Is there a web site for Births, deaths, marriages for Skibbereen Cork County Ireland. Is there just one Catholic church in Skibbereen or are there more than one. If so what are their names and address's. Are there any web sites for Skibbereen and if so what are they? Why is it so hard to get any information from Ireland? They have a lot of computer's over there and many people that set up web pages. They are some of the best.when it comes to program a computer for any business. Sully

Sully, Check my web site for some of the answers. www.westcork.homestead.com You have to understand a few things about the various land divisions in Ireland before making any broad statements. I am no expert in this area but a general consensus follows.You have to differentiate between townland, village, town, civil parish, religious parish and registration district. A townland can range from about 50 acres to over 2000 acres and is handed down from the old tribal system where the sons inherited. This changed in time to primo-geniture where only the eldest son inherited because tribal property was broken up into too many small divisions. The village and/or the town can sometimes be the same name as the townland in which they are placed. The civil parish, religious parish and the registration district can also have the same name as the largest town. In the case of Skibbereen this is only true for the last three but there can still be a problem with the religious parish names. Skibbereen religious parish, at one time the seat of the Catholic Bishop of Ross, encompassed many surrounding small religious parishes and still does today, but Skibbereen civil parish has a totally different set of boundaries. In most cases the Church of Ireland parish was the same as the civil parish because of British rule in Ireland and the establishment of that church as the primary one at that time. In fact most of the appointments and disbursements in the Church of Ireland were controlled by the government and/or its minions and having the same boundaries simplified their accounting practices. The you have the Skibbereen Registration District which covers from the Mizen Head (Goleen area) in the West, almost to Macroom and Bandon in the North, and to Clonakilty in the East. You can see how it may be confusing. Then when you come to townlands there can be up to 6 or 7 of the same name in the same registration district so you have to know the civil parish name also to find the correct townland. Without at least a civil parish you have no hope of finding information unless the name is particularly unique. West Cork does not have a genealogy center yet although there is some small progress in that direction. There is no web site for births, deaths and marriages other than the one I am attempting to build through the kindnesses of people who have done research and contributed and my own endeavors. If you want specific information about the various addresses of churches go to www.sci.net.au/userpages/mgrogan/cork/ire.cork.htm For townlands and civil parishes go to www.seanruad.com Bill Fahy