Star or Starr family of Kilbarron (Tipperary)

Hi Paul,
Grave numbers 61 and 62 in Kilbarron Graveyard Star/Starr (you do have that info. but everyone else can see it)
A. Vol 2 Parish of Kilbarron reduced.pdf (tipperarystudies.ie)

1825 the Tithe records  
The Tithe Applotment Books, 1823-37 (nationalarchives.ie)

 D'Esterre are listed in County Clare in 1833
The Tithe Applotment Books, 1823-37 (nationalarchives.ie)

As you are looking at early years try this.....is the main link to the Tithe records.
Genealogy (nationalarchives.ie)

In here, Finnoe and Cloughprior are in the same area as Kilbarron. 
Griffith's Valuation (askaboutireland.ie)

In this site,
You will find Dublin records in the CHURCH RECORDS choice, Church of Ireland and RC.
The CIVIL RECORDS are marriages from 1840/1844 to 1944, Births 1864 to 1919/20 and deaths.....if they are there.
Welcome to Irish Genealogy - Irish Genealogy

Margot

Paul,

As you are probably aware, there were two main Star(r) family branches in Ireland; a north branch (Co. Cavan and north of there) and a southern branch who seemed to have been very much present in North Tipperary and East Galway;  As far as I can make out, they seem to have always lived quite close to the lake, Lough Derg - a fairly big, long lake. We know for sure that many of the Northern Star(r)s were Quakers and emigrated from there to USA.  As far as I can make out, those Star(r)s had their roots in the border area between Devon and Somerset in England and at least some of them were adventurers in Cromwells army.  That doesn't mean that all Star(r)s in Ireland came via that route, as, it is important to note that a lot of Star(r)s were Quakers and could have been here as missionaries.

The earliest record I can find of a Star(r) in the area to which you refer, was, Will Star of Ballingarry; only a few miles from Kilbarron, in 1665 & 1667. (There are several Ballingarrys;  this Ballingarry is the one which is not too far from Birr and Borrisokane).

It is interesting that you refer to Starr /Egan association - I would like to see the record about that, please.  Would you be in a position to share your intelligence around that please? - I am trying to trace a Starr by going back through the records from 1900; the trail goes cold around 1828 - a missing parish record book,(Nenagh RC Parish) quite possibly the reason.  Your Egan connection might be an important linkage between Nenagh and Kilbarron / Terryglass.

From Ballingarry it is a short hop to Portumna - there is a nucleus of Starrs there; 

It is even closer to the lakeshore at Terryglass and KIlbarron, and, thereafter, a large concentration in the Portroe / Killaloe area, and, finally, to Nenagh which has a few strands also.  With the state of the records, it is very hard to know, did the name move up the lake from Killaloe, or, did it move down the lake from Kilbarron.  The only thing I can say is, the earliest clear record of a Star in the region is Will. 

After Will Star, there are limited records, however, you will find, a Jeremiah (aka Darby) Starr mentioned in a report as having been flogged cruelly while serving as a Royal Marine in the early 1800's - he subsequently died (courageously) at the battle of Talavera in 1809.  He was from Kilmastulla, which is South West of Nenagh, close to the lake, near to Killaloe.  I have thought for a long time that, a good strategy might be to trace Jeremiah's / Darby Star(r)s as the name seems to be kept from generationt to generation (as incidentally does WIlliam and John) in this region. 

While, I am not sure what religion Will Star (1665) was, it seems that all of these Tipperary Star(r)s were Roman Catholic. I am refreshing my research; I think that Will (Ballingarry) might have been a Quaker.  As you probably know, a lot of Starr Quakers emigrated from Ireland to America in the late 17th or early 18th centuries. Being a Quaker, does it also link the Tipperary Starrs to the Northern (Cavan) Starrs?  As far as I can ascertain, relations were good between the Quakers and Catholics, it does not seem too unreasonable to think that,after the emigration of many Starr Quakers, maybe the Stars who remained married into Catholic families and so the religion changed.  From looking at parish records from the early 19th century, mixed religion marriages were very common.  

Talking of William and John; there is another very interesting family which are the Starr brothers of Shannon Grove, Ardcanny,Pallaskenry, Co Limerick, one of whom (William) was master of a "Provintial" School there in 1766; both of the brothers were prosperous, landed and living in large, comfortable houses.  Both were definitively protestant - I have no idea how they got there or where they went; William, seems to have only daughters (two), the second, (John, Mount Pleasant, Ardcanny) seems to have had two children but I can find no trace of them beyond that generation. Interesting that the eldest of that family is William, it caused me to ask, were they maybe a Protestant branch of Will of Ballingarry. Interesting side note on John Star of Mountpleasant;  he was in a militia set up for the protection of Protestants in Limerick in the late 1800's.

