Today is a good day to spare a thought for my only known (so far) Irish ancestor, Ann Elizabeth Connley, my grandfather's grandmother. A family story says she spoke only Gaelic when she was married in 1855, at 20, in Ashted, near Birmingham, to a plumber in his mid-twenties who was already a widower. The record of her marriage shows that she couldn't write her name. She had at least 9 children in the following 16 years, losing two little girls before they were 10. By the time her two youngest sons reached their twenties, she was widowed herself and living with them.

These scant facts leave much to the imagination, even with what we know about Birmingham, booming in the 19th century into the second most populous area in Britain, thanks in large part to an influx of workers, including some from as far away as Ireland. The grim factories meant a future for the brass workers and gas fitters, chandelier makers and pearl button polishers. It could also mean homelessness and hunger if a breadwinner died. Her second youngest son died at 35, leaving his own six children with their destitute mother.

Here's to you, Ann.