The Doughertys of Fy-Correnagh, Co. Donegal

 

Very little is known about Patrick Dougherty and his wife Annie Diver—even their death records have not been tracked down yet. Patrick and Annie must have married in the mid-1830s. They lived in the townland of Fy-Correnagh, a few hundred metres from the Kearney/Carney clan in the townland of Ardaganny [Google Maps]. The Dougherty clan have been characterised as a milder crowd than the harder-drinking Kearneys. At least seven of eight children emigrated to New Zealand, though one of them, Philip, after two terms in the British Army, died in Ireland. There are no known current connections back in Ireland.
Five of Patrick and Annie’s children ended up in the Maniototo district of Central Otago, New Zealand, while a sixth, Neil, lived in Dunedin. So the links between these families remained relatively well known over the years. A list of the children was discovered in 2006 in Annie Jr’s will, which revealed the previously unknown brother, Philip, and a still (2016) otherwise unknown sister, Margaret. The story of another son, Patrick, had also been passed on, but in 2012 it was confirmed that Patrick Diver was a British Army alias of Philip Dougherty.
The Dougherty children were:

  • Bernard “Barney” (1836-1908) lived with his two sisters Barbara and Annie on a farm two miles out of Ranfurly, on what is now known as Barney’s Lane. Barney left the farm to his sister Barbara, who in turn left it to Barney’s namesake, her little nephew Bernard “Ben” (the present writer’s great-uncle).
  • Philip (1839-1879) served ten years in the British Army under his own name, then four more years under the alias of Patrick Diver (using his mother’s maiden name). This army service included a period in New Zealand. He asked his brother Charlie to buy him out of the army so that he would not be posted to India, and died two years later. See the story of tracking him down here.
  • John (1844-1922) came to New Zealand as a goldminer about 1865, married Margaret McCool from back home in 1872, and farmed on the Maniototo not far from his brother Charlie.
  • Barbara (1848-1912) seems to have emigrated to Australia with siblings Charlie and Annie, and lived with her brother Barney on the Maniototo, later inheriting land from him.
  • Charlie (1851-1929) married Sarah Carney in Letterkenny in 1882, then sailed for Maryborough, Queensland, where the oldest child, Big Pat, was born, but soon after went to Oamaru in New Zealand—apparently there were too may flies in Australia. After a few years he obtained farm land at Gimmerburn in the Maniototo district of Central Otago. Some of the struggle of his life can be seen in the documentation surrounding his repeated attempts to obtain a grant of more land on the strength of his brother Philip’s military service.
  • Neil (1853-1909) was a goldminer in Central Otago, but married at Oamaru in 1879, then spent some years as a labourer in Oamaru and Dunedin.
  • Annie (1856-1906) lived in the Maniototo before her marriage in 1900, at the age of 38, to a widowed teacher, James Cusack, who had three young children.
  • Margaret (d. before 1910), nothing else known of her.

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