The Taite family
This name is derived from a nickname, from the Old Norse adjective, 'teitr', meaning 'cheerful', or 'jolly'. The origins of the family are the English border with Scotland, and Northumberland, Durham and Berwickshire, where the name was spelt Teate, Tate, Tait, Taite, and Tayte, and they came to Ireland during the plantation of Ulster in 1609, to Antrim, Cavan, Down, and Derry.
Life in Ireland was unfriendly to these planters, and there was a strong tradition among them, of emigration to Canada, the southern states of North America, and Australia, before the Catholic Irish sought these destinations.
There are records of the name in Derry and Antrim, and a prominent family of the name owned land in county Leitrim in the last century, with James Tate, of Castlemoyle, having 343 acres, John Tate, of Deerpark, with 592 acres, Rev John James Tate of 7 Russell Place Dublin with 302 acres in Leitrim, and Rev Richard Tate, of Kinlough, having 148 acres, in 1876.
In Limerick, the one-time Lord Mayor, Sir Peter Tait, also had an address at Clapham, London.
Robert Lambert Tate was made Sheriff of county Down on 12 February 1762.
Early Tates in Cavan
James Teate
In 1619, Robert Bailie, an undertaker, was given land at Drumore, Drumacarrow, and Corlurgan, near the region of Toneregie, Co Cavan. On this estate, by 1622, his family had built Bailieborough Castle, around which the town of Bailieborough grew. In 1629, his first tenants included a James Teate, at Drumbenan.
An inquisition of 10 April 1629 found that on 3 May in the 2nd year of Charles, a pole of land called Drombenan was devised to James Teate for 21 years.
It is tempting to assume that the family living at Killeter was descended from this man.
James is mentioned again in a muster roll of able-bodied men who could defend the settlers from the native Irish, in 1630, as a tenant of William Balye, undertaker, of Finlayston, Renfrewshire, with 1,000 acres in the barony of Clankee. Presumbly William Bayle is a son of Robert Bailie. This time the spelling is James Tate. Unlike most of the others mustered, he had no weapon.
Rev Faithful Teate (1600 - 1660)
This man was a Puritan (Anglican, intolerant of Catholicism) preacher, who was supposedly born in Ballyhaise, in county Cavan, in 1600, (this date for his birth, if it took place in Ireland, seems unlikely). He may well have been a son or kinsman to James Teate. He was forced to flee to Dublin during the 1641 rebellion after his home was set on fire and his wife and children wounded when it was discovered that he had supplied information to the government. Three children died of injuries.
They fled in a convoy of Protestants which included the sheriff of Monaghan, Edward Aldrich, who was killed later at Drogheda.
Rev Teate was Acing Provost of Trinity College, Dublin in 1641, but later lost the position because of his Parliamentary sympathies, and was in England in 1649.
He seems to have been dead by 12 May 1660, as his salary was paid to his children.
He was the father of Nathum Tate, who was born eleven years after his flight from Cavan. He also had sons Joseph and Faithful, and a daughter, Mary.
His son Faithful was appointed a minister during the Convention, to St Werburgh’s for a time, but he was not popular in Dublin, as in 1661, a letter from John Parker, Bishop of Elphin to John Bramhall, Archbishop of Armagh protested on behalf of bishops at court and the Lord Lieutenant, that Mr Teate 'is again permitted to preach in Dublin'. His salary was stopped on 5 February 1661, and an admonition was issued prohibiting any further preaching in the future. He died by 1672.
The other son, Joseph Teate, was at Drogheda from August to December 1654, but then travelled to England, as in April he was granted £50 to travel to Ireland. He was posted to Kilkenny, apparently as an Independent or Episcopalian minister, at the request of Henry Cromwell.
Seymour, St John D ; The Puritans in Ireland 1647 – 1661, Oxford Univ Press, 1969
Tate, Nathum (1652-1715) English poet laureate
He was born in Dublin, the son of Rev Faithful Teate, and he was educated at Trinity College. Nathum then moved to London and wrote a number of plays and adapted others. He assumed the spelling Tate. His version of Lear, to which he gave a happy ending with Cordelia marrying Edgar, superseded the original on the English stage until the 1850s. His poems, remarkable for quantity rather than merit, were mainly written for public occasions and to secure patronage from the wealthy. Dryden commissioned him to write the second part of 'Absalom and Architophel' and he had a hand in many other works, as translator, adaptor or editor. His own best poem is 'Panacea, A Poem on Tea' (1700). In collaboration with Nicholas Brady, he published a metrical version of the psalms, which included 'While shepherds watched' and 'Through all the changing scenes of life', which found a lasting place in Protestant worship. Tate succeeded Shadwell as poet laureate in 1692 and died penniless in London, in debtor’s prison, on 12 August 1715.
