Christine, I usually reply to letters in a series of "quote, then reply" segments. But I don't quite know where to start on this one [gr]. Perhaps, I'll just give a bunch of comments and you can incorporate them into your collection of information (or mis-information). In your first paragraph, you mention Drombeg and, separately, Ballybunnion Parish. I'm assuming the latter is an RC parish. If so, this RC parish would have included Kinconly civil parish, but apparently only the NW part of Galey civil parish - at least, during the mid-1800's (based upon Mitchell's maps). Drombeg and Tullamore, in Galey CP, would have been included in Listowel RC parish. Incidentally, Drombeg and Tullamore townlands are abutting and have a nearly one-mile-long common border (just to suggest an additional bit of confusion.....) In your second paragraph ---- "I believe the TullaMore and TullaBeg where my Walsh's were born was in the Civil Parish of Kilconly." ---- would certainly make sense as there is no townland of Tulla Beg in Galey....only a Tullamore. And, as you would imagine, Tulla Beg and Tulla More are adjacent, abutting townlands. Then we come to another puzzle ---"I am wondering why my GGUncle Edmund Walsh born Dec 1832 to Edmund and Mary Walsh has "Gale" after Tullabeg in the address." --- I would wonder, too. By 1832, the townland names and boundaries 'should' have been established. But that was only shortly after this period of townland/parish boundary adjustments. Here's a wild scenario for you to contemplate. Before the townland boundaries were codified, the Galey Tullamore (currently, a very large townland) could have easily consisted to two townlands, Tullamore and Tullabeg. Someone proud of their having been from this now-absorbed townland of Tullabeg might have continued to identify himself with the old name, and placed "Gale" after the townland name to remind others just "which" Tullabeg he was referring to. Unlikely, I know, but Richard Griffith (who was in charge of the Boundary department of the Ordnance Survey - years before he took-over the Valuation dept.) wasn't able to start on his boundary work until 1826, so shortly after that there were probably many people who were unhappy with the results and tried to retain the traditional name of their own townland as long as possible. As far as the "Gale" mention is concerned, the civil parish got its name from the River Galey (An Gháile, in Irish, a river named after an ancient tribe [Gaille] - according to Tom Burnell's book on Anglicized Irish Placenames). I guess "Gale" would be close enough. In the last paragraph --- "In the cert the spelling of Drombeg is Drumbeg, and Mary's name 'Walsh' has been spelt 'Welsh', so perhaps the writer spelt phonetically. Or is there another explanation for the spelling variations?" --- I don't think there is any particular explanation, other than a lack of national standardized spelling, the difficulty of Anglicizing names, and regional variations. For example, Drum and Drom refer to the same Irish word, Druim.....a hill or ridge, created by glacial action. But in Kerry, there are 72 townlands starting with Drom, and none starting with Drum. In Co. Monaghan, there are 8 starting with Drom (all are Dromore) and 214 townlands starting with Drum. Quite a regional change. I seen a lot of comments over the years about the Walsh/Welsh/Welch differences, but I don't think there are any actual differences. But I'm certainly no expert on surnames. If you have other questions, drop me a line. Pete - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Pete Schermerhorn, in the glorious Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts </HTML>