08/09/2025
KENMARE to QUEENSLAND.
This may be one of the last stories for this years Chronicle but may also be the beginings of the next Kenmare Chronicle where we start investigating the links betweeh Kenmare and Australia. This story takes us from Kenmare to Queensland on the ship The Hastings in 1857. A descendent Shirley Wylie in the 1980's researched her family and produced a publication of just over a hundred pages. This is just a short snippet of her family edited by Mike Riney .
TIMOTHY and MARY O’SULLIVAN, THE HASTINGS 1857
On 2nd June 1857, the Hastings arrived in Morten Bay Australia (Brisbane) carrying 388 immigrants and a cargo of coal, iron, salt, spirits, glass and beer. It had departed Birkenhead (Liverpool) on 24 Feb and berthed at Cork on the way. A report of the journey appears in the Moreton Bay Courier on 6 Jun 1857. They had crossed the equator on day 24, arrived off Melbourne on day 74, encountered some storms and arrived in Moreton Bay on day 93. Crew and passengers came upstream on 3rd June on a paddle steamer for immigration processing.
The Immigration documents from 4 June 1857 list the Sullivan family from Kerry - Timothy, 50, son of Daniel and Honora, Mary 47 daughter of Pat and Judy Sullivan and their 10 children Timothy 24, Sylvester 22, Jeremiah 20, Florence 18, Morty 18, Eliza 16, Roger 14, Maria 11, Michael 9, Faugh 5 (written as Hugh). From later records it was evident that both Timothy and Mary had understated their ages to gain entry to the colony. When he died 7 years later, he was aged 74.
There were 2 deaths and 5 births during the voyage.
When they arrived, Robert Jarrott made an address to thank the captain and the medic, then 3 cheers were proposed by Mr Sullivan.
Hiring began on Jun 4th onwards. Some, single men, went as shepherds in the bush. Shepherding was lonely, hard and dangerous, living in rough slab huts, subject to attack by the natives. Timothy must have gone to Mt Walker, as that is where he was farming when he died 7 years later.
His headstone does not exist, but it was said that the epitaph read:
"Some men say, brothers and sisters have I none
This man said, I am the father of Twenty-One"
The "Twenty-One O'Sullivans" became widely known in Queensland, to the extent that some Sullivans, not related, claimed membership of the family. The death certificate of Timothy, as informed by his son Morty, states that he had 16 sons, two daughters, and two deceased male children. It is thought that the total of 21 included the father Timothy himself. Since 8 sons and 2 daughters travelled to Australia, then 8 older sons (presumably born 1820 to 1832) had remained in Ireland - or emigrated elsewhere. It was said that there were 3 sets of twins in the family, and that the two deceased were twins of the older sons.
The family death records provided more detail. For instance, Mary was aged 80 when she died on 2 October 1883, meaning that she was born in about 1803. It is known that she was approximately 17 when she married, so about 1820. So the children were born from about 1820 to 1852, and lived through the famine period.
It was stated in Australian records that the youngest, Faugh, was born in "Inchaquin" and that Sylvester, Mortimer, Roger, and Michael were from "Kenmare".
Little is known of some of the family members, such as Jeremiah. Sylvester drowned in the Brisbane river 2 years after arriving. Sons Timothy and Florence did not marry.
Mortimer worked as a bullock driver with his own team and wagon, was for a time an innkeeper, but was a pioneer settled in a property at Theresa Creek, 15 miles southwest of the historic frontier town of Clermont Queensland. He called is property "The Glen". Many O'Sullivan descendants were still living in the Clermont area in 1990, descendants of Mortimer, Eliza and Faugh.
Researching the family in Ireland:
Family members visited Kenmare and tried the find the family in the Kenmare church records, which began in 1819. But they were thwarted by the use of Latin, and by the vast number of O'Sullivans - reporting that almost every baptism included an O'Sullivan either as a parent or sponsor. They couldn't find any marriage for Timothy and Mary. But the main problem was they were looking in the wrong parish.
They also visited Inchaquin in County Clare. But reported that the records there included no Sullivans at all, and no Faugh baptism.
They did find a reference to Timothy Sullivan in both Griffiths valuation 1852 and the Tithe Applotment records in 1824 as a farmer from Derrynamucklagh, Gleninchauqin, Tuosist. And then, in searching the Tuosist baptism records, they hit the mark in discovering the baptism of Faugh O'Sullivan on 14 Mar 1852 to parents Thaddeus and Mary from Derrynamucklagh. It is the only such use of that name in the baptism records from 1844 onwards.
Gleninchaquin is still referred to as "The Glen" by the locals today. Locals in Tuosist recall a Sullivan descendant visiting in the 1990s and knowing of their connections to Derrynamucklagh. Thanks to descendant Denise Funnell who shared the document with us in 2014.
The publication states that Timothy was born in 1790 in Cheltenham to Daniel Sullivan who was a soldier. The source isn't clear and this author is sceptical. It seems unlikely that a soldiers son would travel to the Beara peninsula and at age 30 establish himself as a tenant farmer on the mountainside.
Tuosist baptism records began in 1844. And indeed, there is a record of Timothy and Mary Sullivan in the Derrynamucklang farm coded 1 in GV 1852, which was taken over by Christopher Lyne in 1860 and became the Lynch farm in 1875.
The baptisms are
Mary (29 July 1844)
Eugene (15 Mar 1846)
Michael (5 Sep 1847)
Eugene (25 Oct 1849)
Faugh (14 Mar 1852)
The two sons named Eugene weren't on the travel records and account for the two male deaths, rather than the twin loss theory.
Source: "TWENTY-ONE O'SULLIVANS a genealogical muster" by Shirley Wyllie, (grandau of Ellen Maria O'Sullivan died before 1950)
published by Pioneer Press March 1991, National Library of Australia ISBN 0 646 03552 5
Shirley did her family research in the late 1980s, and it was published in 1991. The document runs to 117 pages and contains biography of all the descendants up to time of publication, over 2000 people. All kinds of careers feature - farming, trades, teaching, medical, military and include an actor in "Home and Away". There are many photos including a picture of Faugh and his wife.
The full family listing:
Timothy O'Sullivan abt 1790 - 10 Jan 1864 Mt. Walker, Ipswich, Queensland
wife Mary O'Sullivan abt 1803, married about 1820, died 22 October 1883, Theresa Creek, Queensland.
Children who travelled to Australia, all born in County Kerry
1. Timothy 1833 - 27 Dec 1881, unmarried
2. Sylvester 183? - 10 Oct 1859,unmarried
3. Jeremiah 1837 - unknown, unmarried
4. Florence 1839 - unknown, unmarried
5. Mortimer 1839 - 25 Jun 1905, married Mary Gibson, 12 children
Florence and Mortimer were twins.
6. Eliza 1841 - 18 Nov 1891, married Thomas Pearson Shepherd, 12 children
7. Roger 1843 - 21 May 1923, married Bridget Salmond, 9 children
8. Maria 1846 - 1928, married Owen Mullavey, 9 children
9. Michael 21 Sep 1848 - 28 July 1894, married Elizabeth Meagher, 14 children
10. Faugh 1852 - 23 May 1919, married Ellen Downs, 13 children
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Over the next few months we will start researching conections between Australia and Kenmare from the mid 1850's up to the present day so if you know of any connections please get in contact with us. Thanks, Simon
[email protected]