Other Records from Cavan
On 22 May, 1707, a William Tate took an oath of allegiance, and was made a freeman of Cavan town.
Under the Registration Act (of the Penal Laws), Rev Bernard or Bryan Brady (b. 1638), who was Catholic Vicar-General of Kilmore diocese from 1689, was required to have two sureties, members of the Established Church, to guarantee his behaviour. One of this man's sureties was a Mr William Tate of Agagalcher (or Agagoldrick), who in 1711, had his lands at Corfad, Kilnacreeva, Ardardagh and Drummuck, in Larah parish, leased from Mr Robert Saunderson.
The wills of Kilmore diocese include the following:
Samuel Teate, of Banagher, dated 1747; and Samuel Taite, gent, of Corfad, in Larah, dated 1785 - 1786.
On 1st May 1753, John Taite of Corfad leased a tenement in Cavan town to a Walter Reilly.
The Flax Growers Premium was paid in 1796 to James Tate of County Cavan, in the parish of Knockbride,.
In 1814, a survey of young Protestants living in Larah included a Robert Thate, and his children, William, Dennis, and Maria.
Freeholders in 1825 for Clonkee Barony included Thomas Tate of Drumbinnis (both residence and holding), for the lives of William, David and Thomas Tate.
James Tate, of Lisnagirrill, Kilinkere registered a gun and a sword under an enactment of 1833.
In the Diocese of Kilmore, a marriage was entered into between:
Rebecca Hicks and John Tate in 1768
In the Griffith's Valuation of Ireland, 1848-1864, are recorded the following properties:
James Tait of Mullagh, Killeter;
James Tait, Mullagh, Rosehill;
James Tate, Larah, Corfad;
John Tate, Kildrumsherdan, Killyvahan;
John Tate, Mullagh, Ardlow;
William Tate, Kildrumsherdan, Corballyquill and also at Cortober, and at Knockbride, Drumbinnis.
Of these Tates, James Tate in Corfad townland, parish of Larah, (probably descended from the same William Tate of Laragh from 1711), leased a quarter share of six acres from Alex Saunderson. William Tate in Corballyquill, Kildrumsherdan, had a house, and fifteen acres, and a further six acres at Cortober, Kildrumsherdan. John Tate had two houses, one let, and four acres at Killyvahan, Kildrumsherdan, another James Tait had 7 acres at Rosehill, Mullagh, and a William Tate with a house and thirty acres at Drumacullion in Knockbride.
Civil Registration of Births for Ireland has these records for Cavan
Tate, Elizabeth 28 Nov 1867 Crossbane, Cavan, to Patrick Taite & Anne Brady
Taite, Honor 25 Aug 1869 Crossbane, Cavan, to Patrick Taite & Anne Brady
Tate, Margaret 13 Jul 1871 Crossbane, Cavan, to Patrick Taite & Anne Brady
Tate, Agnes 31 Jan 1868 Stradone, Cavan, to James Tate & Catherine Brady
Tate, Patrick 24 Sep 1870 Stradone, Cavan, to James Tate & Catherine Brady
Tate, Bridget 12 Apr 1871 Tullyvin, Cavan, to Patrick Tate & Mary McEnroe
Tate, Terrence 2 Jul 1873 Tullyvin, Cavan, to Patrick Tate & Mary McEnroe
Tate, Mary 3 Jan 1874 Cavan, Cavan, to John Taite & Maria Flanagan
William Tate of Killeter, in the parish of Mullagh
William (born 1761) was described in the 1821 census as a farmer, with about 10 acres. This William is probably the Tate who converted to Catholicism. He was married to Judith (b. 1766), who was described as a (flax) spinner, and they had six children still living at the family home in 1821:
John born 1796, who took the land in Ardlow; James 1801, who eventually took the Killeter farm; Patrick 1802; William 1804; Sally 1806; and Anne 1809.
One of these girls, or perhaps another who had already left the home, was Bessie, great-grandmother to Eithne (nee Lynch) from Skearke, wife of Richard O'Reilly.
In 1834, William Tate (now 73, unless it is the son, William) had 13 acres, 1 rood, and 20 perches of land (9 acres of that being of first quality, the remainder of second quality) at Killeter, and John Tate his son, had 8 acres, 1 rood, and 33 perches, all of second quality, at Ardlow.
