Patrick Condon

Life

How we know this: Moderate to strong for his marriage, work, residences, and six children; his birth is age-derived and his later life is unknown. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]

Work and occupation

• Labourer

Where they lived

• 1865: Maghna, County Cork, Ireland
• 1865–1868: Maghna, County Cork, Ireland
• 1870: Moherna, County Cork, Ireland
• 1872: Rathcarrig, County Cork, Ireland
• 1874–1878: Flemingstown, County Cork, Ireland

Use the place list first. The map below is optional.

The pins show approximate places. The line only joins them in time order; it does not prove the route travelled. 3 of the places listed above are recorded only as a county or country, so they are not pinned. Cemetery and burial places have red pins.

Historical context

These background articles explain the places, work, and events in this entry.

What we still don't know

• Exact birth and baptism
• Identity of his mother
• Baptisms or other proof for Bridget and Johanna
• Land or valuation records
• Death and burial
• [THE CANDIDATE BAPTISM, NOW READ FROM THE REGISTER ITSELF] The only Patrick Condon baptised at Castlelyons in the plausible window is 13 May 1838, son of John Condon and Margaret Murphy — and on 8 August 2026 the original register page was read at the National Library of Ireland, microfilm 04994/04 page 32. The image confirms the index to the letter and adds the sponsors: John McCarthy and Catherine Meade, the first names attached to this household from anything other than a civil form. Against the identification: his 1865 marriage gives his age as 25, implying birth about 1839–40; an 1838 baptism makes him 27. For it: he is the only candidate in the right parish with the right father's given name; marriage ages were routinely wrong by a year or two; and this was a man who could not write and had no obvious way of knowing his age to the year. The naming runs the right way. He and Mary Ryan called their eldest daughter Margaret, a son John after his father, and a son James after hers. Under the ordinary Irish custom a first daughter takes a grandmother's name, and Margaret Murphy supplies one. Mary Cashin would have predicted a Mary near the front of the family; the only Mary comes last, in 1878, and is better explained by her own mother. What would still settle it: a Castlelyons marriage of John Condon to Margaret Murphy before 1833 — the marriage register for the parish runs from 1830 and is twenty-eight images.
• [HIS DEATH: TWENTY CANDIDATES, TWO READ, BOTH EXCLUDED] A national sweep returns 497 Patrick Condon deaths in Ireland between 1878 and 1930, of which 20 are in Mitchelstown and 11 in Fermoy. Only two fit a man born about 1838–40. Both have been read from the register image and both fail: the 1912 death at Ballinoe is a cooper where ours was a labourer, and the 1915 death at Cullane is a bachelor where ours was married with eight children. His death remains unfound. The remaining Mitchelstown candidates are aged 0, 1, 17, 22, 24, 32, 33, 37, 40, 70, 74, 80, 88 and 93 and none fits.
• [A MARRIAGE IN THE RIGHT PARISH — AND IT IS THE ONLY ONE] John Condon married Margt Murphy at Castlelyons in March 1836, two years before the candidate Patrick was baptised there. A controlled sweep of every Condon–Murphy marriage in County Cork from 1815 to 1855 returns exactly one at Castlelyons — this. Every other lies in a different parish. The couple behind the candidate baptism is therefore not one of a crowd in their own parish, which is the strongest thing said for this identification so far. The unresolved snag. A Margaret Condon was baptised at Castlelyons on 21 April 1833 to a John Condon and Margaret Murphy — three years before that marriage, so she cannot be their child. Since the parish holds no second such marriage, she most likely belongs to a couple married elsewhere who moved in; a John Condon married a Margaret Murphy at Castletownroche in 1828 and baptised a daughter there in 1829. Or one of the two indexed dates is simply wrong. Both readings need the register images, and neither changes the candidate. This archive said this morning that Margaret 1833, Patrick 1838 and James 1842 were one household. That was an inference from matching names, and it is withdrawn.
• [TWO NORTH CORK PARISHES, AND A MARRIAGE IN NEW JERSEY] David Fitzgerald was born on 28 March 1875, the son of a farmer married at the chapel of Kildorrery five years earlier. Catherine Condon was baptised on 20 April 1874 at Ballindangan, in the parish of Ballydeloughy, and her father's household appears at Ballindangan in Derryvillane. Kildorrery, Ballydeloughy and Derryvillane adjoin one another in north Cork, all within a few miles, and both families were in the Mitchelstown country. The two were born thirteen months apart in neighbouring parishes — and they married in Jersey City. Whether they knew each other in Cork, or whether the two families found each other again in Hudson County among a great many other Cork emigrants, is not something a record will easily settle. But they are Andrew Leahey's great-great-grandparents, and they began about five miles apart.
• [THE REGISTER, READ AT LAST] His marriage entry of 7 September 1865 at the chapel of Castlelyons gives him as 25, a bachelor and a labourer of Maghera, son of John Condon, deceased, Labourer. No mother is named, because the form does not ask for one — which is the whole reason Mary Cashin has never been supported. He signed with his mark. The image had been cited here as 'civil image' and never read.
• [HE WAS HERE TWICE] A second Patrick Condon, dated 1831, stood in this archive as 'a Staffordshire/Canadian branch created in our family tree as husband of MARY B RYAN' — married to the very same Mary Ryan as this man, and a son of the same John Condon. One woman does not have two husbands both called Patrick Condon son of John Condon. Merged 9 August 2026. Nothing found him for months: their birth years differed, their children differed, and their parent sets differed only because their mother was duplicated too — one duplicate hiding another. The duplicate detector now also flags two people of one name who share a spouse, which is what caught it.
• [THE 1911 CENSUS IS ALMOST CERTAINLY HIS] Two independent things now point the same way. His children Catherine and James were baptised at Ballindangan in 1874 and 1876; and the 1911 census has a Patrick Condon, 71 — born 1840 exactly — a farm labourer, Roman Catholic, with a wife Mary of 70, living at Ballindangan. Same townland, same names, right birth year, right occupation, right religion. The reservation that stood here yesterday — that Patrick Condon with a wife Mary is a common Cork pairing — is much weakened by the townland matching as well. It is not formally attached only because no record yet links the 1911 household to a named child.
• The family moved. The baptisms run Castlelyons in 1868 and 1870, Rathcormack in 1871, then Ballindangan in 1874 and 1876 — a labouring family shifting across north Cork, which is also why their children's registrations give Maghna, Moherna, Rathcarrig and Flemingstown.
• Death and burial; Patrick’s mother; land/valuation entries; baptisms for the two unproved children.
• His exact birth remains unknown; the marriage age implies about 1839–1840. The row names no mother, so Mary Cashin is not proved as Patrick’s mother.
• [CONFLICT] Mary Cashin remains an unproved mother; Bridget (1873) and Johanna (1875) remain compiled/unproved children; Patrick Condon born about 1831 remains a separate profile.
• [PLACE CONFLICT] The archive carries “Maghna” and “Moherna” as two separate County Cork townlands, nine kilometres apart, and both are recorded with approximate coordinates rather than verified ones. They are very likely one place. The 1868 birth register plainly reads “Mohera, Castlelyons” for both the birth place and Patrick's dwelling, and his 1865 marriage gives his residence as Maghera. If these are one townland, then part of the family's apparent movement across the countryside — Maghna to Moherna — is an artifact of transcription rather than a real move, and only the later moves to Rathcarrig and Flemingstown are genuine. Do not merge the two place records until the townland is verified: logainm.ie and townlands.ie both refused automated access on 6 August 2026 and need a human with a browser, or the Griffith's Valuation index for Castlelyons parish.
• [A PROBLEM IN THE BAPTISMS] Hannah is baptised on 10 March 1870 and Ellen on 11 April 1870, a month apart, to the same parents. One woman cannot bear two children a month apart. Either one baptism belongs to a different Patrick Condon and Mary Ryan — there were several in the county — or a date is wrong, or one child is a late-baptised elder. This archive carries Hannah as born 1872, which the register contradicts. Unresolved.
• [CONTROLLED NEGATIVE — AND IT MATTERS MORE NOW] With the parish registers searchable, a search for any Condon child of a John Condon and a Mary Cashin born 1830–1852 returns nothing in Ireland at all — only Leicestershire Condons of other families. His parentage is flagged compiled with sixty-eight people below it and the obvious record does not exist in the index. Either the family's parish is not in the indexed set, or Mary Cashin is not his mother — which is what his own marriage row already hinted, naming only 'John Condon deceased'.
• [AN ARTEFACT CHILD] The duplicate brought with it a daughter, Mary Condon of 1855 — ten years before this Patrick married Mary Ryan in 1865, and part of the same Staffordshire/Canadian invention. She is attached here pending a test rather than deleted, and she should probably not be his.
• [COULD NOT WRITE] Patrick Condon signed with a mark on his marriage register of 1865, where he is entered 'Patrick his mark Condon', so he could not write his name. Of the twelve people in this archive whose registers have been read, some couples both signed, some both marked, and in three of them one partner signed while the other did not — it followed schooling and trade rather than family or sex.
• [THE PARISH BAPTISMS REST ON A SEARCH URL] The six baptisms of this couple's children come from a FamilySearch query, not from six records. Only Catherine's has its own citation. The set also contained an impossible year for Hannah, caught by comparing her against her sister rather than by anything about her own entry. Individual permalinks are needed for the other five, and the register images have not been read.

