I was asked about Irish church records this morning and there were lots of questions I couldn’t answer. In England there was a long time when the various penal laws operated rigidly; priests were hung drawn and quartered or burnt at the stake, there were lynchings, anti-Catholic riots, all that. Then they began to be less strictly enforced and so on till we got down to the Restoration of the Hierarchy in England in 1850. Although that had repercussions, with anti-Popery rhetoric inspiring rioting and deaths. And really you don’t get many Catholic churches before then, just an odd one. So the gentry had private chapels and the local Catholics would worship there, and there were travelling priests and so on. And records were a bit hit and miss. The parish I attended as a child has very good records, going back to the mid-1700s, although the church wasn’t built till 1851 – which is pretty early. But that was Lancashire and we pride ourselves on being Recusants [imprisoned or fined for non-attendance at the local C of E] – it was the worst county in England for it in Penal times. Anyway. I don’t know how Irish Catholics managed under the same circumstances and I would be very grateful if someone would explain to me. Thank you very much Margaret

Margaret~       My family asks the same question, how did our family whose descendants still reside in Mayo and Wexford maintain their faith, keep the property they leased. buying it in the 1870s.  The Famine itself in Mayo.  I have a book, published by the Castlebar County Library about 5 yrs. ago which is newspaper articles of the Famine time.  In many of them, mentioning the names of families who died, the landlords who put people out with the names of the families.       Reading the story of the '98 Rebellion in Wexford, how was my husband;s family able to keep the homeplace which was a large holding pre '98 Rebellion?.         We have found many sacramental records back to 1803 for family in Wexford.  In Mayo, we have them back to 1820 and in County Waterford back to 1812.         There are churches in the Diocese of Tuam which go back way before 1850.  Not  large number but they are there.  However, pre 1800 takes a lot of research and as you say, certainly not complete or numerous.         My problem is County Clare.  Have one civil birth record from Ennis Town for 1864, but my ancestors from Smithstown, Lower Bunratty, one and in Ennis Town, Mill St. before that for sacramental records are no where to be found.  Once my g grandmother and her sister emigrated, they can be found in Civil Records in Australia and USA.  Perhaps someday. Mary Ellen Chambers Lakewood, OH ________________________________ From: Margaret Garthwaite <[email protected]> To: Clare List <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, March 17, 2011 2:02:00 PM Subject: [IRL-CLARE] Irish Catholic church pre-1800 I was asked about Irish church records this morning and there were lots of questions I couldn’t answer. In England there was a long time when the various penal laws operated rigidly; priests were hung drawn and quartered or burnt at the stake, there were lynchings, anti-Catholic riots, all that. Then they began to be less strictly enforced and so on till we got down to the Restoration of the Hierarchy in England in 1850. Although that had repercussions, with anti-Popery rhetoric inspiring rioting and deaths. And really you don’t get many Catholic churches before then, just an odd one. So the gentry had private chapels and the local Catholics would worship there, and there were travelling priests and so on. And records were a bit hit and miss. The parish I attended as a child has very good records, going back to the mid-1700s, although the church wasn’t built till 1851 – which is pretty early. But that was Lancashire and we pride ourselves on being Recusants [imprisoned or fined for non-attendance at the local C of E] – it was the worst county in England for it in Penal times. Anyway. I don’t know how Irish Catholics managed under the same circumstances and I would be very grateful if someone would explain to me. Thank you very much Margaret ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message