A question about Ballydonnell and Ballylow townlands

Why not contact the Blessington Tourist Office:

https://www.facebook.com/blessingtonTouristOffice

Perhaps they can put you in touch with someone who can assist.

Have a great trip.

That is a lovely suggestion, thanks!  I have also reached out to the Blessington Historical Society and the County Wicklow Archives, as well as the Local Irish History Books store, and I have appointments with the last two which should be helpful.  Perhaps someone can put me in touch with a person with local knowledge of the townland.

Best regards,

Patricia Brady Thomas

There is a web site in Ireland which can be helpful to people who have identified a particular parish or area as relevant to their family history.  In the 1930’s, Irish schoolchildren were sent out on class projects where they interviewed mostly older people in their parish about the history and customs of the area.  Some of the interviews were conducted in English and some in Irish.  Over 250,000 interviews were conducted and they are available online at the Irish National Folklore Collection Project’s site:

https://www.duchas.ie/en

The content of the interviews varied from place to place, but they can cover local history, local place names, people known to the person being interviewed, local myths and superstitions, and other customs, such as how holidays or weddings were celebrated and even on what day of the week people customarily did their washing or baked bread.  It’s said to be the largest national folklore collection in the world, and the interviews can be fascinating.  The National Folklore Collection Project also has folklore podcasts (Blúiríní Béaloidis. or “Folklore Fragments”) which one can listen to (in English and Irish) at this site:

https://soundcloud.com/folklore_podcast

Thank you for the suggestion, Kevin.  I'd forgotten about those and the book "Beneath Poulaphuca..." refers to the Schools' Collection for the Place Names collection.  I took your suggestion, and right now I am working my way through the Valleymount Place Names, since most of the Carney family were baptized at Valleymount in the first half of the 1800's.

Best regards,

PM Thomas