Creagh, Moore, Ballinasloe, Kilcashel - Understanding locations

The first three entries you've posted look like details from the extracted civil births collection on FamilySearch - these are partial extracts and often just include a registration district, county or sometimes just Ireland as place of birth. The number preceding the location is usually the register page number, and in this case Creagh is the name of a civil registration subdistrict  within Ballinasloe registration district which covered parts of County Roscommon and County Galway. Many of the entries in this collection include a misleading caption of 'Christening date' - this detail is not included in civil birth records.

The full civil births are all available free on the IrishGenealogy website, e.g. Bridget Dolan born 23 October 1865 - if you view the register image you can see the page number 28 on the top left. The district and county detail are noted at the top of the page - Co. Roscommon, Superintendent Registrar's District (Registration District or Poor Law Union)  : Ballinasloe, Registrar's District (sub-District) : Creagh.

Father's occupation is shown as Farmer, the place of birth would normally be noted under the date of birth, but is not noted for Bridget, but is noted under father's usual residence - it appears to be "Lowtown Kilcastle Moore", Moore being the civil parish in Co. Roscommon, and Lowtown Kilcashel is a townland in the parish (Kilcastle is probably a local variation of Kilcashel).

details of the other births to this couple :

  Margaret Dolan born 11th February 1867 - see page no. 32 top left. born Kilcashel, Moore (i.e. Kilcashel townland, Moore civil parish)

  Patrick Dolan born 7th April 1870 -   page 36, born Kilcastle, Moore 

  Anne Dolan born 18th May 1873 - page 31, born Kilcastle, Moore

  James Dolan born 16th March 1875 - page 31, born Kilcastle, Moore

  Elizabeth Dolan born 8th September 1877, page 25, born Kilcastle, Moore

The placename database has the townland  listed as 'Lowtown Kilcashel' and their entry for this townland includes a map.  Townlands are still in use and are used as part of the postal address.

I checked for baptisms of these children but the only one I was able to locate was Elizabeth who was baptised on the 22nd September 1877 in Moore Catholic Parish - see entry 85 on the right hand page (NLI Catholic Register images). There were two chapels in this parish going back as far as at least the 1830s, one at Moore and a second at Clonfad, but the parish only has written baptism records going back to the mid 1870s, which would likely explain why none of the other baptisms could be located.
 

Hi ShaneW147 - thank you for your prompt response.  I have done most of my research via Ancestry.com, familysearch.org and IrishGenealogy along with family tree info from relatives.  The names of places gets confusing but the more questions I ask, it is getting easier to understand.  What I don't understand is why do these family members show up in Ballinasloe, Registrar's District (sub-District) - Creagh?  This seems to be Co Galway.  I do understand the whole recordkeeping process is not exact especially in the earlier days.  If Lowtown Kilcashel is a townland, is Athlone the town closest to Lowtown Kilcashel or is it Ballinasloe?

In present day, is it Lowtown Kilcashel or Lowtown Kilcastle?   ( I see there is an Oldtown and Newtown too)

How populated is the area now? 

How does a civil parish compare to a town like Killarney or are they the same?

Moore is the Civil Parish: I'm led to believe there is a Moore North and Moore South.  Why did they split them?

I have a contact in Killarney TIO and she advised that I contact Athlone TIO.  I did reach out and asked about family search for Lowtown Kilcashel and the woman I was in contact with gave me St Mary's Church Moore and the Moore Community Office.  I would like to try to find out what families are still there and if there are any Dolan, Kenny or Kelly Families still living in the area.  Before I do that I need to have a better feel of the townlands/towns.  I would like to reach out and see if there might be someone from my family that might be the family historian.  I found my Cronin cousins in Knockmanagh/Knocknahoe, Killarney, Kerry and sure enough found a couple of cousins who are historians who have helped me sort through the logistics within the family.  I then visited with them.  I'd like to do the same with the Dolans/Kellys/Kennys.

Best,

Regina

There are restrictions on details of living people so there's no way to find details of the population of the area now, but at the time of the 1901 census the townland is listed as 'Lowtown Kilcashel', and at that time there were 12 households, including 4 households that included Dolans. Total population of the townland at the time of the 1901 census was 85.

The townland of 'Lowtown Kilcashel' is closer to Ballinasloe, Co. Galway than Athlone Westmeath/Roscommon, Ballinasloe appears to be the closest town.

Moore is the name of the civil parish, and also the name of the corresponding Catholic Parish (Many Catholic parishes include parts of a number of civil parishes).

Moore civil parish is in Co. Roscommon and is contains 45 townlands, including 'Lowtown Kilcashel', which consists of just over 939 acres. The civil parish also includes two townlands named Moore South and Moore North - many civil parishes have townlands of the same name as the parish, it's often where the original Established Church (i.e. Church of Ireland) was located. Moore civil parish also contains townlands of 'Oldtown Kilcashel', 'Kilcashel Dolanstown' aka 'Dolanstown Kilcashel', the parish had no towns but did include two villages - Ballydangan in the townland of the same name, and 'Old Town' in Cloonfad townland.

With regard to the Registration Districts - The registration district for the records I mentioned above is Ballinasloe, and this district covered parts of counties Roscommon and County Galway, Creagh Sub-District is part of this overall district and it covers parts of Co. Roscommon only.

There's currently St. Mary's Church Moore, at or close to the location of the original Chapel near Moore townlands.

