Seán Lemass in 1933

Photo: Courtesy of British Pathé

Case Study Seán Lemass

Seán Lemass (1899-1971) led an extraordinary life. He was one of the youngest fighters in the GPO during the Easter Rising in 1916, at just sixteen years old, and went on to shape modern Ireland. A TD for 45 years, from 1924 until he retired in 1969, he was Minister for Industry and Commerce, Minister for Supplies and Tánaiste in successive Fianna Fáil governments.

Between 1959 and 1966, he was Taoiseach, and responsible for the opening of Ireland to industrial development and the European Union. In January 1916, he accidentally shot his baby brother Herbert in the family home in Capel Street with a revolver connected to his membership of the Volunteers. His brother Noel, who fought with him in the GPO and on the ant-Treaty side in the Civil War, was killed in 1923, after the Civil War had ended, for reasons that are still murky.

In 1934, the then new Fianna Fáil government introduced military service pensions for those who had fought between 1916 and 1923. The process of applying for them was complicated, with detailed form-filling and long descriptive accounts of service. Lemass applied in 1941, when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce. His original application, including his own account of his service, is available online, as part of the Military Archives' Pensions Collection: click here or here.

He was awarded an annual pension of £99-16-5, a very substantial amount at the time.

Seán, known as John or Jack to his family, was the second son of John T. Lemass and Frances Phelan. He was born in July 1899 in Ballybrack, Co. Dublin.

Church record of Noel Lemass' Baptism. 1897

Image: Church Records at www.irishgenealogy.ie

Lemass Military Service pension Collection form. 1941

Image: www.militaryarchives.ie MSP34REF2078

Lemass and his immediate family

Seán, known as John or Jack to his family, was the second son of John T. Lemass and Frances Phelan. He was born in July 1899 in Ballybrack, Co. Dublin, at a summer cottage the Lemass family rented regularly. Click here for his birth index entry. If you click through the entry you'll get to an image of the copy-register with full details of address and occupation. His elder brother Noel was born in 1897 and baptised in the Pro-Cathedral.

Notice that Noel's surname is mistranscribed. This is a very frequent event with uncommon surnames. On the one hand, they are conspicuous and easy to find; on the other, record-keepers (and transcribers) are unfamiliar with them and so make mistakes.

This is what happened with the family's 1901 census return. In 1911, they are easy to find, listed under 'Lemass' - but the 1901 transcript has them as 'Lemars'. If you look at the original return, the handwriting of John, Seán's father, explains why.

Between the two returns, the family list five children, Noel (1897), John ('Seán'), (1899), Alice (recorded as 'Mary' in 1901), Clara (1904), Patrick (1906), Mary ('Mai' 1910). Two children appear to have died in infancy, Nora (1903) and Winifred (1905). The state birth indexes record mother's maiden name after 1900, revealing that two other children were born after the 1911 census was taken, Frances (1911) and Herbert (1914), the baby who was shot in January 1916. In all, then, Seán's parents had (at least) nine children.

The family lived at No. 2 Capel Street, where Seán's father had a men's clothing business. In 1901, he is described as a 'hatter and outfitter' and in 1911 a 'men's outfitter'. The change reflects a decline in the importance of men's hats as fashion and status symbols towards the end of the nineteenth century. John T. had trained as a hatter, as had his father, Seán's grandfather, John s enior. Hatting was a highly skilled occupation at the time, involving some elaborate chemical processes to produce the stiffened felt used for the hats. The phrase 'mad as a hatter' describes the results of overexposure to one of these processes, which used highly toxic mercury.

The family business certainly had an effect on Seán: all his life he was renowned as a natty dresser, with a nice eye for hats.

Lemass Family Tree

Lemass on the cover of Time Magazine. 1963

The direct line:

His immediate family

Seán's parents, John Timothy Lemass and Frances Phelan were married on February 3rd, 1897 in St. Mary's Donnybrook. As in many Catholic Dublin parishes after 1856, the marriage record is extremely informative about the families of bride and groom. His parents are recorded as John 'Lomass' and Clara Murphy of 15 Usher's Quay; her parents are Denis Phelan and Rosanna Hughes of Belmont Avenue. And the civil record of the marriage includes occupations, revealing that Denis Phelan, Seán's maternal grandfather, was a florist.