Finally to Nenagh - there are a few (three?) Starr family branches there - clearly some of them are of the Kilmastulla (Jermemiah / Darby) line but it has so far been impossible for me to trace them back to either Portroe or Kilmastulla. It is very complicated as there are so many similarities of names between the men, it is almost impenetrable, however, the good thing is, the Jeremiah/Darby's seem quite distinct - you might get lucky. 

Please let me know if you are interested to catch up real-time and discuss what records we all have, or, what conclusions we are close to and maybe we can close a loop.

Tim

13 July 2022  Thanks, Tim!  My knowledge centres on Paul Star of Mountmellick (fl 1780s) and, in the next generation, William and Frederick of Mountmellick, and Richard, Baxter and John, these three all in Dublin in the early 1800s.  All these men are clearly related, and I am descended from Richard.  I don’t know where they came from, but there are definite links with ex-Quakers and there are more Church of Ireland than Catholic links, so they are more likely related to the Cavan branch than to the Tipperary branch (but could be to both or to neither).

My investigation of the mostly Catholic Tipperary Starrs has not been deep and hasn’t yet turned up any hints of a link to ‘my’ lot beyond geographical proximity to Mountmellick, but I would be more than happy to compare or exchange whatever information we have found.  My email is starmulq@gmail.com and I live in New Zealand.  Where are you?!  I have not come across your Will Star of Ballingarry, who sounds interesting.  Where did you find him and why do think he might be a Quaker?

Re the Starr/Egan link, at the graveyard in Kilbarron there is a memorial stone to John Star who died in 1785 aged fifty, whose wife was Bridget, nee Egan or Eagan. See Daniel Grace (comp), ‘Gravestone Inscriptions – County Tipperary, Section A: Barony of Lower Ormond, Vol II: Parish of Kilbarron’, Ormond Historical Society, 1981 (and at historicgraves.com) under the surnames Egan, Hogan, and Star/Starr. Two sons of John and Bridget, William (born in 1785) and Stephen, moved to Dublin and were well established there by 1830, William as a timber merchant in James Street and Stephen as a cart and dray manufacturer in Bridgefoot Street. See Dublin street directories, eg 1831.  In 1836, when William died, Stephen (describing himself as from nearby Cloughprior) made sure that his brother was also buried at Kilbarron.  According to a reconstruction I made some time ago, based on FindMyPast references to Catholic parish records, William’s first wife was Margaret or Mary Shaugnessy of Templemore, where their daughter Mary was baptised in 1809, but by 1816 they were in Dublin, where their son Patrick was baptised.  William’s second wife, who he married in 1826, was an Eliza Egan.  All this needs to be checked!

The Starrs you mention in Limerick named Jeremiah and Darby sound interesting and worth pursuing, given that one of the Quaker Starr brothers who removed to Pennysylvania was a Jeremiah.  There was also a Jeremiah Star growing flax in Cavan in 1796.  See the Irish Flax Growers List 1796 ID 4401, through Ancestry.com.  Another Jeremiah had an Anglican burial at St Pauls in Dublin on 5 July 1792 according to findagrave.com (ID 131522958) but I have no idea if these can be linked.

Like you, I have come across the Starr brothers of Shannon Grove and Mount Pleasant but failed to link them up with anyone.  Ffoliott newspaper archives (through FindMyPast) reveal that William of Shannon Grove was also a timber merchant (pure coincidence?), in Limerick.  See Limerick Chronicle 13 May 1771, 25 Feb 1773.  William did have a son, Arthur, according to Betham Abstract 227 (through FindMyPast) relating to William’s will of 1777/1790.  Where did you find that his brother John had two children?  All the best.  Paul Star

Hello,

  I am one of the Starr's (direct Bloodline) from the Devonshire, England Starr's. That settled in Oldcastle, Ireland before moving on to the United States back in 1700's. John Carran Starr II was the one who settled in Oldcastle and it was his 5 sons who relocated to the America. But before that, his father John Starr was one of 6 children from the area of Devonshire. The House in Beer, England still stands at this time and is used as a rental cottage in the town. 

