How to find Catholic parish of townland?

VirginiaB

I have a townland name but cannot figure out how to learn what Catholic parish it is in. The case in point right now is Clonbrone in the civil parish of Drumcullen. That should put it in the Catholic parish of Eglish and Drumcullen. The baptismal records, however, are in the Catholic parish of Birr and Loughkeen. This took me awhile to work out and I basically stumbled over it. There has got to be a better way.

Complicating matters considerably, Clonbrone is listed as separate townlands in two civil parishes--Birr on the one hand and Drumcullen on the other.

Is there an easy way to determine the Catholic parish of a particular townland? This problem has come up before in my research.

shanew

It depends a little on the dates as the parishes were not static - I put together this tool to find parishes based on late 1830s/early 1840s data. You can select county & civil parish to see associated Catholic Parishes. You can also search using a map which checks for nearest chapels to the selected location at the time.

Depending on which Clonbrone, I'd say Catholic Parish of either 'Birr and Loughkeen' or Eglish. Tkese parishes are adjacent so could have some overlap.

shanew

Clonebrone is really one townland, split between the two civil parishes - see : OSI Map

VirginiaB

Thanks very much for this--very helpful. I think if I had gone first to townlands.ie and noticed that there were two Clonbrones--or one split between two parishes and two dioceses--and then to your most helpful tool, I would have not wasted so much time.

This happened before in trying to find the records for ancestors in the civil parish of Clonard, Co Meath. It was several years before I contacted the Meath heritage center and Carmen there kindly told me that part of Clonard was in the Catholic parish of Kinnegad, Co Westmeath.

I'm saving your tips in my how-to doc--thanks again.

Hesh's Umpire

In my home locality I would know of townlands that straddle two Roman Cathloic parishes. I don't think it's unusual.

tabbey

Even when a townland is in one RC parish, you still have to search around, especially in Dublin suburbs, but also potentially anywhere, as the church infrastructure developed / evolved.

I had a couple of ancestors who married in Dalkey, according to the civil register. After browsing Dalkey, Kingstown, and Glasthule, I eventually found it in the register of Ballybrack.

panchosanza

shanew wrote: »

Clonebrone is really one townland, split between the two civil parishes

More accurately: Clonebrone was originally one townland split between the two civil parishes. Richard Griffith in his capacity as boundary surveyor took it upon himself to split any such townland along the parish boundary.