A check of 15 Usher's Quay in 1901 shows John's parents, his two brothers, Seán's uncles Peter and William, and John's first cousin, Louis, aged 17. All are recorded as born in Dublin city, with the exception of Peter (37), whose birthplace is given as Glasgow. At the same address in 1911, John Senior, now aged 74, is living with a servant and William, now recorded as William James.

The only Phelans listed in Belmont Avenue in 1901 are a Jennie (?) and Alice Phelan, daughters of a head of household called Rosanna Tully (mistranscribed 'Sully'). Also in the household is another daughter of Rosanna, Teresa Tully, fifteen years younger than the younger of the two Phelans. This is strong circumstantial evidence that Rosanna (née Hughes), Seán's maternal grandmother, married twice.

In 1911, the family are at 3 Clonskeagh Terrace, not far from Belmont Avenue, with Rosanna and her daughter Alice Phelan recorded as florists, and Mary Jane ('Jennie?') as a milliner's assistant, meaning she was involved in the design and sale of ladies' hats.. Lemass' family on both sides were firmly embedded in the middle reaches of Dublin commercial life. His Phelan aunts, Alice and Mary Jane, appear never to have married: they are recorded on the electoral register under their birth names at 15 Belmont Avenue between 1939 and 1944, when they would both have been in their seventies.

John Lemass Baptism record. 10 April 1867

Image: Church Records at www.irishgenealogy.ie

We've already seen two of Seán's uncles in the 1901 census. Were there others? A search for baptisms recording John Lemass and Clara Murphy as parents shows John T(imothy), Seán's father, baptised on April 10, 1867 - at which time the family were already living at 2 Capel Street - and William James on March 3 1869. No other baptisms appear. A check of the FamilySearch.org birth transcripts confirms these as the only two births in Dublin 1864-81.

In 1901, Seán's uncle Peter gave his birth-place as Glasgow. A search of Scottish birth records (online at the paying site scotlandspeople.gov.uk) shows the birth of Peter Joseph on May 26 1863 at 40 Rutherglen Road. The record also records John senior as a 'hatter (journeyman)'. The couple went to Glasgow very soon after their marriage for him to serve his time to learn the hatting trade.

Seán's parents, John Timothy Lemass and Frances Phelan were married on February 3rd, 1897 in St. Mary's Donnybrook. As in many Catholic Dublin parishes after 1856, the marriage record is extremely informative about the families of bride and groom.

John Lemass senior and Clara née Murphy's Marriage record. 27 July 1862

Image: Church Records at www.irishgenealogy.ie

The previous generation:

His grandfather's family

John Lemass senior, Seán's paternal grandfather, married Clara née Murphy on July 27 1862 in the Pro-Cathedral. Although state recording of all marriages, requiring a record the names of the fathers of bride and groom, did not begin until 1864, the Catholic church record supplies parents' names and addresses on both sides. John and Clara are both listed as living at 14 Stafford Street (now Wolfe Tone Street). In 1862, this is listed as occupied by a John Prescott, house-painter. Perhaps Timothy, Clara's father, worked with him. His parents, Peter and Ellen Lemass, are at 10 Pill Lane (now Chancery Street). Her parents, Timothy and Elizabeth Murphy, are at 14 Stafford Street. John was evidently staying with his future in-laws. At 9 Pill Lane in Thom's 1862 Directory, a Joseph Lemass is recorded as running a cooperage (barrel-making) business. This is John senior's brother, a grand-uncle of Seán.

St. Andrew's, Dublin city; County of Dublin; Archdiocese of Dublin. Marriages, Sep. 1834 to Dec. 1834

Image: Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

What other brothers and sisters did John senior have?

