This Richard lived around Rathangan/Ballysax areas and married Margaret Morrison on 29th June 1830 in the Thomastown Church (near Rathangan) in Co. Kildare.
It is thought he was a ‘Policeman or Yeoman’ and was known as “Black Dick”, said to refer either to his complexion, or his ‘disposition’.
Not a lot is known of Richard, but a sword said to have belonged to him, is in Holmes family possession.
It is recorded that Richard Holmes was born at Cherryfield, married at Rathangan, had a son William born at Curragh Camp near Kilcullen….this would indicate the ‘mobility’ of Richard and Margaret.
Sussana Holmes was born at Ballysax Parish and baptised on 24th April 1831 making her, (should she be a sister to William) about 20 months older than her brother.
Richard Holmes died early, at 44 years of age and was buried in the Presbyterian cemetery in Athy in 1848.
[His father, Richard born 1765 was also buried at Athy, in 1845.]
Richard's wife, Margaret Holmes is recorded as being an occupant of a house owned by John Cardiff in 1852, after the death of her husband. Children in her care are not known, other than her son William N Holmes who had “run away and joined the 60th Kings Royal Rifles in Dublin.”
An extract from the Autobiography of George D Holmes;
“My good Dad told us he and his Mother and sister had been stripped naked, shunted into a barn by Catholics, to be burnt alive and spared only because of the pleadings on one Catholic, then let out and pelted all the way into Athy, three miles, with mud, stones and dirt. Their crime??
His mother had offered a glass of milk to each soldier of a company of British soldiers, who had happened to pass through the village of Kilcullen, where they lived”.
Further details on this family are not known.
