This blog was one I originally put up in September 2005.

I came across this, to me, fascinating photograph today.
As soon as it was described to me by my Sister D a couple of weeks ago I immediately recognised it.
She had come across it somehow in my mothers effects.
I remembered being shown it by my mother who was most scathing about it. She told me “That’s Auntie Agnes and Uncle Billy’s Wedding, I was a bridesmaid but because I was only four they wouldn’t let me pose for the photograph”

It is a photograph that is so full of family history that it would need at least 1000 words to describe it!

The bride first,
She was Agnes Harding, grand daughter of an ex mayor of Cork , John Francis Maguire who was also a M.P., had founded the Cork Examiner and written a history of “Rome and its Institutions” for which he had received a papal knighthood.(I have a copy of the book)
She was later to prove a great cook, lived her life in some splendour in a Victorian villa in Rushbrooke in Cork which I remember chiefly for its summerhouse which could be turned on its axis to face the sun!
She came to our house to help with my three sisters’ weddings always bringing her own much worn carbon steel carving knife which I have managed to inherit. I remember her as a lovely warm lady.
Her husband, William Dwyer, better known as Billy, was one of Corks merchant princes, he made his fortune by founding Sunbeam Wolsey in Cork which at its peak employed several thousand of Corks northsiders. (Including, according to Google, Roy Keane’s father for his lifetime!)
Uncle Billy (who died before I was born) led my poor Aunt Agnes a merry dance by all accounts.
As well as being an entrepreneur of some skill he was also an MP and a great patron of the arts. At one time in the twenties he covered over his swimming pool (yes! a swimming pool in Ireland and in the twenties!) in the garden of his house to stage a midsummer version of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Perhaps his most famous claim to fame is that before his death he organised the money to be made available for a church to be built in Blackpool in Corks northside.
The people of Cork, in fairness, were never deceived by this piety and perhaps Aunt Agnes got a little revenge by the fact that to this day this church is known as “Dwyers Fire Escape”
I have come across two anecdotes about the man recently.
One Seamas Murphy mentions in one of his books.
Billy was given a few bob by a workman on the church to get a few masses said for his dead son. Billy instead got Seamas to carve the child’s name on the steps of the church so that everyone climbing the steps would pray for his soul.
Another story was told me, in the restaurant one night, by Darryl Gallwey of Tramore who knew Billy.
Apparently the curate of the church in Blackpool came to see my Uncle Billy and presented him with a Gold Sovereign (a huge sum of money at that time)
“Mr Dwyer” he said “ We found this in the collection plate last Sunday, you must have put the wrong coin in by mistake”
“But there was no mistake” said my grand uncle “ I always put a sovereign in”
It transpired that the sexton had taken his annual leave the previous Sunday, so the parish received the sovereign for the first time.
History does not record what happened to the sexton.

As to my interest in the wedding.
Well, it is not often one can suddenly come across a photograph of both sets of your grandparents together in a picture which is about 6 years short of being 100 years old.

The lady and gentleman third and fourth at the back on the left are my mothers parents

and the lady on the extreme right and the gentleman sitting next to her are my fathers parents.

This is because my maternal grand mother, Josephine is Agnes Harding’s sister, and my paternal Grandfather George (known affectionately to us all as Dubs), is Billy Dwyer’s brother.
Strange isn’t it?
My father was not I reckon yet born but until I firm up on the dates I’m not certain. My mother was, I imagine, watching the photo being taken and fuming because she wasn’t included!

I hasten to add that this doesn’t imply that me and my siblings are the result of an incestuous relationship!
My mother and father were, on their marriage no way blood related, they just had first cousins in common.

Well maybe not quite a thousand words ! But, as pictures go it certainly has a tale to tell!

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Post Scriptum September 13th 2005

This picture gets curiouser and curiouser!

Thanks in part to some notes which my brother David sent to me a long time ago which originally came from our cousin Neil Fleischman I have been able to identify some more people and even provide some anecdotes about the same.

Great Aunt Min Barry was the mater familias as William’s mother had died some time ago. She was a woman who has a reputation for performing great charitable works including sending packed lunches each day to the women in Cork Jail. She and her husband George Barry were childless so they adopted the Dwyer children as their own. My father still spoke fondly of Auntie Min.

This must be the brides mother, Mary Harding nee Maguire. A formidible looking lady as becomes the daughter of an apostle of temperance. She is in full Victorian mourning so we can take it that Edward Harding, the father of the bride is dead.

This lady is the most interesting of all.

Mabel Dwyer, in the family tree she gets a brief (Unm) after her name.
But what a wealth of family legend and heresay that hides.

Before I get to her story I must point out the most glaring omission of the day.

Where is the Grooms Father?

Walter Dwyer of Arbutus Lodge was alive and well.
Of this I am certain because in 1914, (which is the year this photograph was taken) he married for the third time.
His third wife was a May Goldie, a French Governess to the Pollack family.
(Family legend has it that she was previously courted by my grandfather, his son, George/Dubs)
Is that the reason why he was not present?
Was there a family row about his choice of bride?
We do know that Mabel, being the only one at home,had sought permission to marry only to be refused by her father on the grounds ;
“Who would look after me then!”
Mabel remained unmarried but the bold Walter went for the third wife as a safety clause.
That he had already built his own “fire escape” is evidenced that when the other daughter of the house, Mary, insisted, against his wishes in entering the Poor Clares, he promptly built a Poor Clare convent in Cork so she would be nearer him. This convent still stands and we as a family had special permission to attend Midnight Mass there on Christmas Day right up to my adolescence.
Furthermore as proof that Walter was not dead or indeed ailing he afterwards fathered four children with his third wife May. One of these, Rosemary, as Holy Child nun, Sister Colette, went on to become a marvellous champion of the Travellers in Ireland.
We know that after Walter’s death May Goldie went to London where she married an emigre white Russian Count, many years her junior.
Boys Oh! Boys!
Did these people lead colourful lives!
The researches continue.

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Post Scriptum 2 September 14th 2005

I am getting thoroughly fed up with Walter Dwyer.
I know he is my Great Grand Father and therefore deserves the usual amount of ancestor worship but, not only did he refuse his daughter her chance of happiness, wipe his sons eye with a french governess but now
despite all my wonderful projections he was at the wedding.
Furthermore, and just to upset me he sat next to the bride (I ask you!) and therefore escaped detection.
Unfortunately my eagle eyed brother Ted spotted him,

and remembered having seen a picture of him in a 1931 “Review of Progress
of Dwyers of Cork”

Not much doubting its the same man.

So he was at the wedding after all.
back to the drawing board Martin,