Former Church site Dromote Bantry

DNA evidence questioning how many of the O’Mahonys, McCarthys, O’Donovans migrating to West Cork c 1250 AD are of the families.

Recent advances in DNA is calling into question the presumptions of genealogy. In essence families such as the above were displaced by the Normans from South Tipperary and Limerick and migrated to West Cork.
Everybody with the name assumed that they are of the migrating families. Looking at the genetic evidence it appears as if some if not a lot ave marked more associated with the pre existing population in West Cork.

What may have happened is that the migration did take place but perhaps of an elite in the manner of the Celts. The local people where they med to them emulated them taking on their names.

Patterns of intermarriage between Affluent Crypto-Catholic Families in 18th Century Cork.

A diverse group of Cork families such as the Galweys/Galways, Meads, Roynanes, Cotters, Coppingers, Terrys, Skiddys, from a diverse background including Gaelic, Hiberno-Norse, Norman as Catholic would appear to have lost all in the upheavals of the 17th century. These families were either merchants in the city or landowners in the county excluding West Cork.

Many of the families had branches when in the course of the 18th century conformed to the Church of Ireland and embraced Protestantism and renounced the ‘Errors of Popery’.

There were contemporaneous complaints from enforcers and supporters of the Penal Laws of the activities of ‘Crypto-Catholics’ who used the fig leaf of conformity for conveyancing and professional purposes. In Dublin in the Legal Profession in particular, there were complains that prominent lawyers had wives who had chapels in the house and priest openly calling.

The Convert Rolls still extant probably underestimate the numbers conforming. Looking at some of the names the conformity is often concurrent with the dating of wills:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12-TQFfRKt_p6AGtxLaHODge_ReszztDcE-NFF1626_c/edit#gid=0

It is possible to broadly track families such as the Galweys from 1250 and it is remarkable how prevalent the family and others are to the present day in land ownership, the legal profession and as merchants.

In West Cork certain Protestant families acted as trustees to hold Catholic lands including the Townsends for the O’Heas and the O’Donovans were also such beneficiaries. In Cork City the Tuckeys acted for Nagle in respect of Blackrock lands in the tithe books of St. Finbarr’s Cathedral in the 1780s Tuckeys Land appears as a townland in Ballinure.

In Dublin there were a number of Attorneys who used the actual legal provision of the Penal Laws to circumvent the in conveyancing. Among those from a legal background who had fathers who conformed were Edmund Burke and Lord Clare (Jack Fitzgibbon).

Looking at Herbert Gillman’s marriage index it is apparent that many of the families mentioned continued to intermarry:

https://drive.google.com/drive/my-drive

It is also interesting that many of the Planter families have a line of ancestor which is Gaelic or Norman even if Protestant, such as the McCarthys to the Bandon Bernards and Dunmanway Shouldhams and Ballineen Welbys, The O’Donovan/Beecher connection, Galwey/Townsend. From early on the O’Sullivans are intermarried everywhere especially in Bandon and Cork City.

https://www.google.ie/maps/@51.8925248,-8.4837764,17z

It is interesting loking at this abstract.

The church records which have survive for St. Finbar’s Cathedral and St. Peters Church of Ireland are replete with names originating i West Cork. Time and again you come across Jagoes, Attridges etc. It also seemed to be common for couples to come to Cork to marry and presumable spend a few days of a honeymoon there.

Re butter making, John Jagoe of Bantry whose father was from Dunmanway reputedly ran a shop for a while in Bandon Road/Barrack St.

Evidence of John Jagoe, (Grandfather of Mother Benigna, Australia and Father of John Jagoe BL), Bantry, Co. Cork, 1837 re Manor Courts to Parliamentary Commission.

Another name that keeps cropping up is the O’Leary family of Glasheen. Though Protestant they are most likely to be the same line as the Art O’Leary rebel of Raleigh, Macroom also lawyers.

Up to recently the area to the west of the city was the first pot of call for people from the west.

Richard Caulfield, (1823-1887), Cork Antiquarian, Scholar and the Transcription of Burials from the 1748-1764 and 11th February 1764 of the Church Records, Cork City, 1877

Dr Richard Caulfield, Antiquarian Librarian of Queen College now UCC, Cork mother Catherine Gosnell probably from Schull by J.P. McCarthy 1987:

Up to 1870 the (Protestant) Church of Ireland was the Irish State Church. Apart from religion it administered legal functions such as Probable and the regulation of marriage with its own internal legal system.

The format for Marriage was an application for a Marriage License Bond. Some Catholics applied for MLBs for legal purposes or because of the Penal Laws and may have got married in Protestant Churches. There are a very large number of ‘Catholic’ names in the surviving registers.

This was expensive and as most Cork Protestant were labourers, artisan or small farmer the popular method was Bans where the proposed marriage was read out three times at service.

Of the  jurisdiction of Cork Consistory Court:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FWBV3gRAeVpYqD5Nlq9j4by9xQGww9Y141pT1mZshpA/edit

The litigation arose from the marriage of White/Dillon. Presumable he impregnated her and went through a marriage ceremony. He then applied to re marry and her legal advisors issued a caveat at the Cork Consistory Court to prevent the purported bigamous marriage. A Case to counsel was prepared. The case would have major implication as the proper entitlement of heirs was at stake. This will be posted shortly.

The Dillons were influential in Bantry/Durrus the main line was Catholic. There is a very large tomb in Moulivard Graveyard (Durrus East).  One was Master of the workhouse, another Thomas a Poor Law Guardian and Council member the funeral of his wife nee Roycroft in 1892 was enormous:

1892. Immense Funeral of Mrs Thomas Dillon, nee Roycroft, Husband Thomas Poor Law Guardian (PLG) Bantry, Obituary a Who’s Who of West Cork.

The vast bulk of the records were destroyed in the Public Records in 1922.

However the great Australian born, Cork antiquarian Herbert Gillman (1832-98):

Herbert Webb Gillman, BL, JP, Cork Antiquarian, in 1892 ‘The writer takes the opportunity of expressing his opinion that the greater part of our County Histories in Ireland can be, and indeed ought to be, rewritten in the light of the documents of late being made readily available by the Public Record Office. It is a Department of which any Nation ought to be justly proud; and the work done in arranging, indexing and editing by the able officers engage there, so well by their courtesy and ready help, afforded freely to all comers are beyond praise.

Herbert Webb Gillman (1832-1898), Clonteadmore, Coachford, Co. Cork, Judge Ceylon, Antiquarian, Authority on Castles of Co. Cork and Author of Index to the Licence Bonds of Cork and Ross.

copied the abstract before destruction and they are reproduced here

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6hnQGE3ANjzaE5yemFTbEZTMkk/view?ts=560a8f7a

..

 

 

 

 

..
: