Catherine Cairney

Like her husband, Catherine was born in Tanderagee and married in Lurgan before having a family with births both in Ireland and Scotland.  Her surname was Kearney and her parents were Henry Kearney and Ellen Holmes, according to the Mormons database, although I haven't seen proof of this.

The surname Kearney is the equivalent of the Scottish Cairney so this is how the family name was written in Scotland.  They wouldn't argue as they couldn't read or write, going by the x marks on the registers.  Her son Patrick could at least sign his name and was possibly a beneficiary of a good Scots education.

Little is known of Catherine until 1871, the first census with the family in Scotland.  They were living in Holygate in Broxburn and Catherine was a housekeeper as well as a mother of four.  Whether the housekeeping was at another house or whether having two Irish labourers living with them made her a housekeeper of her own home, I'm not sure.  Ten years later there were seven children with her and no boarders but a year later she had no husband as he died over in Kinghorn in, to us, mysterious circumstances.  That left her with seven children aged 16 or under.  Her eldest son had left home to work but, as he never married and he was back in the house along with his mother and younger siblings by the next census, you get the feeling he stepped in to be the substitute Dad.  One of the sons was Barnerd and that is definitely how it was spelt in the ledger.  If you adopt a broad Ulster accent and say Bernard you can see how the census enumerator could think that was how it was spelt.

Having been in Airdrie, Broxburn/Uphall, East and West Calder and Bathgate she continued to move round and Philpstoun, Craigton and Bridgend were next, all with eldest son Patrick.  Even in the last two censuses, when she was over sixty she was noted as being a housekeeper.  An ordinary housewife wouldn't usually be noted as such so it seems she still was working at an advanced age.  The Bridgend address intrigued me as Auldhill Entry is a street of houses which are definitely not a hundred years old.  They are part of the planned village of the 1930s.  I can only surmise that the original Bridgend Rows were known as Auldhill Entry at the time of the census.  Then again, given that the enumerator had Bridgend as a part of Carriden maybe we shouldn't look too deeply at anything else in the data.

At her death, her father, whose first name wasn't known, was marked as an Oilworks Labourer.  This suggested that her parents had come over from Ireland as well but I'm afraid there is no tangible sign of them.

Catherine was the first in a line of three Catherine Kellys.  She became one when she married Hugh Kelly, her daughter was born with the name and by dint of the illegicimacy so was the next one.