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Continued from previous page
Pat Purcell Papers. Part 4-
Not We From Kings But Kings From Us. The tenth
Nickson sister, Frances, was engaged to be married, but her betrothed
died, and she did not long survive him. My
grandmother Whelan also had three brothers, viz, Lorenzo, Benjamin and
Abraham Augustus. Lorenzo
married Miss Izod, of Chapelizod, and his son took the name of Izod for
his mother’s property. His eldest daughter, Elizabeth, died a spinster. The second
daughter, Lucia, married Mr. Travers, of the County Cork. The third
daughter, Mary, married Mr. Weld. The fourth
daughter, Christian, married Mr. Alexander, of Milford. The fifth,
Anne, married Mr. Thomas Litton. The sixth, Frances, married Mr. George
O’Connor, of Hybla, County Dublin. The
circumstances attending the marriage of one of these Miss Nicksons ~
Christian, being curious ~ I shall relate them here. Mr.
Alexander, of Milford, was a near neighbour of ours. He came one day to
my mother, and told her that he had in a dream seen her cousin,
Christian Nickson, and felt a conviction that she was to be his wife;
but, as he was a perfect stranger to her, he made an earnest request to
my mother that she would introduce him at Chapelizod. My mother
asked her uncle’s permission to do so, which was granted. She and my
father therefore, in company with Mr. Alexander, started for Mr.
Nickson’s residence at Chapelizod. When they came in sight of the house
they perceived five girls standing on the steps at the entrance door. Mr.
Alexander turned to my mother and exclaimed ‘The girl in yellow is the
one I saw in my dream she must be Christian.’ And so it
proved to be, although he had positively never seen her before. After due
courtship he proposed and was accepted. The third,
Abraham Augustus, was a colonel in the British Army, and served under
General Wolfe in the American War. He returned to Ireland, married and
settled at Money, in the County of Wicklow. He had three
sons, Abraham, Lorenzo and Michael.Abraham married Miss Dundas, the
other two died unmarried. The
daughters of Colonel Nickson were, Jane (Mrs. Gillespie) and Mary (Mrs
Haynes). Upon the
breaking out of the Irish Rebellion in 1798 Col Nickson raised a corps
of Yeomanry, and was very active in opposing the rebels but falling into
an ambuscade, he was killed. The mother
of this numerous family of Nickson was a Miss Hudson, daughter of old
Squire Hudson, of whom I have heard it related that in his youth he
apparently died, but his mother would not allow of his being interred
for three weeks, at the end of which time he recovered from his trance. His mother,
Elizabeth Culme, was granddaughter to Sir Faithful Fortescue. I must now
say a few words again of my grandmother Whelan. As she was next in age
to her sister, Lady Donoughmore, and her favourite sister, she lived
generally in her youth at Knocklofty with the Hutchinsons. She did not
marry till rather late in life, and my mother was her only child, and
after her marriage, my grandmother, as I said before, lived at Steuart’s
Lodge. I remember
her as a very pretty old lady, small and slight, with powdered hair, and
always well dressed in grey silk, made in the fashion of olden days, a
mode which she never altered. As
dispensaries were not established in her days, she was a regular
physician to the poor, and they had great faith in her prescriptions, of
which the following anecdote will give an instance. When I was a
little child, I was commissioned one day by a poor man to convey a
message to my grandmother, stating that he had a pain in his stomach,
and would be glad of some medicine. I pretended to go to her and
returned with the information that he was to get some grass and pound
it, drink the juice, and then lie on his face for two or three hours. The man came
again in a few days to say that the remedy had had the desired effect,
and to express his acknowledgements to Madam Whelan. I was not
fortunate enough to see him this second occasion, and my success in
doctoring was not repeated, as my grandmother inflicted bodily
chastisement upon me for this my first attempt. In common with most of
her sisters, my grandmother enjoyed great longevity, five of them having
passed the age of 80, and one having attained her ninety-first year. Having now
finished the task of genealogist which my daughters imposed upon me, I
shall proceed to another subject which they have asked me to touch upon,
viz, some personal recollections of my childhood and of the stormy
period of the Irish Rebellion. [to be
continued].
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