Bridget Haran : Short Biography

Bridget Haran was the eldest daughter of young couple Michael Haran and Mary King form Kilconduff. Her father was a farmer and a labourer and she had three younger siblings: Martin, Michael and James. As a child she lived at the townland of Cloonlara in Swinford. Aged 23 she married local farmer Martin Gallagher at Swinford Church, and from then on she lived with him and his mother Ellen at Cuillaun in Kilconduff. The couple had nine children together, but Bridget was widowed aged just 41 in 1910 when Martin died of erysipelas (skin infection of the arm. So on the 1911 Census Bridget was head of the family and a farmer, with 8 of her 9 children still living with her, including her 2 month old baby Michael; and also still her 75 year old mother-in-law Ellen, who perhaps cared for the younger children while Bridget worked on the farm. The 1911 Census also said that Bridget could speak Irish and English but could not read or write. She never remarried and died in 1933 at Cuillaun, of bronchitis.