Thursday 24 May 2012

Rooting for Jedward!


I admit I'm not a a great fan of the Eurovision Song Contest.  But CONDR*Ns everywhere will have reason to cheer on the Irish entry in the contest this Saturday, 26 May. For the second year in a row, Ireland will be represented by the pop duo Jedward. And Jedward (pictured above) - real names John and Edward GRIMES - are CONDRONs through their mother's side.

I don't generally blog about living CONDRONs, but as all the information here has been obtained from the web, I can say that the twins were born in October 1991 to parents John GRIMES and Susanna CONDRON. Their grandparents were Kevin and Susan CONDRON, of Lucan, and their mother Susanna is one of three sisters. Here's a picture of their granddad Kevin (front row, far right) and great-uncle Francie (front row, far left) as boys in Lucan in 1936 on making their first Holy Communion, according to the Lucan Newsletter.


If any family member, or anyone else, can tell me more about Jedward's CONDRON ancestry, I'd be interested to know.  There have been CONDRONs in Lucan - which is located west of Dublin, near the border between Co. Kildare and Co. Dublin - for more than two hundred years. According to the Lucan Newsletter, the CONDRON family came to Lucan as lock keepers of the 12th Lock on the Grand Canal in the 1750s, and generations of CONDRONs have been lock keepers there since: I plan to post a blog about this CONDRON line some time in the future. But whether the Jedward CONDRONs are related to the lock keepers I have yet to establish. Any further information on the Lucan CONDRONs would be gratefully received.

Good luck, Jedward!





2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi my great Grandfather John Ward (Co. Wexford) Married a Julia Condron born1876 From Fassaroe Co.Wicklow in 1898, moved to Cooldrinagh Lucan and had a son Patrick in 1899
1901 census link
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Dublin/Lucan/Cooldrinagh/1267455/

Witness to the marriage was a MaryAnne Condron
Julia Died in 1903 of Pythisis (TB). Present at her death was her brother Joseph Condron at 1 Bella st. Dublin
Her mothers name was Mary, a brother Joseph and sisters Sarah and Alice. Her father Patrick Condron remained to hav stayed in Gorey Co Wexford.
I would love to know if anyone has the same names in there family tree as Id like to know what happened to the family after the death of Julia and im sure the young kids in my family would be delighted if they were related to Jedward!

Michael Thompson said...

I'll let you know if I find anything about this family, Paul.
- Michael