The Squires family of Cashel and Dublin John Goodwillie We all know about the substantial settlement in Ireland from Britain in the 17th century. But there is little discussion about immigration in the 18th and 19th centuries. Three of my great-great-grandfathers exemplify such immigration, probably in all cases for reasons of employment. My great-great-grandfather Alfred Goodwillie appears in Dublin in the 1830s. He was a stonecutter and marble merchant and presumably was taking advantage of the boom in building churches in Ireland around that time. He was born in 17981 probably in London, as three siblings were baptised there2. The first hard evidence is that business partnerships in Liverpool and Dublin involving him were dissolved in 18353. My great-great-grandfather William Fenn Moppett would have arrived in Dublin when his father of the same name was appointed as Dock Master of the Custom House Docks about 18244. The subject of this article is a third great-great-grandfather, George Squires, who came to Cashel about 1844 to take up a position of vicar choral in Cashel Cathedral. Vicars choral played leading roles in the sung services in the Cathedral. It was not a full-time appointment: George also worked as a teacher of music and singing and a piano tuner5. An obituary tribute to him by T. G. Joynt reads: “George Squires, Vicar Choral of Cashel Cathedral, who for 33 years most efficiently performed the duties of Vicar Choral in our Cathedral, was a man universally esteemed for his probity, his sterling honesty and manliness of character. In his capacity as Teacher of Music the very deep regret felt and expressed by his numerous pupils attests in the strongest and truest manner the esteem which his efficiency obtained for him. The effect which he may be said to have, if not created certainly fostered and
1
Family Bible. George baptised St James Clerkenwell, 1791; Mary Ann baptised St Giles in the Fields, 1794; Charles baptised St Mary Mounthaw 1801. 3 London Gazette, 13 Oct. 1835, p. 1900. 4 See my article ‘The Moppetts: a Nautical Family of England and Ireland’ in this journal, 2014. 5 Slater’s Directory, 1846, 1856 and 1870. 2
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Journal of the Genealogical Society of Ireland 2020