"The Quigley's in hundreds there you could find" - at the wedding of Edward Canny

The Wedding of Edward Canny

Published on page 19 of the 13 March 1925 issue of the Southern Cross newspaper in South Australia was a poem, which was originally printed 50 years previously.   The tune can only be guessed at, but the words give a sense of the  gaiety of the event and family connections of those celebrating the wedding of Edward Canny.

The entry begins with the following statement - "We have been requested to reprint the following poem, which will be of interest to many of the old settlers in the district and their descendants."  

No details are given as to who requested the reprint, or where the copy was obtained. The writer states that "the music and words are by Billy and Edward Carne."  I wonder if "Carne" is actually Canny.           

Edward was actually Edmund Canny, born in County Clare, Ireland in about 1842, the son of William Canny and Bridget Quigley.

Edmund married Margaret Dundon on 23 July 1873 at the Catholic Presbytery in Kapunda. Margaret was the daughter of Michael Dundon and Bridget McGrath.

Edmund's mother Bridget Quigley was the sister of my third great-grandfather, Thomas Quigley, which makes Edmund my 1st cousin, 4 times removed.

The family lived in an area of Kapunda called "Bakers Flat," which was an Irish Catholic enclave settled in the 1840's on land near the copper mine.  It was estimated that up to 100 families, or 500 people, were living there at one time. 

The families apparently carried on many Irish customs, and an article in the Southern Cross newspaper, 6 November 1936 records a memory -

Hurling, the Irish national pastime, was indulged in every Sunday afternoon. Concertinas, fiddles, and flutes were brought into action every evening, and the boys and girls "took the floor" for a jig or a hornpipe. The dancing floor was the virgin soil, flat and smooth, and hard as cement from the thousands of feet that gaily " kept the time" to the piper's or fiddler's tune.

It isn't stated in the paper, but it is likely that the wedding party was held on the hard dirt of the "dancing floor" at Baker's Flat.

The post The Quigley Family - from Kilfenora details the seven Quigley siblings who travelled from Kilfenora in County Clare to settle in Kapunda between 1854 and 1865. 

Those siblings and their offspring were certainly some of "the Quigley's in hundreds there you could find" at the wedding of Edward Canny.

Here is a link to the newspaper article - from the National Archives of Australia (NAA) Trove site - ("Southern Cross" 13 March 1925 p19 - near the top of the 2nd column from the right.)

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/167750828?searchTerm=wedding%20edward%20canny