Early Catholic Parish Records for Templeshanbo?

Also,  I am wondering if anyone knows a little about the history of the area and can solve a little mystery for me.  Jack's sons could read and write Latin, and seem to have been well educated, one of them was even published here in the US for a journal he wrote about living near the native american tribe in a remote area of Washington State.  They were catholic, and they were rebels; and I was under the impression that formal education was not available in the early 1800s.  I and am wondering where they might have gone to school. 

Thanks again!

Karen

Also, are there any comprehensive histories or sources bout the characters involved in the 1798 rebellion?  I had expanded my research to books because I was hitting a dead end in my Kavanagh research, and found a passing reference to a Capt. Morgan Kavanagh on the rebel side who was Catholic.  There wasn't much information about him, but since he had the right name and my Morgan would have been in his late 30's at that time I thought it might be a lead worth following. 

Karen

Karen,

The civil parish of Templeshanbo is in the RC parish of Enniscorthy. The earliest records date back to 1794. You can see the details of what exists and where copies are kept on this link:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/browse/counties/rcmaps/

I have no specific knowledge of the Enniscorthy records but in a general answer to your question about whether there are earlier records waiting to be transcribed, I would say the answer is almost certainly no. In fact for a rural parish to have records for the 1700s at all is a bonus. Many parishes didn?t start keeping records till the 1820s or later.

The background, as I am sure you are broadly aware, is that the penal law times (c 1650 ? 1749) imposed a whole range of restrictions on people who were not Church of Ireland. So Catholics couldn?t train new priests in Ireland, nor build new churches etc. Those laws were gradually repealed and from 1749 onwards there were few religious restrictions. However it took time to get new priests trained, fund and build churches and generally re-establish the administration needed to become a fully functioning church again. From a background where there were insufficient priests and churches and in a climate where it had been illegal to go to mass (and consequently it was often performed secretly in the open in some remote location) etc, priests would have had neither the facilities to keep baptism and marriage records nor probably the inclination to maintain them. Such records might be seen as incriminating for priest and parishioner alike. I think it was only once new churches were built and open (ie late 1700s) that records began to be kept.

Regarding your ancestors knowledge of Latin, that suggests higher level education. That might have come from a private tutor if his family were sufficiently well off. Alternatively, perhaps he had begun to train as a priest? If so he might have trained in France or Rome. That?s just a guess but would explain a knowledge of Latin. Maynooth was founded by Act of Parliament in 1795 but I am not sure whether there were any other formal options for training a priest in Ireland prior to that. Which is why training in another country might have been involved. (That?s where most of the RC priests in Ireland in the 1700s were trained).

Elwyn

Elwyn,

Now that you have explained it to me, it seems obvious why parish records didn't exist.  Thank you for the history lesson.  Thank you for the link.  I might not be able to find Morgan, but maybe I can find the names of the daughters who did not come to Canada.  I can't imagine that they had the money for a tutor, but perhaps a member of their family was a priest and he taught them.  I only know that the landlord or employer of one of the sons sponsored their initial trip, and that the Jack returned home to bring the remaining sons to Canada.

Regarding education, I have been very surprised by my research.  The few legal doucments that I have found from the first generation here in the states, revealed that my Dooley ancestors from Rathdowney had beautiful penmanship and fluency.  I know that my Rathdowney ancestors were very poor, but they were an amazing generation.  The Dooley's worked long enough to buy a few oxen and some grain and then headed out to the wilderness and made themselves into landholders and prosperous farmers.  The Kavanaghs made a raft in order to travel the river and find their land.  They somehow survived the first few frigid winters until they could clear enough land to grow food.

Thank you so very much for your help.

Karen

Hi Karen,

Cantwells Memorial of the Dead (Wexford) are graveyard transcribtions from headstones.

I have a look at Templeshambo, and while there are Kavanagh's buried there, no Morgan.

There is a John Kavanagh from 1765 (64)

and Dennis Kavanagh 1799  (54)

plus a few others.

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Jack Mc Donald

Hi Jack,

Thank you for looking!  I will follow up on that lead.

Karen