Mary did go to Cardiff and stay with her aunt, perhaps this soldier was not a brother, but a cousin?

Regards, Jon S.

[Cogidubnus]

Mild irony

Hi Jon

Sorry mate but I thought it was you cautioning me about straying from the evidence without good reason?

Touché!

But, never mind...you may well be correct!...let's see where the research leads us...

All the best

Dave

[Errata]

As far as constructing a new identity is concerned, you are on to something. Clearly the easiest thing to do is to keep your first name and change your surname. That way at least you don't have to train yourself to respond to some other name. But for a Catholic girl, taking the name "Mary" would not be nearly as hard to adjust to as say, "Beatrice". But you British folks have a truly astounding number of individual accents and dialects crammed in to such a tiny island. A Limerick accent may not be as distinctive as say, Glaswegian, but it would be known to any Irish. Passing herself off as being from Limerick when she was not is likely akin to trying to pass yourself off as being from South Carolina when you are from Oregon, or as being from London when you are from Yorkshire.

But like any other accent or dialect, there is some wiggle room, typically within certain geographical features. There isn't a lot to distinguish between Southern accents in the US, unless you pay attention to such things, but there is a noticeable difference in say, a Tennessee accent when you cross a major river, or get into some mountains, or any other natural barrier. The "hill country accent" as made popular by The Beverly Hillbillies is East Tennessee, Western Carolinas, West Virgina, places where Scots-Irish settled to mine and became very isolated. So sounding like she was from Limerick would probably put her within an hour of Limerick up or down the river, but likely not more inland.

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon

Sorry mate but I thought it was you cautioning me about straying from the evidence without good reason?

Touché!

But, never mind...you may well be correct!...let's see where the research leads us...

All the best

Dave

I just threw it out there as a suggestion Dave. Afterall Barnett did say he never met any of her brothers, so this "visit" is a story Barnett was told by someone and the "visit" happened before he made her aquaintance.

All the best, Jon S.

[Cogidubnus]

As you say Errata, to original cockney ears a harsh Belfast (Northern Irish) accent might just be distinguishable from a more rounded Southern accent...but no way could the average native Eastender distinguish between Limerick and Cork...However, an Irish person probably could...

Trouble is, the East End (Whitechapel and Wapping in particular) was literally packed solid with Irish people at the time (as well as Jewish refugees)...and in all honesty they'd have detected a fraud as soon as she opened her mouth!

All the best

Dave

[Cogidubnus]

I just threw it out there as a suggestion Dave

It's fine mate...no need of an excuse!

Best wishes always

Dave

[Wickerman]

As far as constructing a new identity is concerned, you are on to something. Clearly the easiest thing to do is to keep your first name and change your surname. That way at least you don't have to train yourself to respond to some other name. But for a Catholic girl, taking the name "Mary" would not be nearly as hard to adjust to as say, "Beatrice". But you British folks have a truly astounding number of individual accents and dialects crammed in to such a tiny island. A Limerick accent may not be as distinctive as say, Glaswegian, but it would be known to any Irish. Passing herself off as being from Limerick when she was not is likely akin to trying to pass yourself off as being from South Carolina when you are from Oregon, or as being from London when you are from Yorkshire.

Thats a fair observation. Alternately, MJK might not have been raised in Limerick (city or county?) but she could have been born there. As such she may claim to be from Limerick but speak with an accent from some other part of Ireland.

We can search under;
First name: Mary.
Born: 1863 (+/- 2 yrs).
Location: Ireland.
Residing in 1881: Wales
And we get 123 potenial MJK's, all the right age & right nationality who may have changed their surname to Kelly in later times.

Regards, Jon S.

[Cogidubnus]

She might even recite poetry in Irish Gaellic with a slight Welsh accent...Let's be real eh and try to stay within realistic bounds...

All the best

Dave

[Wickerman]

The reality is, my motherinlaw returned to the family home in Co. Clare (IRE) to give birth to my wife. Then returned to Manchester. As a result the missus claims to be Irish but with a Lancastrian accent.

Thats a dash of reality...

Regards, Jon S.

[Cogidubnus]

Ultimate misfortune!

No Jon...the reality is that your wife subsequently met you!



Dave

[Wickerman]

Well, you know what they say, love is blind...

[Robert]

Mike, I am not a bread connoisseur, so all I can say is that as far as I know, the main thing about bloomers is the shape and appearance. If anything, the bread is slow rising :

http://www.food.com/recipe/bloomer-bread-423627

[Errata]

The reality is, my motherinlaw returned to the family home in Co. Clare (IRE) to give birth to my wife. Then returned to Manchester. As a result the missus claims to be Irish but with a Lancastrian accent.

Thats a dash of reality...

Regards, Jon S.

I was born in South Carolina and raised in Tennessee. My parents are both northerners, and I went to a small private school with mostly yankee teachers. I have no southern accent unless I'm exhausted or completely enraged. Most people think I'm from the midwest. It's not so much about where you are born as much as what you are surrounded by. If she claimed to be from Limerick with no Irish person calling her out on it, likely she spent about ten years there. The accent is mostly influenced by what you hear from the age of 4 up, and is pretty much locked (unless you are a natural mimic) by about 15. She may not have been born there, and she may not have married there, but she spent her formative years there. Birth records might not help, but I'd bet her confirmation is in a church registry somewhere in that area.

I'm not sure how popular the name was back then, but you might check "Kelly" as a first name. I suppose if neither her father nor her brother show up where they are supposed to, then the information Barnett had was false. There seems little reason to lie, and likely she didn't have a past of her own worth fleeing. She was young, petty criminal records didn't travel well, and while she might change her name to flee an ex or a pimp or whatever, she wouldn't need to change her life story for that. That would seem to indicate a mafia level criminal past. Of course if her family was packed with terrorists, she might lie about growing up in Wales. And if I recall, there is a city near Limerick that was a Fenian hive... I'll have to look it up again. I mean, it's probably a crap idea, but maybe worth a look.

[Wickerman]

I was born in South Carolina and raised in Tennessee. My parents are both northerners, and I went to a small private school with mostly yankee teachers. I have no southern accent unless I'm exhausted or completely enraged. Most people think I'm from the midwest. It's not so much about where you are born as much as what you are surrounded by.

Quite so.
If I recall correctly there's one account of Kelly moving to Dublin before leaving Ireland? Regardless, the claim to be from Limerick (city or county?) may have no real benefit to researchers.
It does not mean she lived there, perhaps only born there. Neither does it mean she had an accent from that region, as you rightly point out, we simply do not know where she spent her formative years.

Apparently Millers Court was inhabited by several Irish and there is nothing surviving to indicate MJK was anything other than accepted by all she associated with as being what she claimed to be, Irish.
A few who met her thought she sounded Welsh, but none of those said that MJK claimed to be Welsh. This was probably their own erroneous assumptions. What we may take from this is that MJK talked about being in Wales for some time.

I suppose if neither her father nor her brother show up where they are supposed to, then the information Barnett had was false. There seems little reason to lie, and likely she didn't have a past of her own worth fleeing.

Little reason to lie is the slender thread we have to hold onto, these are the details which need to be separated from potential embellishments. Also, we need to allow for Barnett, McCarthy and all her known associates making mistakes in their recollections of what they were told.

Regards, Jon S.

[Bridewell]

"Marie Jeannette" could also be "Maree Ginette" of course, so a Mary G Kelly born in Limerick should not be discounted, in my view.

What a pity the police didn't ask Barnett on what date she celebrated her birthday!

Regards, Bridewell.