I Think MJK was Welsh with Irish Ancestry

[SuspectZero]

We will never know her true name.

[Michael W Richards]

Sorry, it's my annual "Ponder MJK Week", apparently.

I know this is flimsy, but one of the few things we know is that Mary used to get letters from her brother, Johnto/Jonto. I just can't get past the possibility that this is a misspelling or Anglicisation of 'Ianto', which is Welsh for John.

An Irish family would surely not name or nickname their child with a very traditional Welsh name?

I feel like perhaps Mary had one Irish parent, or Irish grandparents (or further back!), and has used that heritage as the foundations of the very elaborate backstory we now 'know'.

In short, I think Ireland is a dead end. I feel like it's more likely that Mary was born in Wales to the descendants of an Irish family.

All immaterial, because I honestly doubt that the names Kelly or Davies bear any relation to her real name, and I don't think it'll make her any easier to trace. Just a thought, really.

I believe the Mary Kelly that we'd all like to know more about is likely a composite of some people, rather than one person. Its one of the only reasonable reasons why excellent researchers haven't been able to trace the bread crumbs to the source. Whether Mary created her background, or whether it was provided to her isn't really clear at all, we only have Barnett and some others to go by. For me any chance of finding out who exactly this woman named Mary Kelly was has to be found in her history pre-brothel. How she ended up working there, what happened in Paris to send her running home, and why then this decent into bare bones living when she was accustomed to nice dresses and accoutrements working for Mrs Buki. It seems at a distance that she wanted to disappear into a crowd after Paris.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Hi Martin,
Not many English people are fluent in Welsh, as Kelly was said to be.
How do you account for that?

Hi Joshua,

Not many Welsh people speak fluent Welsh, and that was particularly the case in the LVP when Welsh was actively repressed in favour of English, to the point that the language nearly died out.
Depending on any particular faith in the belief that MJK spoke Welsh, I would favour any Welsh speaker to be native, likely or not North Wales where the language survived more than elsewhere.

There's a good podcast from the East End conference by John Horlor about MJK in North Wales.

That's if you believe she was Welsh in the first place though...

[Joshua Rogan]

"I Think MJK was Welsh with Irish Ancestry".

I'm believe that MJK's earlier background (Irish birth, move to Wales, marriage to the unlucky miner etc) is fake and her nationality was English.

Martyn

Hi Martin,
Not many English people are fluent in Welsh, as Kelly was said to be.
How do you account for that?

[mpriestnall]

As much as it grieves me to say, MJK may as well have come from the moon. There is simply no way we are going to find out who she was or where she came from. I think it is far more likely that we will be able to identify JtR rather than MJK.


Tristan

Tristan, agreed pretty much but like the song says "You never can tell..."

I do not believe the murders were completely random, so I at least hold out for the possibility that if JTR/Astrakhan is identified, MJK's might just follow.

Spot the optimist!

Martyn

[Losmandris]

As much as it grieves me to say, MJK may as well have come from the moon. There is simply no way we are going to find out who she was or where she came from. I think it is far more likely that we will be able to identify JtR rather than MJK.


Tristan

[mpriestnall]

"I Think MJK was Welsh with Irish Ancestry".

I'm believe that MJK's earlier background (Irish birth, move to Wales, marriage to the unlucky miner etc) is fake and her nationality was English.

Martyn

[mpriestnall]

I agree with MsWeatherMax. The Miller's Court victim true surname wasn't Kelly.

I strongly believe that Jack's identity was known to the authorities and he was protected. I believe "Kelly" was targeted and she had a connection
to JTR and/or Astrakhan. Therefore the authorities would not have allowed her true surname to be published. Looking to identify "Kelly" as Kelly
is, unfortunately, a waste of time and effort.

Martyn

[rjpalmer]

Thanks for that. Fiction, I assume.

Ha ha. It depends on your definition of fiction!

[John Malcolm]

It's from Robert Hume's "The Hidden Lives of Jack the Ripper's Victims."

Thanks for that. Fiction, I assume.

[rjpalmer]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but where did this come from? Never seen it before. Sounds too good to be true.

It's from Robert Hume's "The Hidden Lives of Jack the Ripper's Victims."

[John Malcolm]

"A girl by the name of Mary Jane Kelly was baptised in Castleconnell, Co Limerick, on 31 March 1863. Her parents, and eight or nine brothers and sisters, occupied a small house in Mungret Street. The failure of the potato crop had led to riots in Limerick in 1830, and during the Great Famine hundreds of evicted tenants fled into the city to seek work. Discovering there was none, they queued outside the workhouses for a bed, or made for the quays — the departure points for US, Canada and Australia. When Mary Jane was still a child, Mr Kelly moved the family to Carmarthen in Wales to look for work. The girl hawked ribbon and thread around the town."

Sorry if this has been asked before, but where did this come from? Never seen it before. Sounds too good to be true.

[erobitha]

"A girl by the name of Mary Jane Kelly was baptised in Castleconnell, Co Limerick, on 31 March 1863. Her parents, and eight or nine brothers and sisters, occupied a small house in Mungret Street. The failure of the potato crop had led to riots in Limerick in 1830, and during the Great Famine hundreds of evicted tenants fled into the city to seek work. Discovering there was none, they queued outside the workhouses for a bed, or made for the quays — the departure points for US, Canada and Australia. When Mary Jane was still a child, Mr Kelly moved the family to Carmarthen in Wales to look for work. The girl hawked ribbon and thread around the town."

[Paddy]

I find the 1891 census in 13 Millers court interesting.....There is a Thomas Kelly (dock labourer) living in there with his wife Ann. He is supposed to have been born in 1856 in Spitalfields. The only one I can find anywhere near this chap is a Thomas Kelly born 1852 Spitalfields. He was the son of a Francis and Ellen Kelly and dad was a superannuated Policeman ?? They appeared to have moved to Whitechapel and St George in the east after he was born. If it is him. Cant seem to find him anywhere after 1891.

[DJA]

Thanks Paddy.

Corner of Old Nichol Street.