The Cuffs or Cuffes

The Cuff/Cuffe history is short with many gaps, which is perhaps not unusual for Irish Protestants.  A biography of Mayor John E. Cuff from an undated newspaper clipping¹ states that his parents were natives of County Mayo, Ireland.  Since John E. was alive at the time of the biography, this information may be correct, although lacking a specific location in County Mayo.

Cuff/Cuffe is not an uncommon name in County Mayo, where Cuffes (at least some Cuffes) were members of the nobility.  Letters of “Norah” on Her Tour Through Ireland² gives the following description of a town in County Mayo:

Ballinrobe, on the river Robe, is near Lough Mask, and is another quiet, pretty, leisurely little town.  I was troubled with neuralgia and did not see much of it.  Opposite the hotel was the minister’s residence, amid gardens, all shut in behind a stone wall high enough for a rampart.  Through an archway from the street was the church where he ministered, sitting meditating among the tombs.  I wandered into this place one day on my way to the post-office.  Noticed the great number of the name of Cuffe who were buried there.  Cuffe is the family name of Lord Tyrawley.

“Elected Municipal Councils of St. Catharines”³ notes: “John Cuff always signed without ‘e’. His tombstone shows the ‘e’.”  It is possible that the (implied) association with Irish nobility prompted the family (possibly the unmarried daughters) to change the spelling of their name from Cuff to Cuffe.  Emma Cuffe, one of the daughters, kept a scrapbook that included clippings about Otway Seymour Cuffe, Earl of Desart and mayor of Kilkenny and Hugh Cuffe who was given 6000 acres in County Cork by Queen Elizabeth.  Of course, this suggestion is mere speculation.  As Amy Tan wrote, “We are all unreliable narrators when it comes to speaking for the dead.”⁴

Acknowledgements:  Thanks to Bill Stark, Jr. for photographs of Catherine Cuff(e) and John Evers Cuff(e) and to Bev Byers for copies of newspaper clippings from Emma Cuffe's scrapbook.

Footnotes

1 Apparently published upon his re-election as mayor of St. Catharines, Ontario

2 McDougall, Margaret D. 1882.  Letters of “Norah” on Her Tour Through Ireland: being a series of letters to the Montreal “Witness” as special correspondent to Ireland.  Montreal: Published by public subscription as a token of respect by the Irishmen of Canada.  [Online] at Early Canadiana Online www.canadiana.org.  Accessed July 7, 2002.

3 Anonymous.  2018.  Elected Municipal Councils of St. Catharines 1845 – 2018.  [Online] https://www.stcatharines.ca/en/governin/resources/ElectedMunicipalCouncils1845.pdf.  Accessed January 28, 2018.

4 Tan, A.  2017.  Where the Past Begins.  New York: HarperCollins Publishers.