Magaret Lyn Walsh

Karen:

The subscription site Roots Ireland has 15 Margaret Walsh marriages across Ireland in 1822. Not sure if any of these records are for your Margaret. I could not locate a Milltown Pass and there are over 50 Castletowns across Ireland. Can you tell me which county she lived in? Do you know her husband's name?

Roger McDonnell

Hello Karen and Roger,

Some time ago I worked on a project for a person with ancestors from an area around Mullingar, County Westmeath. I came across a town called Milltownpass in Westmeath. As far as I could determine Milltownpass was in the Civil Parish of “Pass of Kilbride,” and the Catholic Parish of Rochfortbridge.

I also discovered that Milltownpass in some records is just called Milltown, though there is more than one town in County Westmeath named Milltown. See the IreAtlas entries at: https://is.gd/QGMCiv

The IreAtlas shows two Milltowns in the Civil Parish of Pass of Kilbride. These would actually refer to the same place, I suspect, and also refer to Milltownpass as well.

Karen, I don’t know if this is the Milltownpass your Margaret Lynn Walsh was from.

According to the National Library of Ireland, Rochfortbridge Catholic marriages are available online from 1816 to 1881, though there are gaps in the registers.

Rochfortbridge baptisms are available from 1847 to 1880, though again, there may be gaps in the registers.

Registers at the National Library of Ireland are free to search.

To see the dates of Rochfortbridge Catholic Parish baptisms and marriages, and to view a map of the Rochfortbridge Catholic Parish, go to the National Library of Ireland link at: https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0959

From your message Karen I’m not clear whether Margaret’s maiden name was Lynn or Walsh, but I looked for the marriage records of any one with the first name of Margaret in the Rochfortbridge Catholic Parish registers at the National Library of Ireland website. The closest I came was a marriage record for a Margaret Lynch, not Lynn. She was married in the Rochfortbridge Catholic Parish on 23 February 1830. The handwriting in the marriage record can be difficult to read in spots. It’s a challenge to tell what the groom’s first name was, but it looks like David. His last name is Walsh.

The Rochfortbridge marriage register you will see coming up includes a left-hand and a right-hand page. Each page has two columns of marriages. The marriage for the David Walsh and Margaret Lynch is in the left column of the right-hand page, 3rd entry down from the top. The marriage that follows the Walsh and Lynch marriage is under the “April 1830” subheading. You can view the marriage register at: https://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000635265#page/90/mode/1up

You can enlarge the marriage register pages by means of round icons in the upper center/ right of the screen. The icons are white with green backgrounds. You can also access the full-screen function by clicking on the last icon on the right with the two arrows pointing northeast and southwest.

The name of one of the witnesses to the marriage was “Patt Lynch.” The first name of the second witness is “Cath,” but I could not tell what her last name was.

Your records show that Margaret had married in 1822, and so the marriage I found may not refer to your Margaret Lynn, as the Walsh/Lynch marriage took place 8 years later.

Did your Margaret marry a David Walsh? If so, I found the baptisms of three of their children in the Rochfortbridge Catholic Parish, and can send these to you if you’d like.

From the link to the marriage register you can search the Rochfortbridge marriage records for 1822 and back to 1816 in case I missed finding the marriage for Margaret. For example you can access the Rochfortbridge Catholic marriage register for the year 1822 at: https://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000635265#page/78/mode/1up

Marriages for 1822 in the register begin toward the bottom of the left column of the right-hand register page. You’ll see there are no marriages record for February, March, and December of 1822. The last marriage entry for 1822 is for the November 14 marriage of John Shelly to Margaret McBride.

From an Ordnance Survey Map of Milltownpass from the 1888 to 1913 time period, I learned that the name of the Catholic Church in Milltownpass is St. Joseph’s. The map is from the GeoHive website. You can see the location of “St. Joseph’s R.C. Church” in Milltownpass on the attached map with this reply.

The church was in the same location according to another Ordnance Survey Map from the 1837 to 1842 time period, but on this map the village is just called Milltown. The church on this map is labeled, “R.C. Chapel.” The map, from GeoHive, is also attached.

You can see the location of St. Joseph’s Church on a modern Google Map. The church is located on Main Street, just east of the Mullingar Road at: https://is.gd/k9t7LW

A Google Street View of the church however, shows that the church looks to be of more recent construction, and not from the 19th century. See: https://is.gd/Qvvf0e

Unfortunately, I didn’t find information online giving a history of St. Joseph’s Church, and how far back in time it was constructed. I had looked for this information at the Archiseek and National Inventory of Architectural Heritage/Buildings of Ireland websites.

This means I don’t know if the old R.C. Chapel in Milltownpass existed from the 1822 to 1830 time period. But it may have.

An Ordnance Survey Map from the 1837 to 1842 time period does not show an R.C. Chapel in Rochfortbridge. This is an indication that the Rochfortbbridge Catholic Parish Church may have been situated in Milltownpass when your Margaret was married. The Ordnance Survey Map is attached.

The Ordnance Survey Map for Rochfortbridge does show the location of a church just below the Police Barracks, but I believe this is a Church of Ireland church, called Christ Church.

The Buildings of Ireland site shows the Catholic Church in Rochfortbridge is called, “Meedin Parish Church, Castlelost, Rochfortbridge. The church was constructed circa 1850, long after Margaret had married. Go to the Buildings of Ireland link for more information and a slide show of the exterior and interior of the church: https://is.gd/obx1zp

The church can be seen in the form of a cross in the center of a map of Rochfortbridge from the Buildings of Ireland website. There is a small green dot in the middle of the church on the map at: https://is.gd/K2Dw8A

A little over four miles west of Rochfortbridge is another R.C. Chapel in Meedian, also known as Meedin. But the Buildings of Ireland website shows this chapel was constructed circa 1831, and so would not have been the chapel where Margaret was married in 1822. See: https://is.gd/LodvPD

The Meedian/Meedin chapel was in the Civil Parish of Clonfad, but in the Catholic Parish of Rochfortbridge, according to a book by Brian Mitchell called, “A Guide To Irish Parish Registers,” published by the Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A., in 1988.

The IreAtlas also shows that Meedian was in the Civil Parish of Clonfad: https://is.gd/NTbQbk

Karen, in your message you had stated that Margaret married in Milltown Pass, but is later found in Castletown. As Roger noted there are several Casstletowns across Ireland. In Westmeath alone there are at least five towns or parishes with the name Castletown in them. The Google Map at the following link shows that locations of the towns of Castletownpass, Castletown Geoghegan, Castletown, and Castletown Delvin. The closest of these to Milltownpass is Castletown Geoghegan: https://is.gd/E85r9c

This may be the Castletown your referred to, that is, if Margaret and her husband had been from County Westmeath.

There was also a Civil Parish in Westmeath called, “Castletownkindalen.”

As Roger noted, can you provide the name of Margaret’s husband and which county they had lived in?

Kind Regards,

Dave Boylan

There are three attachments with this reply:

Milltownpass Map 1888 to 1913
Milltown Map 1837 to 1842
Rochfordbridge Map, 1837 to 1842
____

Sources Referenced In This Reply:

IreAtlas
National Library of Ireland
GeoHive
Google Maps
Google Street Views
Archiseek
National Inventory of Architectural Heritage/Buildings of Ireland