There had been an old connection between the Taaffes and the Teelings, and we learn from Bartholomew Teeling’s Memoir of his uncle that Luke Teeling’s mother was of the house of Taaffe. After the record of the marriage of Luke and Mary (still kept at Smarmore Castle) the words are inserted, “obtenta dispensatione in consanguinitate.”
Like the Taaffes, the Teelings had suffered much during the long wars which devastated Ireland in the seventeenth century, and of the broad acres which their forefathers had held in Meath for over five hundred years there remained after the “Third Breaking” of Aughrim, in the pathetic phrase of one of the family’s present-day representatives, little more than “the semi-circular arched vault in the churchyard of Rathkenny.” But even before Father Teeling, who came back from his College on the Continent about the beginning of the eighteenth century, to endure the life of suffering, and labour, and peril of a missionary priest in Ireland under the Penal Régime, was gathered to his fathers in that vault, the fortunes of the family were already in the ascent. In truth there was something in the Teelings which forced them to the front in whatever walk of life they might choose for themselves, whether as soldiers, like the old knightly Teelings of the Middle Ages, whose names survive in many an ancient deed of gift to religious houses; or churchmen, like Father Ignatius Teeling, S. J., or scholars like Theobald Teeling, the correspondent of Justus Lipsius, and that other Teeling, who has been described by Archbishop Peter Talbot as “urbis et orbis miraculum.”[[43]] And this something—call it personality, force of character, or what you will—was peculiarly evident in Bartholomew Teeling whom we find settled in the neighbourhood of Balbriggan about the middle of the eighteenth century.
[43]. These particulars concerning the Teeling family are taken from an excellent article in The Gentleman’s Magazine (October, 1905), by a writer signing himself “Albi Norman.”
It was in the days when Balbriggan, under the fostering care of its landlord, Baron Hamilton, of Hampton Hall,[[44]] was developing from a miserable little fishing hamlet into a prosperous trading town. With the assistance of a small grant from the Irish Parliament, the Baron built the pier, in the sixties of the eighteenth century, and thus fostered a lively carrying trade with Wales. Ships of two hundred tons could unload in the new harbour, and such craft crowded the quay, unloading cargoes of slates, coal and culm, as well as rock salt and bark, and carrying back corn and cattle. In 1780 the Baron established extensive cotton works here, for the promotion of which parliament granted the sum of £1,250, but this manufacture was subsequently almost abandoned for that of hosiery.[[45]] When Arthur Young visited Ireland in 1776, he spent a few days with the Baron, and we learn from him[[46]] much of the latter’s improvements; of the one hundred and fifty acres of mountain land he reclaimed; of the agricultural methods he adopted, and of their financial results; of the local fishing industry and how he worked it. It seems the Baron had boat-building works, and out of these came his fleet of “23 boats each carrying seven men, who were not paid wages, but divided the produce of the fishery. The vessel took one share, and the hands one each, which amounts on an average to 16s. a week. A boat costs from £130 to £200, fitted out ready for the fishery; they make their own nets.”
[44]. He was M.P. for Belfast, Solicitor General and Baron of the Exchequer (D’Alton’s “History of County Dublin,” p. 477).
[45]. D’Alton, op. cit., p. 468.
[46]. “Tour in Ireland,” Vol. I.
With the agricultural experiments of the Baron, and his industrial and trading enterprises, Bartholomew Teeling was closely identified. He held the lands in Walshetown, Gardiner’s Hill, Kilbrickstown, etc., and some family documents, which I have been privileged to examine, have reference to business transactions with Baron Hamilton, which would seem to indicate that Bartholomew Teeling helped to finance the Baron’s schemes.
At all events Bartholomew prospered, and when he died the provisions he was able to make for his sons and the education he gave them, show that he had accumulated a comfortable fortune. He was married twice, it would appear, his first wife being of the Taaffe family, and his second a Miss Grace. By these he had a numerous family of sons. In addition to Luke, the eldest son, we find mention in the family papers of Christopher, a well-known doctor in Dublin; James, who seems to have remained in his father’s place near Balbriggan and combined manufacturing and farming; Joseph, and Robert, afterwards merchants in Dublin; and Bartholomew. There was also a Patrick, but if he was one of these brothers, he must have died soon, as his name early falls out of the family record.
Luke had been early apprenticed to the linen trade—and that fact in itself indicates that his father was a man of means. For in the endeavour to keep the trade “exclusive,” a high fee was charged, and a fairly long apprenticeship insisted on.