References

1. [1] civil imageBack to citation 1a Back to citation 1b Back to citation 1c Back to citation 1d
2. [2] indexBack to citation 2
3. [3] Irish civil birth register — Mary Condon, 11 July 1878, Flemingstown, County CorkBack to citation 3
4. [4] Irish civil marriage register — Patrick Condon and Mary Ryan, 7 September 1865Back to citation 4a Back to citation 4b
5. [5] Irish civil birth register, Catherine Condon, 19 April 1874, Flemingstown, Mitchelstown districtBack to citation 5a Back to citation 5b
6. [6] Patrick Condon household, 1911 census of Ireland, Ballindangan, Derryvillane, County CorkBack to citation 6
7. [7] Baptism of Catherine Condon, Ballindangan, 20 April 1874Back to citation 7
8. [8] Baptisms of the children of Patrick Condon and Mary Ryan, County Cork, 1868–1876Back to citation 8
9. [9] Castlelyons parish baptisms to a father named John Condon, 1830–1855 — a controlled sweepBack to citation 9
10. [10] Castlelyons parish baptism register — Patrick Condon, 13 May 1838 (register image)Back to citation 10
11. [11] Parish marriage — John Condon and Margt Murphy, March 1836, Castlelyons, Co. CorkBack to citation 11
12. [12] Parish marriage — Joannes Condon and Margaritam Murphy, 7 August 1828, Castletownroche, Co. CorkBack to citation 12
13. [13] Rejected Patrick Condon death candidate — 26 July 1912, Ballinoe, Kildorrery, Co. CorkBack to citation 13
14. [14] Rejected Patrick Condon death candidate — 22 October 1915, Cullane, Ballylanders, Co. LimerickBack to citation 14
15. [15] Irish civil birth register — Margaret Condon, 10 June 1868, Mohera, Castlelyons, Co. CorkBack to citation 15
16. [16] Irish civil birth register — Catherine Condon, 19 April 1874, Flemingstown, Co. CorkBack to citation 16

See also

• Return to the Condon branch
• See this family in the full tree
• Browse all original records