To
identify possible locations for a particular surname in a county
These tables list the names of Parish Priests, Curates, Parishes and the
nearest Post Town in 1836. While the spellings in the original may be taken
to be those of that time or the manner in which the person who wrote the
lists spelled the name phonetically, it also can be taken that there may
have been typographical errors in the original.
The placenames
as presented in 1836 have been checked as follows: The parish listing was
compared to that found in 'Thom's Directory of Ireland for the
year 1931'. Where a parish name was found to be similar to one listed
in 1836, it is given as a 'Suggestion' for the original as written in 1836.
The county in which the Post Town was located as per the 'General Alphabetical
Index to the Townlands and Towns, Parishes and Baronies of Ireland. Based
on the Census of Ireland for the Year 1851' or the listing of 'Fair
Towns in each county of Ireland in 1834' is the county listed This does
not mean that the parish was actually in that county or solely in that county.
It does however given some location for that parish. All parishes would
have had a maximum area which they covered, if we can take it that a parish
was located close to a particular town, then we can take it that while we
do not know the actual area covered by the parish, we can in a way, take
the town as the central point and from there work our way out, perhaps identifying
graveyards or churches in the area and so making our search area smaller.
In some instances,
a placename was found to occur in a number of counties or more than one
county, which was associated with that Diocese, as townland or town names.
In these cases, the location of the Post Town was taken to be that of the
placename which indicated a town. When there was no 'town' of that name
listed in the 1851 index or as a Fair Town, then it was taken that the Post
Town was in the main county asociated with that Diocese.
As has been
stated, the boundaries of any Diocese could spread from one county to another
and those of any parish could also cross county boundaries. While most Roman
Catholic Diocseses have a main county associated with them (or more than
one), they also include portions of others. A parish might be found to lie
mainly in one county and a portion of it in another. There is no listing
of counties included with each Diocese in the 1836 directory, while Thom's
Directory for 1931 gives such a listing. I have listed these counties at
the end of each page, in some instances there is no mention of the county
name or any place name which is listed as being part of that county on the
parish tables.
