Looking for Michael and Eleanor Ridge Cooney

Hi Brennan.

Wow. You've got a lot of decent info to go on there, well done. How did you get it?

Cooneys were living in all three areas of the parish in the nineteenth century, namely in Lissalondoon, in Lackafinna, and in Derryhoyle. We'll need to narrow it down.

I have the parish register here and I can't see the christening in April. Have you the exact date? It'd be good to know who stood for Patrick as then I could probably tell you the specific townland and maybe even give an idea where the house was etc.

The only Cooneys buried (with headstones) in the parish appear to be twentith century.

There are no Cooneys on the tithe, however a comparison of the surviving 1821 census and the tithe (of only 4 years later) illustrates that the tithe for the parish was not as useful a record as one would have hoped (i.e. many families were ommitted from the tithe that were definitely living in the parish). Griffith's is far from fool-proof too as you probably know.

There's been a few Cooneys of note from the parish, including John Cooney who served with remarkable distinction in India and Afganistan toward the middle of the century (if the V.C. had been invented then, perhaps he'd have gotton one), and Dominick Cooney who was interned after the rising in 1916 when Moyode House was taken.

Hi!  Thanks for responding so promptly.  This information was gathered by a second cousin who traveled to Ireland in the 1970's.  I do not have any more detailed dates.  One more piece of information is that Patrick had a brother named Andrew, who married Mary Kennedy of Old Castle.  They had descendants living in Galway City in 1989.  This information is also from my cousin.  Incidentally, Patrick was the grandfather of Dr. Noel Browne.  

Brennan

Excellent stuff Brennan. Looks like we're talking about the Lissalondoon Cooneys here and the head of the clann there was Michael at the time of the Griffith Valuation, GV, 1855). The Kennedys too are an old family in the parish. Patt Kenady was living there at the time of the tithe (1825) and there's also a Michael Kennedy was on the 1821 census in neighbouring Rathgorgin. John Kennedy was there at the time of GV (1855).

Sadly, Burton Persse was their landlord so they drew the short straw there!  The population of the Persse-held lands (Moyode estate) was worst effected in the area with the population more than halving in the decade to 1851 (worse than the wider parish average of a 38% decline). Persse himself was the cliche of landlordism, as bad as you like. Best not to get started...

For the record, we're still EXTREMELY proud of Dr Noel Browne. A great man. His father was a great man too indeed (again ex-RIC, which may explain that profession that side of your family). I visited their family grave last evening :-).

S.