Michael Collins was born in Dublin in 1858.
He was married to Anne Collins, born in 1860.
The couple were unable to have children.
They adopted the illegitimate son of Charity Brennan in 1882.
They named him Bernard.
Shortly after his adoption,
the family emigrated to Manchester, England.

Michael was a talented musician.
He was influential in the music industry,
and was engaged in the Amalgamated Musicians Union, formed in 1893.
This union fought for just pay,
and improvement in working conditions for musicians.

Charity Brennan was the 9th child of Silas and Grace.
She was born in 1864.
Always a wild and determined child,
she conceived a child out of wedlock.
To hide their shame,
her parents sent Charity to the Magdalene Sisters in Ormaeu Rd, Belfast.
Charity delivered a healthy son in 1882,
and then like thousands of young women who had been through the Magdalene Laundries,
she disappeared.

Nothing was heard of Charity for several years.
A Charity Brennan appears in census records in Canada in 1891.
It seems she had re-invented herself as a madam running a high class brothel,
serving the professionals and upper class of the city.

Miss Charity's House of Satisfaction
was regularly targeted by religious groups,
feminist groups and women's groups such as the National Council for Women of Canada.
Police largely ignored her establishment
to protect her clientele!

Adalie DuBois was born in France in 1872.
A talented dancer,
she performed and choreographed at the Moulin Rouge in Paris.
She left France to avoid a violent relationship.

Once in England,
she got a job working in Music Hall.
There she met the amiable and talented William Brennan.
She married William in 1890.

They had 2 children:
Jules b. 1895
Violet b. 1898

William was the 8th child of Silas & Grace Brennan.
He was born in 1862, their 4th son.
William had no interest in working the land
but dutifully toiled alongside his parents
until Brigid married Kieran Tobin and he took over the role.
With alacrity,
William emigrated to England.
A multi-talented performer,
he landed a job with a music hall.
For several years he toured the country,
performing as The Great Marvello.
Being a fine vocalist, he sang a raunchy repetoire.
Over time, he built comic sketches and musical illustrations
around his comic songs and illusions.

William met Adalie Dubois, a cancan dancer from the Moulin Rouge in Paris.
She had fled to London to escape a violent relationship.
Adalie joined the Music Hall and danced for the audience.
She choreographed many fine performances.

William and Adalie married in 1890.
They had 2 children:
Jules b. 1895
Violet b. 1898.

Kieran Tobin was born in 1858 in County Mayo, Ireland.
He was a bit of a character, jovial and hard working.
He worked a as farrier, travelling throughout the county.
After he married Brigid Brennan in 1880,
he moved to the Brennan landholding to help his father-in-law.
This land was very marginal.
On the arable land, there was small-scale potato cultivation,
and a few cash crops.
On the rocky land, there was rough grazing for several head of cattle.
Kieran subsidised this with seasonal farrier work throughout southern Ireland,
and seasonal migration to England and Scotland for work.

The landholding benefited from the Land Wars,
in which his parents-in-law were very active.
A series of land purchase acts provided finance
which enabled tenants to purchase their land.

Brigid Tobin (nee Brennan) was born in 1860,
the 7th child of Silas & Grace Brennan.
She lived and worked on the family landholding,
tending the land and caring for her parents.
Brigid was a devout Catholic, prayerful and pious.

She married Kieran Tobin in 1880.
They continued to live and work the Brennan landholding.
They had 6 children:
Sean b. 1881
Declan b. 1882
Joseph b. 1884
Patrick b. 1885
Dermot b. 1887
Elizabeth b. 1888.

In 1879, in Knock, County Mayo,
an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St Joseph and St John,
was witnessed by 15 local people.
Brigid took her family regularly to visit the shrine.

Clare Brennan, nee O'Riley, was the widow of banker, Colm Donovan.
They had 2 children:
Maeve b. 1884
Maurice b. 1886.

Clare met Clarence Brennan at St Patrick's Catholic Church,
and they married there in 1891.

Clare was a member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (1890 - 1919).
This was the less militant of two suffrage organisations.
It lobbied President Wilson and Congress to pass a woman suffrage Constitutional Amendment.
It also undertook campaigns to enfranchise women in individual states.

The other group, the National Woman’s Party,
took radical actions such as a picket outside the White House.
Women were given the right to vote in 1920.

Gabrielle Brennan (nee Conlon) was born in 1861,
the youngest of 11 children.
Many of her family died during the Irish famine 1845-1852.
(More than one million people starved during this time.
Another million left Ireland.)
Gabrielle still wore mourning clothes.
She was angry at the unnecessary human suffering
and lack of human rights for tenant farmers.

Gabrielle was a highly intelligent young woman.
Quiet, tall, a lover of people and of words.
She was passionate about rights for women -
to study, to work, to vote.

She immediately developed a rapport with Clarence Brennan on the Gallia.
They married in New York in 1883.

They had 3 children:
Deidre b. 1885
Mary b. 1887
Cameron b. 1888.
Gabrielle died giving birth to David, who also died.

Clarence is the third son on Silas & Grace Brennan.
Small in stature,
mousy and often not noticed,
he had a fierce intellect and an insatiable curiosity.
He taught himself to read and write
and yearned to study at university.
Knowing his chances were slim,
he decided to emigrate to America, the land of opportunity.

Clarence met Gabrielle O'Malley on board the Gallia in 1882.
Theirs was an immediate friendship.
They married the next year, 1883.

They had 3 living children:
Deidre b. 1885
Mary b. 1887
Cameron b. 1888.
Gabrielle died in childbirth with David, 1890. Baby also died.

Clarence later married widow, Clare O'Riley.
Clare had 2 children which Clarence raised as his own.

Clarence and Clare moved to Boston, Massachusetts,
to be closer to her family.
He got a job as a reporter on The Boston Globe,
which was founded in 1872 by Charles H. Taylor.

I adapted the teardrop template,
extended the neck and head.
The long narrow legs follow the curve of the teardrop.
I attached long narrow arms with buttons.

Douglas Brennan was born in 1857
the second son of Silas and Grace Brennan.
He adored his older brother, Florence,
and followed him everywhere.
Unfortunately,
they were together when caught stealing food.
Found guilty, the brothers were transferred to Newgate Prison in England,
where they awaited transportation to Australia.
After 2 years in this hell hole,
they were placed on the Hougoument in 1868,
the last convict ship to sail for Australia.
Very young, and malnourished from his term in prison,
Douglas died en-route to Australia.
He was buried at sea.