William Philip Allen

This post is a continuation of the previous one, in which I explore the Protestant Allen families of Galbally, North Limerick and of southern Tipperary.
http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2012/07/anne-cuthbert-nee-allen-of-galbally.html

Robert Allen, the father of our great-great grandmother, Anne Allen (who married the carpenter Henry Culbert/Cuthbert in Galbally in 1869) died in Park townland just east of Galbally, where the Protestant Allens seems to have settled.  There are so few Protestant Allens in this area, that I suspect a family between them, although researching the Allen family has thrown up few clues, so much of this is pure speculation for the moment.
Galbally town sits right on the border of Limerick and Tipperary, and the evidence points to our Allen family as having originated a few miles north of Galbally in Co. Tipperary.

The Protestant farmer, Edmond Allen of Park, Galbally, was murdered in 1886 at Shronell, Tipperary, and was the second cousin of the Manchester Martyr, William Philip Allen, ie: the fathers of both men were first cousins.

William Philip Allen was born - most likely near Tipperary town -  in April 1848 to a Protestant father, Thomas Allen, (himself the son of a Tipperary farmer Thomas Allen) and a Catholic mother, Catherine Halpin.  His father, Thomas (Henry) Allen, moved the family from Tipperary to Bandon in about 1850, where Thomas was the Keeper of the Bridewell until about 1868.
William was reared and educated as a Protestant in Bandon, but converted to Catholicism in about 1866 along with his only sister.  His four brothers remained Protestant, as did his father, although the following list, sourced on Ancestry, maintains that George Allen converted to Catholicism.

The children of Thomas Allen and Catherine Halpin were:

1) Mary Allen, born 1844 in Cork, died before November 1867.  Converted to Catholicism.
2) Susan Allen, born Cork 1845, and married James McKenna on 9th September 1866. She went to London where she died in March 1898.
3) William Philip Allen, 1848 - 1867.
4) Thomas Allen, born 1849 in Kinsale. The 'Cork Examiner' of 21st January 1868 noted that Thomas Allen, brother of William Philip Allen had been arrested on charge of treasonable practices. He subsequently went to the US. His father later put an ad in the 'Irishman' paper looking for his son, Thomas Allen, a joiner, who had left Cork in November 1868 for Chicago and who had been in Terrehaute, Indiana, in 1870.
5) John Allen born 1851.
6) George Allen, born Bandon 1854 and died in London. He married Teresa Agnes Green in 1876 in St. Finbars, Cork,  He converted to Catholicism and worked as a coachbuilder.
7) Joseph Allen, born 1857 in Bandon.

Catherine Allen, née Halpin, died at 31 Dunbar Street, Cork, aged 57 on 29th July 1879.

William Philip Allen's father, Thomas Allen, married a second time following the death of first wife, Catherine Halpin.  His 2nd marriage occurred on 5th June 1895 in London when he was aged 80. At the time he was living at 7 Chapel Street, Westminster, and was noted as a police pensioner. He named his father as Thomas Allen, a farmer of Tipperary.  His bride was Eliza Coaker of 15 Dacre Street, a 74-7r-old widow, the daughter of a tea merchant Thomas Spry.  The witnesses were Anne Baker and Mary Sheppard.

William Philip Allen was educated to become a teacher in one of the Protestant school of the area, but eventually settled on an apprenticeship with a timber merchant and carpenter in Bandon, eventually working in Dublin, Limerick, Chester and Manchester. By 1867, the year of his execution, he had become involved with the Fenian movement which sought to liberate Ireland from British rule.

A failed Fenian uprising in Chester led to the arrest of two men, Colonel Thomas J. Kelly and Captain Timothy Deasy, in Manchester in 1867.  It was while the two men were being transported in a police van on September 18th 1867 that a crowd of about 25 sympathisers surrounded the van in an attempt to free the pair.  During the ensuing chaos, a policeman by the name of Sergeant Brett, who was guarding the prisoners inside the van, was accidentally shot by one of the crowd who had taken aim at the lock on the van door.
Kelly and Deasy escaped and were never recaptured.

The authorities rounded up 29 men and eventually brought five of them to trial.  Two were released, but three of the suspects- William Philip Allen, who had almost been stoned to death by an angry mob during his arrest, Michael Larkin and Michael O'Brien - were sentenced to death by hanging. Allen said he regretted the death of Sergeant Brett, but that he was 'prepared to die proudly and triumphantly in defence of republican principles and the liberty of an oppressed and enslaved people.'  He was only 19.
The execution of the three men took place at the New Bailey Prison in Salford, Manchester. Two weeks later a symbolic funeral took place in Dublin in which 60,000 people followed three empty hearses to Glasnevin Cemetery.

A lecture was advertised on behalf of William Philip Allen's betrothed bride, Adelaide McDonald, in 'The Irishman' of 14th August 1869.

William Philip Allen, second cousin of the murdered Edmond Allen, had been born in Co. Tipperary in 1848 - some sources say his place of birth was Thurles, others that he had been born in a 'well-known village' outside of Tipperary town.
Given that his second cousin, Edmond Allen, was known to have relatives in the area around Tipperary town, I went through the Allen landholders listed on Griffiths Valuation in 1851, although I've had no luck researching these people further.

Griffiths Valuation, Tipperary Town, 1851:
James Allen, house only in Mackanagh Upper, Clonbeg, south of the town.
Paul Allen, Goat's Lane, Tipperary town. House, small garden, and ruins.
Thomas Allen, Bohercrow Street, Tipperary town, house.
Samuel Allen, 132 acres in Greenrath, north of Tipperary town.
Samuel Allen, Main Street, Golden, a house and yard - Golden is middway between Tipperary town and Cashel.
Mrs. Judith Allen, landlady at Ballyryan West, north of Tipperary town, about 60 acres.
Nicholas Allen, Fihertagh, south of Tipperary town, house and 10 acres.

Further information about William Philip Allen can be gleaned from a newspaper reports of the era, published online on the Limerick City website, which reported upon the memorial march to commemorate the Martyrs in Limerick.
Amongst the marchers were his sister, a Mrs. Hogan, and a cousin, Jonathan Allen.  Jonathan Allen, a schoolmaster of Boherbuoy, Limerick, and a prominent Fenian in the area, had been born in Newport, Co. Tipperary in about 1843 or perhaps later in 1851.  He was arrested for his political activities, and these arrests have been documented on the LDS site, but I could find no deeper information about him elsewhere.

To be continued.....