In
July 2015 the National Library of Ireland placed the Catholic Church Registers
of Ireland on line. These are the original microfilms, and baptisms and
marriages are recorded in a variety of handwritings, some in copperplate as
clear as the day they were written, others impossible to read, many in Latin,
faded, torn, with ink spilled on them, frustrating and exciting at the same
time. They shed a clear, if sometimes fragmented, light on times past, on large
families and infant mortality, on abandoned children and illegitimacy, on mixed
marriages, and, in the 19th century, on the steadily increasing population and
the catastrophe that was the Great Famine.
In
Waterford City, in the 18th Century, they show a
slice of the life that existed for the Catholic population in a busy port at
that time.
Unusually,
the earliest registers record the profession of the groom or father of the
child to be baptised, nauta - sailor, naucleri - ship's master or owner, fabri
lignari - wood worker or, in this case can be assumed to be, ship builder, indicating the importance in which these professions
were held at that time., and also mercato - merchant. There is no mention of
shopowners, farmers, doctors, teachers or lawyers.
William
and Thomas Power were ship builders as noted in the registers for St John's in 1717 and
1718.
Also
noted in the registers are the countries of origin of those men, assuredly
sailors, who married into Waterford. Madeira, the Azores, Newfoundland.
Behind
all this trade and business there was finance. Bartholomew Rivers of Tramore
was a banker, a partner in the banking firm Hayden and Rivers, and married to Mary Blake daughter of Philip
Blake, penmaker, of Dublin. Their children, Thomas 1755, Maria
1758, Bartholomew 1759, Maria 1760, Anna 1763, Mary Ann 1764, Elizabeth 1766,
and Joseph 1772, were all baptised in the Cathedral.
