Posted By:	Jim Duffy
	Email:
	Subject:	Thomas O'Brien - IRA man? (1920s). Meath to Boston
	Post Date:	July 05, 2009 at 09:56:37
	Message URL:	http://genforum.genealogy.com/ireland/messages/78465.html
	Forum:	Ireland Genealogy Forum
	Forum URL:	http://genforum.genealogy.com/ireland/

I am trying to trace what happened a grand-uncle of mine, Thomas O'Brien/Brien. He was born in Co Meath in a place variously known as 'Greetiagh' (pronounced Greeka) or 'Durhamstown'/'Dormstown' around 1886 to Thomas Brien/O'Brien and Anne Conway. He was the oldest child in the family. His second brother, Michael, in or around 1916 became a Jesuit lay brother in Sydney, Australia and died there in 1957. His youngest sister, Julia Mary, was my grandmother. She was born in 1897 and died in 1991. From what I can piece together, Patrick, the oldest, was the least settled of the children and got into regular scrapes, including with the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). In 1920 he was supposed to be involved in the burning of the local RIC barracks at Greetiagh (also known as Bohermeen Barracks). I only heard recently third hand that he was sent, or chose to go, abroad, for his own safety, and was escorted at night by my grandmother through the fields to a train station, from which he travelled, presumably, to Dublin, and then left Ireland for the US. This must have happened around 1920. (I have verified that the barracks was burned in 1920, so if he was linked to it, and left because of it, than it must mean he left in 1920.) I had been under the impression that he went to Chicago but one of my grandmother's nieces, who when living in the States in late 1940s/early 1950s tried to trace him and said he was in Boston. He refused to have anything to do with her, or the family, wouldn't meet her, etc. She got the impression that he was a drifter and had never married. Has anyone come across the man? Maybe he was married, or had a children outside marriage, or a same-sex partner, or something. Or they might have met him through some Irish community organisation in Boston? Or he may have turned up in some Irish community or Old IRA records of the period? I am researching my family tree and he is the biggest mystery in it. All I can find out is third and fourth hand - things someone heard some other relative say about the missing Brother/Uncle/Cousin Patrick. Beyond that late 1940s/early 1950s attempt a contacting him by his niece, I can find nothing. The basic genealogical facts are He was born to Patrick Brien/O'Brien and Anne Conway circa 1886, was one of eight children I know of (3 boys, five girls). He was the oldest. His brother Michael became a Jesuit lay brother in Australia. One sister, Jane(y), became a nun (Sr Regis) in Scotland. His brother, Christopher (Chris) got into trouble when he made a local woman pregnant circa 1930. They were forced to marry but separated almost immediately and lived a short distance apart for the rest of their lives. His father died in December 1925 and his mother (who was one of twins, from Donaghmore outside Navan in County Meath) died in 1934. The last of his siblings, Julia (sometimes written Julie), died in February 1991 aged 93. His parents, BTW, were married in 1885 in St Mary's Catholic Church, Navan. Finally, according to family lore Thomas, the man I am searching for details of, either was in the Old IRA (the army of the Irish Republic that existed from 1919 to 1922) or was suspected of being in it. Alternatively his burning of the local barracks may have been part of a personal grudge using the Irish War of Independence as cover as he had been in trouble with the RIC previously.