Remembering Mary Burke on Mother's Day

Today being Mother's Day it seems appropriate to remember Mary Burke who died on December 28th 1930. As I've outlined in previous posts she and her husband John led a remarkable life in many ways. She was born before the famine in 1843 and went on to marry John at the age of 17 in 1860.  She reared 13 children, nine of whom left to live and work in America. She only ever met three of them again and lived to see four of her children die, three in the US and her son Michael (my grandfather) who had taken over the family farm in Kilmacow. The newspaper notice of the death is very sparse and gives no hint of the life she led even referring to her in the convention of the times as "Mrs. John Burke". Funnily enough, there is no mention of a funeral Mass - she is taken from the house directly to the graveyard in Kilmacow. Anyway, there was no Mother's Day in her era but if anyone deserved a bunch of flowers she did!

John Bourke's dog licences!

Dog licences were introduced into Irish law in 1865 and the first licences were issued the following year. It cost 2 shillings per dog with an extra 6 pence in administration costs. The licences were issued in the local courts, the Petty Sessions, which were the forerunner of our District Courts today

In the first year 353,798 dog licences were issued generating over £35,000 in revenue. Subsequent years saw an average of 250,000 licences purchased. In the following decades, millions of licences were issued. The dog licences were introduced to make it easier to identify the owners of trouble making dogs, the ones which either worried sheep or damaged property. 

John Bourke is recorded as having a licence for various terriers from 1866 onwards with a "brown terrier" listed from 1897 to 1902 and a "black collie" in 1905 and 1907.

This might seem to be a banal piece of info in the greater scheme of things but it just goes to show that from the earliest days the Burkes of Kilmacow have been law-abiding people!