Looking for records from County Louth-Killencoole Parish in early 1800's-who to contact?

The Catholic parish I'd suggest checking first would be the "Union of Darver" aka "Darver & Dromisken", according to Lewis' 1837 Topographical Dictionary entry for Killencoole civil parish that was the applicable Catholic parish at that time. The NLI has images of the registers for Darver RC Parish and these go back to 1787 for baptisms, quite early for Catholic records, although there could be gaps. The NLI records of Marriage only seem to go back to 1837.

I had a quick look for any marriages in the parish with the surname Lamb, about seven in total, earliest in 1849 but no Michael that I could find. There are baptisms for the surname Lamb in the parish right back to the start of the records, but I only found one where the father's name was Michael Lamb, that was a Mary Lamb bapt. 1807 with mother Bridget Coleman.

RootsIreland (pay-website) has transcripts of a small batch of earlier marriages in the parish from 1787-1841, and these include a few Lamb marriages - just one Michael to a Rose Conocher in 1823.

Most of the historic Catholic records available are included online on the National Library website, and also indexed on Ancestry and FindMyPast, and as you have seen some are on RootsIreland (transcripts only). Most parishes do not get involved in research as it can be very time consuming and they often lack the resources and manpower needed, and would probably direct people to the online records or a researcher.

The problem with research of Catholics for the early 1800s is the availablity of records - many parishes only have good records starting in the 1830s, some even later, due to improper storage or incomplete or no record keeping.

Rootate is a townland in Louth civil parish, Darver civil parish is located a bit to the east - approx. 13km, see google map.  Stonetown is located between Rootate and the village of Louth. Killencoole/Killincoole is near Darver.

Just a quick note. Th darver parish records both births and marriages are available from 1787 approx. There is an error in the NLI catalogue.

Hi Janet
My family originated in darver dromiskin so I have an interest in that area. My email address is Louismullen@gmail.com.
Any information you require just let me know.