Mary Fennell (b.1884) was a daughter of William Fennell (b.1857) and Mary Biggane (b.1859). She had at least 11 siblings. The family lived on a farm in Caheragh (a.k.a. Cahera) on the east side of Glin, Co. Limerick with Mary's grandmother Bridget Biggane nee O'Connell (b.1805). You will find Bridget in the Kilfergus grave yard in Glin (ref http://historicgraves.com/kilfergus/li-kfgs-0298/grave).
William owned two farms one in Killacolla and one in Caheragh. The Killacolla farm is in the Kilfergus parish, behind (south of) Glin. As the Bigganes are buried there, that farm may have come into the Fennell household with his wife as an inheritance or a 1st refusal to buy. For the record, these farms are in the Co. Limerick register (in 1929) as 9577 and 10283 or 10293 . These farms were eventually left by William to his son Michael in his 1929 will, on his death in 1930, with the provision that his wife was to keep the master bedroom and its furniture, the use of the kitchen and fires, to have enough turf brought to the house for her and she was to have a quart of new milk and two quarts of sour milk per day and £12 per quarter.
The daughter, Mary was a trained dairy maid which was a very useful and value-added skill for a dairy farm in the golden vale in Ireland. She most likely would have been trained in one of the local agricultural school.
Mary would have met her future husband (Michael Colleran b.1886) in her late twenties, this was not uncommon as Ireland was going through overlapping changes in the last 50 to 60 yrs.
Some of these changes were due to;
1. famine experiences within the population, which drove people to migrate or build wealth before starting a family
2. the change in Ireland from tenanted estates placed more pressure on migration
3. the land league that was gaining the right for the Irish to gain their own farm land and these lucky people quickly became wealthy in the 1880 to 1900. These wealthy farming families, encouraged their children to find financially sound partners, thereby placing more pressure on later marriages
4. professional men other than other farmers were restricted from marrying until they earned the right within their employers rules to marry, i.e. after a number of years of service
Mary moved out of home before she was married to Michael and before his employers embargo on him marrying was up. According to Michael's RIC records Mary was a native of Limerick, most likely born in the parent's farm house in Caheragh. The RIC records also report that they were married on the 03 Aug 1916.
The couple had 5 children and one adopted child, a niece of Mary's. These were;
Monica (Monnie) Colleran b.1916
Bridget (Breda) Colleran b.1917
Michael A. (Gus and Gussie) Colleran b.1919
William Colleran b.1922
Gerard J. (Gerry) Colleran b.1925
Gertrude (Gertie) Fennell
Gerard (and possibly his brothers) was born in the bedroom of his parents in the front upstairs room in Massytown, address was 6 Massytown Macroom.
William was born with spina bifida, he died while still and infant and Mary referred to him through-out her life as she missed him dearly. He is buried in the Church of Ireland graveyard in Macroom, not surprising as Michael was on the wrong side of the latest conflict in lreland. My best guess, is that the grave yard is that one across the road from the castle in town, on the road above the bridge. As you walk into the church yard, there is a very rough cut stone a foot or so high with WC carved into it. It can be found a foot to two from the path to the front door of the church. That might be where he is laid to rest. The C.o.I. records for that church and graveyard are held in the local library, according to an RTE radio show in the 1990's.
The Colleran household in Massytown was well provided for as Michael tended a plot of a couple of acres of farm land on Tinker's Hill (the hill behind their house) for vegetables. He also kept a cow and a calf which was possibly for sale.
Mary milked the cow in the back yard of the house. She kept a dairy in that yard. Each day the cow would be brought to the house and the cow would be lead through the front door of the house, through the hall and kitchen and into the back yard, because the houses in Massytown were all in a terrace and there was no other path to the rear of the house.
Given that Mary was a skilled dairy maid, her family were not short of milk, butter, cheeses and yogurt. Michael was known to eat/slurp his porridge with a type of lumpy sour milk, possibly a by-product from one of the staple dairy products she made.
As Michael was also on a regular pension from the RIC, the household was well stocked with the essentials. By the time The Emergency (i.e. WW2) broke out, Mary had managed to build a large stock of tea and sugar, possibly other products as well that were not local or that she could not have made herself. She kept this stock under their bed. This ensured that her family were not stuck for staple items when rationing took place.
The Colleran children were well educated. The eldest girls did the matriculation exam and entered nursing school. Gussie joined the RAF and had sufficient skills in maths that he became a navigator in the bombers. Gerard did his leaving cert twice, the 1st time he was to young to leave school so he repeated a year. He managed to get very good scores, something like 6th in the country. Gertie was very fortunate to be taken in by the Collerans. She was raised with Gerard and they were very fond of each other as close brother and sister.
Mary was a tough woman. At one point she took a local dress maker to court over a disagreement. Members in the family believe that Michael considered this as unnecessary. Because of this action, in a small town or rural setting Michael is said to have reconsidered investing his pension lump sum into a truck haulage business of his own. Instead he decide to keep a low profile and entered early retirement by working the small plot and raising his family.
For entertainment, the family had a radio (they called it a wireless back then) and were on the electric grid, at least when Gerard and Gertie were the only children at home.
A notable event of the day, on the radio was the Joe Louis (The Brown Bomber) and Max Schmeling boxing re-match in New York June 1938, Michael called his youngest son (then 13) down from bed to listen to the fight with him, by the time Gerard got to the radio the fight was over and Joe Louis became the world champ in little over two minutes, Gerard was not too pleased to have missed it.
Major events in the Massytown Colleran household included the involvement of the eldest children in WW2. This lead to a lot of prayers (typically the Rosary), which Gerard and Gertie were expected to attend (without getting the giggles). Other events included visits by family members, especially the eldest and their new spouses as they were married without Mary or Michael being present as it may have been too dangerous to travel. I am not sure if they had to keep a low profile as they were part of the UK's armed forces at the time and potentially could be interned. I assume they did, but Ireland is and was a land of double standards, with regard to politics and common sense.
Before WW2, there were also visits from Mary's parents. Gerard used to recite a story that he would walk the length of town with his granddad and keep a watch on the shops. He then had to remind his granddad that they just passed the last sweet shop. Of course his granddad got the hint and bought him a treat. There is another story about Gussie as a (bold) pre-teen, telling his granny that they may not have enough petrol to get her home if she stays too long - it was reported that he got the effect he wanted, she apparently left not long after.
On the Colleran side, there was at least one visitor, that was one of Michael's sisters, Delia in Oct 1921. There may have been other visitors as there seemed to have been a close relationship with another of Michael's sisters in Dublin, Nora. That the relationship with Nora was maintained was evidenced by visits in the 1950’s from Gerard, his wife Doncie and their children Mary and Peter (their younger children, Michael and Gerard weren’t yet born).
The Collerans were not the only Macroom family involved in WW2 on the allied side. Gerard mentioned that one of his neighbours was in the magazine in of the Royal Navy ship that evacuated the King of Norway. As they were crossing the North Sea, they were afraid of a direct hit from the enemy aircraft. So, their neighbour's son found himself in a flooded magazine in freezing cold water for most of the trip to the UK.
In 2016, Gerard's, daughter (Mary Veronica Colleran) found a letter from Mary Colleran to her son Gerard. It was written to him very close to her death. She mentioned that she was in hospital in Cork city for treatment or a check-up. Anyway, she mentioned that her nephew or brother Willie picked her up from the hospital and drove her home. She seemed to enjoy the trip home with him. She definitely was a very family orientated person, maintaining good relationships with the wider family as well as her immediate family. Gertie used to say that her family used to described her as being a real Biggane.