|
Visitors to this house today, are acquainted with the story of its first occupant, Mrs. Olivia Beatty who moved in in November 1794. Mrs. Beatty, nee Bell, was the mother of seven children, Edward, Thomas, David, Robert, Frederick, Maria and Olivia. Edward, her eldest was eleven when Mrs. Beatty moved in. Olivia, perhaps her youngest child, was just two years old. She married her husband David in 1782 at the age of 21 in St. Anne's Parish Church in Dawson Street, which still stands today. At the age of 33 she became a widow; David died on the 7th January 1794. His passing was marked by the death notice to the right. "In St. Andrew's Street, after a few days illness, David Beatty Esquire, a very eminent Merchant, much regretted by numerous acquaintance".
|
The simplicity of this notice however belies what must have been a difficult year for Olivia Beatty. A fractured family headstone in Glasnevin Church Yard in the north of Dublin, recorded in 1922, stated that 1794 was also the year in which Maria, one of her two daughters, died. Was she perhaps taken by the same illness that took her father? It is a possibility. Reflecting what must only have been a bleak mood accompanying the move to Fitzwilliam Street. According to Walker's Hibernian Magazine in the month Mrs. Beatty took up residence Dubliners suffered severe weather conditions, with flooding in the lower yard of Dublin Castle, boats plying the area around St. Patrick's Cathedral, and numerous losses around the city due to drowning.
Mrs. Beatty's husband had been a wine merchant. Her father-in-law had been a paper merchant, and one time stationer to the revenue commissioners. Trade directories show that up until 1794 they both traded from Number One St. Andrew Street. Wilson's Dublin Directory for 1793, lists this address as a "place of abode" so it was most probably here that the family lived, above the shop, as was the case with other merchants in this part of the city. In September 1794, Edward Beatty, Olivia's father-in-law, died in Blackrock at the age of 78.
As her husband had left no will, it was through the estate of Edward Beatty Snr. that Olivia gained the means to support herself and her children. Over and above her marriage settlement she received the 'sum of £100 for life', and the choice of either her father-in-law's country or town house. Although the house had been built
|
|  | Walker's Hibernian Magazine, January 1794
|
 | Number One St. Andrew Street |
|
by John Usher, an apothecary, who leased to Olivia Beatty, the land lease from the Fitzwilliam Estate was held by one William Osborne.
Mrs. Beatty left Fitzwilliam Street in 1806 and the lease was taken up by Mr. Ponsonby Shaw, a banker. Recent research has indicated that Olivia Beatty moved to Wexford where her late husband had bought a house known as Borodale, which was demolished in 1937. She died on 9th September 1843 at the age of 83, a considerable age given contemporary life expectancies and is buried in Kilurin churchyard, outside Wexford.
|
|
