Drumcliff Baptisms 1841-1879

[Sduddy]

Here is my transcription of Drumcliff parish baptisms: https://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls ... 1/mode/1up
A transcription made by Clare Roots Society has been available at https://www.ennisparish.com/genealogy/ for several years now, but I wanted to make one with sponsors and placenames, as these details can be interesting. The writing in the register is very faded in places, and whenever I found an entry that I couldn’t make out I checked the Clare Roots Society entry. The problem with this approach is that there must have been many times when I thought I had guessed the name correctly, and wasn’t aware that I should have checked. So expect plenty of mistakes. It is really important to check the original for yourself. Births after 1864 (when registration became law) can be checked on the General Registry Office site: www.irishgenealogy.ie, but I haven’t done this, except on a few occasions, and, again, I am leaving this task to the researcher.

I have omitted the list of converts on pages 276, 277 and 278.

I discovered that the Drumcliff Catholic parish register does not show records for many of the townlands in Drumcliff civil parish. The Catholic parish seems to have been confined to Clonroad Beg and Clonroad More and some other townlands close by, e.g. Cahercalla, Claureen, Drumcaran, Fountain, Lifford, Loughvella, Shanvogh, Drumcliff. The townlands in the west of the civil parish must have belonged to another Catholic parish. A parish called Inch is mentioned a couple of times. Also I think some townlands belonged to Kilmaley Catholic parish. Or was Inch a subsection of Kilmaley parish?

Sometimes the surname entered as the mother’s surname is actually that of the father. This becomes obvious when data is sorted. But, of course, sometimes the mother’s surname is the same as the father’s.

In transcribing first names I very often failed to distinguish between Mary and Margaret. This is because the priest often abbrieviated Margaret to Marg. Deciding whether the name should be Mary or Margaret is yet another task I am leaving to the researcher. Just a couple of other points on first names: Susan, Judith and Johanna are variations of the same name. And Edmund, Edward and Ned are the same name.

Almost every surname has several variations. Surnames beginning with the letter C can also begin with the letter K (e.g. Carney – Kearney). And surnames can have the prefix O, or be without it (e.g. O’Halloran – Halloran). This is not so common with the prefix Mc, but McCarthy is very often given as Carthy. Sometimes the prefix Mc is written as Ma (e. g. McGuire – Maguire; McGrath - Magrath). The number of variations becomes clear when an entry is checked both by father’s surname and by mother’s surname (e.g. it becomes clear that Finn can be spelled Fynn). Some variations are fairly obvious, e.g., Bourke – Burke, but others are less obvious. The name now usually spelled McInerney has several variations, including McNerheny and McEnerny.
Here are just few examples of variations:
Hayes, Hease, Hase.
McHugh, McKew, McCue.
Lewin, Lune
Neylon, Neylan, Nealon, Nailen.
Powell, Pol
Tymons, Timmons
Mullins, Mullen, Mullon
Noonan, Nunen.
Real, Reel, Rail, Riels, Ryals.
McKey, MacKee, MacKay.
Hehir, Haire, Hare
Pinn, Pine, Pyne

I think it is important for researchers to know that surnames were spelled in various different ways – though one could be forgiven for never guessing some of the ways - is“Knule”, for instance, a variation of Conole/Kinole, or of Newell?

I think there is only one example of a surname being thoroughly anglicized: Cunneen is given as “Rabbit” on one occasion (see baptisms of children of Charles Doherty in baptisms by father’s surname). It seems most of the anglicisation of names had already happened by the end of 18th century, or early 19th century.

And now to the placenames: Unfortunately the residence was not recorded until 1849, so there are over 2,000 entries without a placename. One placename that comes up quite often is “Clohaun” /Clahane/Cloughaun, but I don’t see it among the townlands. I am intrigued because I think the Irish must be Clachán, which is a term I see used in scholarly articles to denote a cluster of small houses, and which I’d often wondered at, never having heard the word before. I think the lovliest placename is Toberateaskan (The Flowing Well): http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... 119---.htm - it's good to see this has been retained as a placename in Ennis.

I welcome any corrections and that includes information on placenames.

Sheila

DrumcliffBaptisms1841-1879 by date.xlsx

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DrumcliffBaptisms1841-1879 by father's surname.xlsx

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DrumcliffBaptisms1841-1879 by mother's surname.xlsx

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DrumcliffBaptisms1841-1879 by residence.xlsx

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[smcarberry]

Sheila,spot on -- the additional info from the register is valuable, so thanks for again sharing your time and expertise in transcribing these. As ever, your observation on the difficulty of being 100% accurate with these handwritten, faded pages is likewise necessary and helpful. Thanks for being candid about that.

Stay well,
Sharon C.