Killucan - graveyards/records

L1011

Just wondering if anyone knows anything about the (RC) grave situation in Killucan

As far as I can tell the current Killucan Parish graveyard in Rathwire came in to use in the mid 1920s, and I've taken a look at Knockmant which, while it has one stone with 1931 on it, has so few stones and most dating to the 1830s that I assume there has to have been another graveyard in use from, say, the 1870s to the 1920s? The people I'm looking for are likely 1860s-1890s deaths.

Coralstown down the road in Kinnegad parish has plenty of 1870s+ stones, so its unlikely that the next parish over was so poor that people in general couldn't afford memorials.

Also, there doesn't seem to be a copy of the burial records for Killucan RC parish around anywhere. Does the parish itself have a copy or does it just not exist?

shanew

No death/burials included in the NLI source lists for Killucan RC parish, Co. Westmeath. This would cover up to about 1880, so there could be some after that.

Few southern RC parishes kept deaths in their registers.

shanew

There's no indication of a graveyard beside the RC Church in Rathwire on the c1900 or c1837 OSI map.

see : St. Mary's Rathwire, Killucan parish

The parish is sometimes listed as Raharney & Rathwine (Killucan). Lewis lists the R.C. parish as being 'co-extensive with that of the Established Church: there are two chapels, situated respectively at Rathwire and Rathfarne'.

I dont see a townland named Rathfarne at the moment...
According to Chapman and Hall, 1833, Rathfarne is, or was, a village in the parish of Killucan, barony of Farbill.

L1011

The graveyard is about 500 yards down the road and is on the Historic 25" but not earlier ones. Didn't think of checking those before, seeing as I was looking at them to cross-reference Griffiths that's a big oversight, oops.

shanew

there's an RC church in Killucan civil parish on the 1837 map at Crossanstown townland, not sure if that's the 2nd chapel mentioned - no mention of a Rathfarne that I see neaby

shanew

and another in the same parish at the town/townland of Raharney

from the details on Loganim it looks like Raharney and Rathfarne are one and the same - one of the Irish names listed for Raharney is Rait Féarna

L1011

That one at Crossanstown seems to disappear off the mapping around the same time Coralstown (in Kinnegad RC Parish) appears. However I seem to remember reading that they were once the same parish so it may be worth my while taking a poke around the old site too. Its physically closer to where my ancestors lived than the Knockmant graveyard is; should that have been the only one around.

Didn't manage to find an actual graveyard in Raharney but light was failing so I did give up.

Thanks for your efforts here.