Murtagh Mooney and Alice Dougherty

Judy,

I can find the 1838 marriage on Ancestry but it’s not clear to me which parish the event actually took place in. Ostensibly it’s Newry but if I search the Newry RC parish records the event is not there. The groom’s address was Loughbrickland and the bride’s Donaghmore. Loughbrickland is in the RC parish of Aghaderg  and Donaghmore is in Donoughmore parish. Apart from the fee, the record contains no other information. I have searched all 3 parishes records on the nli (National Library of Ireland) site but cannot find the event.

Here’s the marriage records for Donoughmore parish in 1838. The ones around September are illegible (faded), so it might be there but just no longer legible:

https://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000633264#page/12/mode/1up

Here’s Newry’s records for September 1838. They are much clearer and you will see that the marriage is not listed:

https://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000633287#page/110/mode/1up

The fee for the marriage was 5 shillings which appears to be fairly standard for that set of records (a few had no fee charged which suggests those couples were not very well off).

Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church which, going by the address, should have been Donoughmore but as I say I cannot find it in those records. The record on Ancestry appears to be a Diocesan record (ie kept centrally by the bishop) and comprises marriages from all over the Diocese.  So it’s not a local parish record.

RC Marriage records for that period are pretty basic. Often all you get is the date, the couple’s names and 2 witnesses. In this case even the witnesses were not recorded. You do not get parents names at that time, and so tracing back a generation without information from another source will be challenging.

I had several goes at locating Edward Mooney’s 1843 baptism but without success. I also searched for other children to that couple (you would expect there to be some) but again without success.

There was an Edward Mooney baptised in Aghaderg on 7^th Jan 1840 to parents Michael Mooney & Alice Mooney (ie her maiden name was also Mooney). That was the nearest I could find.

Loughbrickland is a small town between Banbridge and Newry on the modern A1 road from Belfast to Dublin. Donaghmore is a small area a few miles north of Newry, again not far from the A1 road. Loughbrickland to Donaghmore is about 10 miles, perhaps less.