Did Mary Gore really live for 145 years, as this commemorative plaque suggests?
QThese are two photographs relating to Mary Gore commemorated on a wall in Cirencester Hospital, Gloucestershire. One is of a plaque, the other a handwritten note about Mary.
Is it possible to verify claims of her longevity and find out any more about her? The note is rapidly fading, and will soon become illegible.
William Jackson
AThe plaque identifies Mary Gore as the daughter of Gerard Gore, Esquire, and sister of Sir Paul Gore, Baronet, of Manor Gore, County Leitrim. The writing on the note is unclear. However, it appears that she died in Dublin in 1727.
Sir Paul Gore was an AngloIrish politician who is believed to have lived from 1567 to 1629. Thus, he was 20 years older than Mary’s alleged age. He was created a baronet of Magherabegg in County Donegal. His parents are alleged to be Gerard Gore and Helen Davenant.
There is a 1571 baptism of a Paul Gore on Ancestry ( ancestry.co.uk), but the parent’s name is given only as “Gore” and it is unclear whether this is the same person (‘London, England, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538–1812’: London Metropolitan Archives, St Stephen, Walbrook).
The Lord Belmont blog gives details of the family at lordbelmontinnorthernireland. blogspot.com/2014/11/the-gore-baronets. html, but does not name Mary as one of the children of Gerard Gore. I have found no evidence of a Mary Gore born to Gerard and Helen Gore. It may be that she was a niece (or some other relation) of Paul and was born later than 1587. To find out more about her, research should be done backwards from her date of burial, and her residence before this date should be established.
A quick check of the ‘Index of Irish Wills 1484–1858’ on Findmypast ( findmypast. co.uk) reveals there was no entry for a Mary Gore before 1750 (in Carlow). However, in the website’s dataset ‘Sir Arthur Vicars, Index to the Prerogative Wills of Ireland, 1536–1810, and Supplement (1914)’, there is an entry for a Mary Gore in 1730.
Further research should be done to find any surviving headstone in Dublin, or to realise some account of her dying or living there. There are some Dublin headstone photos on the Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives website igp-web.com/IGPArchives/ire/dublin/ photos/tombstones/markers.htm. The same site also has some Dublin burial records. Emma Jolly