John Tate was involved in the construction of the road between Virginia (an English word; it was named in honour of the unmarried Queen, Elizabeth I, who proclaimed herself a virgin) - the Irish name is Achadh an Iúir, the yew field - and Bailieborough (which is named after the Bailie family who built a castle at Castle Lake), originally Coill an Chollaigh; (the wood of the boar).
John paid the outstanding rent on the farm at Ardlow (Ard loch; 'the lake heights' or the high ground at Cuilcagh Lake, at the other side of the townland), beside Lisnahederna (Lios na h-eadarnaidh; enclosure or fort of the ambushes).
In 1856, there is a record of a James Tait, presumably the son of William Tate, living in Killeter, Mullagh, where he had a farm of 23 acres, and 1 acre of bog. If he is the James Tate born in 1801, then he was 55 when his only son, John was born.
Also in 1856, John Tate now farmed 17 acres, leased from Anthony O'Reilly, at Ardlow.
There is an undated reference to a George Taite who lived in Main Street, Mullagh, in the house two doors on the Bailieborough Road side of the old barracks building.
James, the son of William Tate of Killeter, assumed the spelling Tait. He was recorded as dead by 1881, when his son, John Tait (b. 1856), married Margaret Carolan, also of Killeter, on 24 February of that year, when he was 25, and she was 23. Her father's name was given as Phil Carolan, and there is a Philip Carolan recorded as living in Mullagh at the time.
John Tate of Ardlow married Anne Brady of Lurgan, and they had a son Patrick (born either 1825 or 1828), who married an unrelated Anne Brady of Cornaslieve on January 30th 1867, when she was 19, his own age being given on the marriage record as over 21 (he was actually either 39 or 42, depending on which version of his date of birth is correct. He gave his age in 1901 as 70, and in 1911, as 83). John‘s land passed to Patrick by 1872, which probably means that he had died by then. Matt O’Connor replaced the landlord, Anthony O’Reilly in 1875, and the land was purchased under the Land Acts, by Patrick, who then held the property in fee from 1896.
There was another son, John, or possibly James, who was killed in the gold rush in the USA.
Patrick gave his own surname, and that of his father, as Taite, on the marriage record, although it seems to have been spelt according to the whim of the writer in some other cases.
They had these children;
Elizabeth
b. 28 Nov 1867, married John Reardon, Australia.
Honoria
b. 1 Sept 1869, went to Australia, married Ernest Davies. A daughter married Harry Blakeney, and their son was father to the twin Blakeney girls Gail and Gillian, from Australian TV.
Margaret (Maggie)
b. 13 July 1871, emigrated to Australia, and married Dennis O'Connor.
Julia
b. 1 Feb 1873, married Patrick Talty, Australia.
Annie
b. 8 Jan 1875, emigrated, and died soon after arriving in the US.
John
b. 29 Jan 1877, married Mary Anne Smith, Liverpool.
Patrick
6/7 March 1879, married Ellen Doughty, and lived at Ardlow, died in 1968.
When he died, his obituary was published in the Anglo-Celt newspaper as follows:
Death of Mr P Taite. The death occurred at St Phelim's Hospital, Cavan, of Mr Patrick Taite, Ardlow. He was 90 years of age and was a very popular and prominent member of the farming community. He served as a member on the Cavan County Committee of Agriculture for 30 years prior to 1947. He also served as an employer’s representative on the National Agricultural Wages Board from its foundation up to 1948. He was a founder member of Bailieborough Co-Op Creamery Society and a founder member of Virginia Show Society. Sympathy is extended to his sons Mr P Taite, Lisnahederna, Mr Richard Taite, Crookedwood, Co Westmeath, his daughters Mrs R Lee, Stillorgan Co Dublin, Mrs V O'Reilly, Fintona, Co Tyrone, Mrs D O'Leary, Duleek and Mrs R McIntyre, Mullingar. The funeral, which was very large, took place after 10 o'clock Requiem mass in St Mary's Church, Cross, to new cemetery Mullagh. Among the organisations represented at the funeral were the National Farmer's Association, the Cavan Horticultural Growers Association, the Bailieboro Co-Op Creamery Society and Virginia Show Committee.
Maria (Molly)
b. 6 Mar 1881, to USA 6 Oct 1900, married Patrick Hogan.
Bridget (Agatha)
b. 4 Jan 1883, to USA 23 July 1904, married Roger McGrath, on 24 November 1909.
Marcella
b. 19 May 1885, moved to Belfast on 10 Sept 1900, but returned to live at Ardlow and later married Pat Gillick.
Rosella Mary
b. 25 Sept 1887, married Mick Carolan.
Teresa
b. 13 July 1890, died as a child, 1893.