Anne Ellen Cassidy was born at Port Farm on 28 September 1926. The surviving maps, census records and family documents allow us to place her within the landscape and family circle that surrounded her at the beginning of her life.
Port Townland
Illustrated map of Port townland and its local places.
Port Farm in 1926
The year Anne Ellen arrived into the world was also the year of the first population census of the Irish Free State, taken on 18 April 1926. Although she was not yet recorded, the census reveals the household and neighbouring families who formed the small world into which she was born five months later.
The Cassidy household at Port Farm, recorded in the 1926 Census five months before Anne Ellen’s birth.
Thomas Cassidy and Bridget O’Hara
Her mother, Bridget O’Hara, came from Port townland. Her father, Thomas Cassidy, came from Barran, about five kilometres away. They married in 1921 and began their married life at Port Farm, working the land and establishing their home there.
View Thomas Cassidy’s birth record →
View Bridget O’Hara’s birth record →
The family around Port Farm
Bridget’s parents, Patrick and Ellen O’Hara, still lived nearby with their son Owen, his wife Bridget, and their daughters Ellen and Bridget.
Another neighbouring farm belonged to Charles Dolan and his wife Ellen, formerly Cassidy—Thomas Cassidy’s older sister, remembered by Mam as “Aunty”.
The McCauley household completed the four farms shown on the map above.
View the O’Hara household census record →
View the Dolan household census record →
View the McCauley household census record →
Anne Ellen arrives
These were the immediate family ties and neighbouring households into which Anne Ellen Cassidy was born at Port Farm on 28 September 1926.
Explore 1926 – Contemporaries and Events
Anne Ellen was born into a young Irish state and a wider generation whose lives would stretch across the twentieth century.
View events in Ireland in 1926 →
Lives born in 1926: family and the wider world →
Newspapers on this day …
Evening Herald — 28th September 1926
Irish News — 28th September 1926
Irish Independent — 28th September 1926
