One of the most simple, and yet the most complicated thigs to try and explain to people who are not familiar with land divisions and the 'lay of the land', so to speak. The Civil Parish and the Roman Catholic parish are two different 'parishes' within the same area. The Church of Ireland parish will normally contain the same townlands as the Civil Parish, but the Roman Catholic Parish in most cases does not. The Roman Catholic Parish will quite often include townlands from a number of 'Civil' parishes I think, the easiest way that any person can 'visualise' the differences is to take 2 or three sheets of different coloured paper and place them beside one another. Give each coloured sheet a name - and make it a civil parish. Then, take another sheet of paper, different colour, cut it into a triangular shape and place it on top of your other sheets. That's your Roman Catholic Parish - it takes in areas in your two to three civil parishes, which are the other coloured papers. Now, a few things you need to remember. The man got married in the woman's parish There was more than one famine in Ireland and Priests/Vicars/Rectors were not immune to all the diseases or plagues that occurred. Matter of fact, these and the Doctors would have been the most exposed to disease - and they died. When the local priest died, and if there was for example a Cholera outbreak in the country, then priest in other localities were dying as well and there would have been no-one to baptise children or marry adults - maybe then, they went to close by parishes, parishes that weren't their own. MAybe the Bishop announced that was what they should do. So, you need to watch out for that as well. Don't ignore religious parishes that lie beside the one you are interested in. Sorry, I hadn't meant to say anything more than to just try and explain the Civil parish and R.C. parish with coloured paper. Jane