Crimminy jickets! I am
really bad at this stuff.
I am not sure if all this work was a complete waste of time but I
now know that it was based on an incorrect assumption. I asked myself “who else could this Joseph
Dixon be, other than a brother of our great-great-grandmother, Catherine?”. Joseph and Catherine were born about seven
years apart; both were born in Country Tyrone; they shared the same last name; and
for pete’s sake, Joseph and his wife, Anna, were buried in the Catherine’s
daughter’s family plot in New Cathedral Cemetery along with nine other known
family members?
I can answer that partially now.
This Joseph was not Catherine’s brother.
That means that Sarah Gertrude Dixon Delaney was also not a
sibling. That means I did a whole lot of
work to figure out who was NOT our fourth cousins. Maybe Joseph was Catherine’s
cousin. Maybe he was her second cousin. Maybe he was a complete stranger who snuck
his way into the grave and the rest of the stuff is just a coincidence. Who know?
NOT ME!
That’s the bad news.
Here’s the good news…
I know that this Joseph was not Catherine’s brother and this Sarah
was not her sister because I found a portion of a biography of Dr. Joseph
Dixon, Archbishop of Armagh. It turns
out that family history of us being related to him is true. The story of the Archbishop’s early life was
previously posted on the website of a school in Coalisland, Ireland that was
named for him. It has since been removed
from that website but a cached version is google-able and the portion I saw was
a cut and pasted transcript on Ancestry.com. I have now copied that so that it
doesn’t go missing because there is some juicy information in there…including
Catherine’s real brothers and sisters.
_________________________________________________
http://www.primatedixon.coalisland.ni.sch.uk/Cover.htm
The Dixon family lived in a single story
farmhouse at Corrainey along the side of the road leading from Coalisland down
into Bush. James Dixon, who was born in 1776, married Jane Casey, who was born
in 1777. They are buried in Killyman Churchyard, with a daughter Mary, who died
in August, 1827, at the age of thirteen. They had a family of four girls -
Catherine (later Mrs McGovern), Sarah (married Hugh Curran, a farmer), Jane
(married James Magill, a publican), and Mary (died young) and three boys -
Joseph, James and Francis.
They had a farm of 8 acres 3 rood and 35
perches on which there were three houses, let to James Reynolds, Robert Currie
and Patrick Hillen.
These were the boom years of the domestic linen
industry, between 1775 and 1825, until the factories took over all the trade.
Spinners and weavers worked in their own homes and generally worked through an
agent to sell their linen at the weekly market in Dungannon Market Square,
where the population doubled on market days. It is probable that the Dixon
family had an interest in the linen industry. Francis, the heir, certainly
owned webs and looms in the homes of weavers in 1860.
The Coalisland of Joseph Dixon’s young day was
a growing, developing community. The Canal was completed in 1787 and, for the
next Century and a half, carried heavy traffic. Wharfing and warehouses were
around its basin. Many industries had grown out of the local coal and fireclay
mining. S. Lewis in his 'Topographical Dictionary of Ireland' published in 1837
refers to Coalisland's many aworks, potteries, flourmills, iron works, forges,
plating mills, spade mills and works for the manufacture of firebricks. The
1834 map of the area shows tile works, grain mills, a starch factory and bleach
greens.
There is a long-standing tradition in
Coalisland that Joseph was born on 1st July 1806, in a lodging house,
approached by three stone steps, which stood along the back river to the rear
of Barrack Street in the town. It seems a reasonable explanation that Jane was
on business in the village, when Joseph decided to be born. Sister Mary Cusack
who wrote a life of Dr. Dixon in 1878, says he was born in the Parish of
Donaghenry. Corrainey is in Dungannon Parish, the Parish of Ballyclog and Donaghenry
was separated from Clonoe by Dr. Curtis in 1822 and Barrack Street was in
Donaghenry.
Jane Dixon was a woman of piety and was
interested in educating her family in days when education was the exception
rather than the rule. Joseph Dixon, in later years, referred to her devotion to
the Blessed Virgin. 'Take note of my name being Joseph, and what will help you,
I am sure, to remember, it is this, that I am not named after a member of my
family, but my mother gave me the name of Joseph, because it was the name of
the Spouse of the Blessed Virgin.'
Early Education - The Report of the National
Commission for Education in 1826 mentions a number of Schools in the area, but
there is no record of where he received his early education. It was obviously a
very good one. He often told a story of an incident on his way from school one
day. He was walking along with a companion when a boy of another religion began
to verbally abuse them for being Catholics. The companion took the situation
and the miscreant in hand and ended the matter.
Maynooth - At the age of 16, on the 26th August
1822, Joseph Dixon entered Maynooth to study for the Priesthood. He followed a
brilliant course and graduated with distinction. His brother James followed him
to Maynooth a few years later and was one of the outstanding students of his
time. James later left the Diocesan Clergy and joined the Congregation of the
Missions - the Vincentians.
At the end of his first year in the Dunboyne
Institute Joseph competed with two brilliant classmates for the Professorship
of Moral Philosophy in Maynooth College. Dr. Whitehead was successful and the
other, Dr. Magennis, was later appointed Professor of Theology in 1830. These
three were ordained on the same day in June 1829.