The way to find out is by searching for baptisms recording the parents named in John senior's marriage. These should also supply his mother's maiden name, not supplied in the marriage record. A broad sweep, using only 'Peter L*m*s', turns up quite a haul. John senior, baptised in 1834, had siblings Mary Anne (1837), Joseph (1839), Catherine (1842), Michael (1844), William (1846), Peter (1850) and Michael (1852). The elder Michael died, and had a baby brother named after him, as was common practice at a time of horrendous child mortality. Their mother's surname is transcribed as Botham and Botton and Button and Bottom and Baltam. Botham is probably the form most familiar today. Their marriage took place in St. Andrew's parish on July 7, 1834. Their children are all Seán's great-aunts and uncles.

What became of them?

Joseph (1839) married Elisa Bonass (again, many, many variant spellings) in 1866 and had children Ellen Anne (1868), Joseph William (1869), Anne Alice (1871), Elizabeth Kate (1872), Peter Henry (1876), Henry William (1878), Mary Elizabeth (1879) and Edward Gerald (1880). A penchant for double forenames seems to have run in the family. These are all first cousins of Seán's father, and so Seán's first cousins once removed.

William (1840) married Margaret Bonass, apparently a sister of Elisa, and had Mary Florence (1881), Gerald Vincent (1883, Reuben John (1887) and Eileen (1893).

Peter (1850) married Maria Scallan and had Gertrude Mary (1889), Edwin Stephen (1891), Edith Ursula (1893), Marie Angela (1895) and Herbert (1897). Edwin and Herbert both joined the British army during the Great War. Edwin was a captain in the Royal Army Service Corps and survived the war. Herbert, a Lieutenant in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, was killed in action on October 23, 1916. He is buried at Longueval, in the north of France.

The way to find out is by searching for baptisms recording the parents named in John senior's marriage. These should also supply his mother's maiden name, not supplied in the marriage record.

Earlier generations

Peter, Seán's great-grandfather was probably born some time between 1800 and 1814 - he was having children between 1834 and 1850. He was alive at the time of his son Joseph's marriage in 1866, and so should be recorded in post-1884 civil death records. A useful extension of these, at least for property-owners, is the collection of post-1858 will records online at www.genealogy.nationalarchives.ie. Peter's will was probated in 1887 by his youngest son Peter. A cross-check with the death records reveals his recorded age at death in November 1886 to be 76, putting his birth in 1810 or 1811.

Unfortunately, no baptism of a Peter Lemass (or variant) is recorded in the Dublin city church transcripts.

However, there is a record of the marriage of a Peter Lemass of 10 Pill Lane on March 1, 1862. This appears to be Seán's great-grandfather, remarrying after the death of his first wife, Ellen née Botham. His second wife is recorded as Margaret McDermott, with her parents given as John and Maryanne Kearney. Mothers' maiden surnames are not recorded anywhere else in this record at this period, meaning that the most logical explanation is that Margaret had been widowed, like Peter, and her maiden name was Kearney. And indeed three baptisms are recorded to a Michael McDermott and Margaret Kearney in the right part of north Dublin in the 1850s.

Though the circumstantial evidence is good, it is not cast-iron. Peter's 1862 marriage record gives his parents as 'Timothy and Catherine Lemass', 'Mortui sunt', both deceased. Even though Peter's baptism doesn't seem to be recorded, are there any other baptisms recording this couple as parents? Indeed there are: between 1802 and 1814, four children are listed Eleanor (1802), Michael (1804), Catherine (1813) and Honora (1814). The two early baptisms are in St. Nicholas', in the Liberties, south of the Liffey. The later two are in St. Michan's, in the northside area where the family would live for the next three generations. And the earliest records provide intriguing evidence of the origin of the surname. On May 14 1802, Eleanor is listed as 'Le Masson'. This is good evidence that the name was originally the Anglo-Norman occupational name 'Le Mason', 'the builder'.

Joseph Lemass obituary

Credit: Nambour Chronicle, 16.06.1939.

The Australian connection

Two children are recorded to Peter's second marriage, Timothy Christopher in 1862 and Margaret in 1864. Timothy emigrated to Australia, arriving in Sydney in 1887 with his wife Jane and his infant son Joseph. This Joseph, a half first-cousin once removed of Seán (!), enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in the Great War and saw action at Gallipoli. Later generations of his family still live in the Melbourne area.