Catherine (Ryan) Treston, 1916 Rebel

Cumann na mBan members, 1916 (Richmond Barracks)

As Treston is one of my Irish ancestral names, and not a particularly common one at that, it caught my eye when I saw a Treston on a list of women participants in the 1916 Easter Rising.  I investigated, and though this particular Treston turned out to be a distant relative by marriage and not by blood, what I found is still pretty interesting.

According to the records of Richmond Barracks, Catherine "Cathleen" Treston, née Ryan, was a member of Cumann na mBan's Central Branch, and had been a nurse in the GPO garrison during the Rising.  She was detained in both Richmond Barracks and Kilmainham Gaol in the aftermath, and presumed to have been released on the 8th of May, though the Kilmainham records from this period have been lost.  She is present in the group photo here, taken in the summer of 1916 in the garden of Ely O'Carroll.  The woman in all white in the next to last row, wearing what appears to be a white nurse's cap, has been identified as Mrs. Catherine (Cathleen) Treston.  Cathleen would have been about 26 years old in 1916, going by her age in the 1911 census.  Her name is included in the 1936 Roll of Honour of participants in the Rising.

The 1911 census tells us a little about her home life in the years leading up to the Rising.  She was married to a dentist, William Treston, and was already the mother of two infant daughters.  She and her family lived with her widowed mother, two sisters who taught at the National School, and an aunt in a house in Ballybough Road.  Her husband's family, from what I can tell, descend from the Blackrock branch of the Treston family, who originated at some point in Mayo and are distantly related to mine.  So while Cathleen herself was not a cousin of mine, her husband and daughters certainly were, albeit distantly.

Sources:
Richmond Barracks, A list of women who were detained at Richmond Barracks
National Museum of Ireland, Women of the Roll of Honour
Sinéad McCoole, No Ordinary Women: Irish Female Activists in the Revolutionary Years, 1900-1923