Dr. Dixon was appointed junior Dean in Maynooth
in September 1829, and was promoted to Senior Dean in September 1833. As Dean
he was said to have been exact on breaches of discipline, but he always tried
to be a guide in the formation of the characters of future priests. After an
extensive examination in Hebrew, Syriac and Chaldaic, by a panel chaired by
Archbishop Murray of Dublin, Dr. Dixon was appointed Professor of Sacred
Scripture and Hebrew in September 1834.
He was highly regarded by his peers and by his
students, both as a teacher and as a scholar. Evidence of his deep scholarship
came when, in 1852, he produced his book "A General Introduction to the
Sacred Scripture". He wrote this book for the student of Scripture and for
the educated layman, as there was, at that time, no such book by a Catholic
author in the English language. It was a very comprehensive, learned and
theologically correct work. It was well received and highly praised by
Scripture scholars. He was justly proud of the work and on the occasion of an
audience with the Pope at the time of the Definition of the Dogma of the
Immaculate Conception, he presented Pius IX with a copy.
Maynooth was the hub of Irish Ecclesiastical
life and little happened throughout the land that was not discussed there. Dr.
Dixon loved the intellectual stimulation of his fellow professors and the
opportunity for study. For a man, already of deep piety, it was a place where
he could develop and increase his life of devotion. The formation of the minds
and characters of future priests was a task he relished.
He was well aware of the turmoil in the Church
at the time. Because of the work of the Revolutionists, Pius IX and the Church
Government had to leave Rome. Irish Church affairs were handled by Cardinal
Fransoni from Naples since 1848. The Irish Church needed time to get itself
organised after the ravages of the Penal Law years. The terrible trauma of the
death, disease, poverty and emigration of the Famine Years of 1845-49 had also
to be dealt with. Concessions granted by the Government after Emancipation had
to be examined and viewed with suspicion after years of repression. The Irish
bishops were deeply divided on three of these concessions. One group was headed
by Primate Crolly and Archbishop Murray of Dublin and the other, by Archbishop
McHale of Tuam. The three matters were the National Schools Bill - to give
education to young children in non denominational schools - The Charitable
Bequests Bill, about what legacies could be left to religious institutions and
the most divisive, The Queen's Colleges Bill - the Universities at Belfast,
Cork and Galway. It is necessary to mention these to introduce Dr. Paul Cullen,
Rector of the Propaganda College in Rome and formerly Rector of the Irish
College in Rome. The National Schools and Queen's Colleges disputes were
referred to Rome and Paul Cullen was called in by Propaganda as a consultor.
This brought him more to the fore-front in Rome when Archbishop Crolly died in
April 1849 and the See of Armagh was vacant.
The Appointment of Dr. Paul Cullen - In
accordance with the Propaganda Rule of 1829 for the selection of a bishop, the
parish priests of Armagh Diocese met in Armagh on 22nd May 1849. They selected,
by vote, three priests whom they suggested to Rome as candidates for the
bishopric Joseph Dixon (26 votes); Michael Kieran, P.P., Dundalk (12 votes);
and John O'Hanlon, Professor of Theology in Maynooth (12 votes). Propaganda
instead appointed Paul Cullen to be Archbishop.
The English Catholic newspaper 'The
Tablet" on Saturday, 12th January 1850 argued that it was unheard of that
at least one of those proposed by the Parish Priests, even if taken out of the
order of the voting, was not appointed. They took this as another case of Rome
putting in their own man to carry out Rome's ideas. Propaganda had the right to
reject the candidates and it was almost inevitable, in the circumstances, that
Paul Cullen - the strong, brilliant scholar, astute leader, fully aware of
Irish Church affairs, absolutely faithful to Rome and outside the Episcopal
squabbles - should be chosen.
He was appointed in 1849 and lived all his time
as Archbishop of Armagh, in Drogheda. Archbishop Cullen was moved as Archbishop
of Dublin on 1st May 1852 and continued to dominate Irish and world Church
affairs until his death on 24th October 1878. He was created Ireland's first
Cardinal in 1861. He held Dr. Dixon in high regard and took him to the Synod of
Thurles as his theologian. Dr. Dixon also acted as theologian at the Synod of
Oscott.
Appointment as Archbishop - Joseph Dixon was
reading his office in his room when Archbishop Cullen, with Rev. Dr. Carew and
Dr. Callan, arrived to inform him of his appointment as Archbishop of Armagh by
Pius IX on 13th October, 1852. Reluctantly, he accepted and, when they left, he
wept bitterly. After thirty years in the calm, serene atmosphere of Maynooth he
had to face out into the rough seas of a divided hierarchy and the problems
already outlined. In a letter of November 1852, he gives some indication of the
soul-searching it caused him before he bowed to the Will of God. "You must
excuse me for having delayed so long to acknowledge your exceeding kindness to
me upon the most trying occasion of my life. This appointment to Armagh has
been to me a source of great grief and trouble, and although a part of the
trouble is now past, as my consecration has taken place, I still see nothing
but a continuation of great grief and great trouble to the end of my life. I
was told however, by so many in whom I had confiden…
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