If you wish to learn about the various Land Divisions in Ireland have a look at the page on Irish Land Divisions at Claire Samtry's Irish Genealogy Toolkit website.

a very basic outline of the important land divisions is as follows (from largest to smallest) :

Province (4)
County (32)
Barony (~330)
Civil Parish (~2500)
Townland (~64,000)

(the numbers for some of the elements are approximate - as there are overlaps, e.g. civil parishes extending over parts of more than one county, townlands extending over more than one civil parish or barony - or both etc.)

Towns and villages are within townlands, often towns are in a townland of the same name.

In addition the the basic divisions are the ecclesistaical  Diocese and parishes - Catholic and Church of Ireland (the Church of Ireland parishes often correspond with the civil parish of the same name), the Registration Districts/Poor Law Unions and Sub-Districts, and also Electoral Districts (Deds).

Shane - after sending off that post, I spent the whole afternoon going though all the civil parishes in Co Roscommon then went through all the townlands in Moore.  I came across the common surnames in Moore:  #1 Kenny, #2 Kelly and #3 Dolan.  I'm probably related to everyone!  Well I have a lot of pokers in the fire and know that at some point things will come together.  Appeciate Ireland XO being so supportive.

Regina

Regina,

I am researching Kennys in Moore. Came across your post asking the same questions to myself.

I can be reached at Avignonmike@icloud.com. Stay safe, Mike Kenny 

Hi Mike - funny that you should email me.  I emailed you at avignonmike@icloud.com along with Peter Kenny, last Thursday, May 21, 2020 after seeing your post on FaceBook about Kenny's from Moore, Co Roscommon.  My great great grandmother was Mary Kenny b. abt 1840.  She married Thomas Dolan.  If you can check out my email, I shared a lot of information plus included some attachments.  Take a look and let me know what you think.  My email is walsh.rr@comcast.net.  Would love to know more about the Kennys.

Best,

Regina Cronin Walsh

Hi. So I am from Kilcastle!  The four Kilcashels today is commonly referred to as Upper Kilcastle (which was Oldtown), Lower Kilcastle (which was Newtown) and Dolanstown and Lowtown  (neither of which have kept their Kilcastle link in their name except on official documents).   There is a pair of Dolan families in Lowtown now who are closely related - the two fathers were brothers and both their farms border my brother's.  One of their sisters married my uncle.  If you mail me your email address I will send it on to my cousins who may know more about the Dolan side of their family's    Adrian.flynn@yahoo.co.uk

Moore is a civil and RC religious parish. It contains some townslands including Moore South and Moore North - the parish was named Moore as that is where the church was.   The RC church was reproduced after the penal laws were eased in Loughnalacha commonly called Lakeland today. The Anglican Church was in Newtown Kilcashel - Lower Kilcastle commonly today - but closed years ago and was knocked down in a road widening scheme in the 70's.   Creagh is a nearby area in the Parish of Creagh and Kilcloony. Creagh like Moore is in Co Roscommon. Kilcloony is in Co Galway. The parish of C and K contains the town of Ballinasloe.  In lots of official purposes lots of East Galway and South West Roscommon gets pooled into a Ballinasloe District for example for the PoorLaw Union etc.  Today the townland of Ballydangan -the smallest in the Parish is perhaps best know  outside the area as it was the original site of the post office.  There was also a post office in Oldtown.  Neither are villages. Ballydangan for example has one pub, the publican's house and one other rental house.  However as these were the townslands where the post offices were set up at first, those are the areas listed in the addresses of everyone in the parish.   Even when the post office moved first to Upper a Kilcastle, then Lakeland and the Dolanstown, amd finally closed the address remained Ballydangan.  Finally both of the post offices were attached to Athlone Main Post Office which is in the official county of Westmeath (though in a part that historically was Roscommon).  As the Main PO has a Westmeath address, so do it's sub-post offices, including B and O.  As such officially I grew up in Newtown Kilcashel, Ballydangan, Athlone Co Westmeath in the province of Leinster whereas I actually grew up in Kilcastle, the parish of Moore, Co Roscommon in the province of Connaught.  

 Final point of the morning - there was a local RC priest who was untidy and never put the register books away. The bishop was coming and the priest told his house keep to tidy up and burn the rubbish. She cleared everything that wasn't in a cupboard and the parish no longer has records for the years before about 1870 - though some records start later than that. urban (or rural) legend perhaps?

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/results.jsp?searchMoreVisible=false&census_year=1911&surname=Dolan&firstname=&county19011911=&county1821=&county1831=&county1841=&county1851=&barony=&parish=&ward=&townland=Lowtownkilcashel+&houseNumber=&familyId=&ded=Ballydangan+&age=&sex=&search=Search&ageInMonths=&relationToHead=&religion=&education=&occupation=&marriageStatus=&yearsMarried=&birthplace=&nativeCountry=&language=&deafdumb=&causeOfDeath=&yearOfDeath=&familiesNumber=&malesNumber=&femalesNumber=&maleServNumber=&femaleServNumber=&estChurchNumber=&romanCatNumber=&presbNumber=&protNumber=&marriageYears=&childrenBorn=&childrenLiving=

Thank you for the explanation - On a number of civil birth records I saw the name of the townland as Kilastle.  Was Kilcastle and Kilcashel interchanged or were these two different areas? Where does Moore North and Moore South fit in?  Can you recomment a good map that notes civil parishes along with towns and townlands?  I have been trying to get my head around these designated areas, it was referred to one way in the mid to late 1800s and then I saw it changing between 1901 and 1911 census.  The residents at House 9 - Patrick, James and Elizabeth Dolan are my ancestors in Lowtownkilcashel.  I have been told the family sold that land and they now have a cattle farm there.  I am hoping to visit in the next year or two and hope to make conctact with relatives in the area.

Appreciate the information and your help.

Best,

Regina