Home - Matthew 1827 - Reference Notes

Notes:

from Mary McMahon  (m. Michael McMahon, daughter of Mary 1864 Nunan/Thomas Flynn

Bridget O'Neill was born in Palace Green, County Limerick, Ireland and was the only member of her family to migrate to Australia. The O'Neills and the Nunans were said to be distantly related. In about 1917 my brother Paul (Matthew Paul Flynn) while on leave from the A.I.F in France visited the then surviving brothers and sisters of Bridget who also had another brother, a priest, Fr Tom O'Neill.

Apparently the entire Nunan family migrated here at an earlier date.

Matthew had several bothers and sisters.

Matthew worked for a time on the gold fields (possibly Bendigo) while the rest of the family settled in some remote district where schools were not readily available. For some reason one sister did not attend school and only learned to read and write after her marriage to Phillip Corboy who was for some time editor of a Kilmore paper. Some descendants of the Corboys are living in the districts of Mulwala (N.S.W.) and Yarrawonga or Tungamah. The brothers of Matthew Nunan, whose Christian names I do not know , changed the spelling of their name from Nunan to Noonan.

(more to come)

from Imelda Nunan daughter of Thomas 1858...... presented at Family Reunion at Shepparton 1978

 Re: Matthew and Bridget

“ Matthew  Nunan and his wife Bridget reared their family of 5 sons and 5 daughters on a property in the district of Bylands about 4 miles from Kilmore, their main source of income  being dairying and growing potatoes. Dairying in those days was very arduous work; cows were milked by hand and milk set in wide, shallow tin dishes to set cream which was then skimmed off. Churns were a barrel shape with a handle at each end, and when butter was ‘breaking’ it was very heavy work to turn the handles. Butter was washed, salted, weighed into pounds and patted into shape with butter pats and each pound, printed with a print which denoted the farm, and was then packed in boxes and sent by rail to warehouses. A pound of butter then looked more attractive than today.

Each farm had a cellar dairy where milk was set and utensils kept. Potato growing was just the same as today. Perhaps potatoes are sown by machine now. My grandfather Matthew had 3 brothers and 3 sisters*. The name was originally Nunan, but there were so many Matts, Toms, Johns and James in the same locality, the mails at the local Post Office were continually mixed up, so Thomas, John and James decided to change their names to Noonan. Their sister Catherine did so, too. This item was told by my father to let us know why some of his family were Noonans so this is correct : there was not any rift, and all the families whether Noonan or Nunan were always very close friends. “

From Sister Carmello after 1978 Reunion

 Sr Carmello = Eileen, daughter of Matthew 1866

My great-grand-parents came from Ireland to Australia in 1843. With their son, John,14 years of age, they landed in Victoria where they took up land at Kilmore .

Matthew married Bridget O’Neill.