I have been trying to track down what had happened to the other 5 children of John Starr Sr. but there is a lot there that I don't know yet. I will keep you informed if I find anything else out.   Best of luck in your hunting...Alan Starr (Delaware, USA)... 

12 March 2023.  Thanks for making contact, Alan.  I am aware of your Starr family and the movement of many of them from Ireland to America in the 1700s, but I haven't found any link between them and the various Nenagh/Tipperary Starrs, nor with my Dublin Stars.  I have searched deeply (and without result) for some link between your lot and my lot, since your Starrs who went to Pennsylvania were Quakers, and a branch of my Stars who lived in Mountmellick had marital associations with a couple of Quaker families around 1800.  In recent months, however, I have found evidence strongly suggesting (but still never quite proving) that my Stars of Dublin were, rather, descendants of the Huguenot D'Esterres who reached Limerick in the seventeenth century (but of a Dublin branch, descendants of Isaac D'Esterre of Dublin, not of the well known Limerick branch, descendants of Abraham and Henry D'Esterre).  Still working on this.  All the best.  Paul Star, New Zealand.

16 November 2023

Was the Old Kilbarron graveyard (which includes Star graves which I referred to in an earlier post) the resting place exclusively or primarily of adherents of the Church of Ireland?  Can someone clarify this for me?  The William and Stephen Star in early ninenteenth century Dublin that I mentioned were, or had become, Catholic.  Paul Star. 

Hi, I'm doing some family tree research with the aid of DNA, and I tentatively might be a descendant of James Hogan and Winifred Star - my mother is Hogan whose grandfather Michael was from Lorrha (b1855) his grandfather was in turn William Hogan who was married to Bridget Tuohy - I was between two stools on a couple of records whether William Hogan's mother was Killfoyle or Star, but I'm matching with an Eric Starr in America who shares the same chromosome segment with me and some Ryan families from Tipperary - this has pushed me towards James Hogan and Winifred Star as the parents of William. The Hogans were in the townland of Kilgask, Lorrha by the 1850's at least, and my mother's grandfather joined the RIC in 1880 instead of continuing the farm, which passed to Burkes and now Coughlans.

Gearóid Ó Fathaigh (b.1980) son of Teresa Hogan (b.1939) > Michael Hogan (b.1892) > Michael Hogan (b.1855) > Michael Hogan (b.1816) > William Hogan (b.1792?) > James Hogan? v Winifred Distare?

What I'm going to do next is look for descendents of Darby in the records and see if I match with anything, there is also a sister named Sarah born to the same couple; so I will research her possible descendants if any.

Thanks, Gearoid, your post is really interesting to me, particularly if at some point you are able to confirm your descent from James Hogan and Winifred Distare/Star.  I presume you have found the baptismal records for their same three children as I have - William Hogan baptised Nenagh 12 February 1792 (Winfred (sic) Star), Darby Hogan baptised Nenagh 23 April 1794 (Winifred Distare), Sally Hogan baptised Nenagh 12 August 1797 (Winifred Star).  Winifred was born in about 1772 if she was the 70-year old Winifred Hogan convicted of trespass on John Coughlan's land and briefly imprisoned in Nenagh (Nenagh Prison General Register for 20 December 1842).  As for the surname transition from Distare to Star, the only other possible evidence I have of this (among Tipperary Stars) is a reference to the Nenagh pawnbroker Patrick Starr as 'Patrick De Starr' in ‘The National Bank: Persons of whom the Company or Partnership consists’, Supplement to the London Gazette (25 February 1869), pp 1179-1180.  How far back can your American correspondent, Eric Starr, get with his Star ancestors?  As for tracing the Christian name Darby among Hogans and Stars, I had already thought that could yield something.  Good luck with that, and please let me know if you find anything at all which might interest me.  It's also just nice to be sharing this kind of search with others involved in a similar hunt!  All the best.  Paul Star, New Zealand, starmulq@gmail.com  17 March 2024.

Hi Paul, 

Thanks for your reply - I'm going to make an enquiry with Eric Starr, he did reply to my first email so hopefully I can find out if he knows any Tipperary link in his family. Darby, William and Sarah are indeed the three records of interest which might be a link. I'll let you know if I get any further proof or disproof of the link! Thanks for the info regarding the trespassing!

Gearóid Fahy

Tim Starr posted a message in this thread on 16 February 2022, in which he mused about the Starrs of Shannongrove and Mountpleasant in Ardcanny Parish, County Limerick.  This is just a note to say since then, I've gathered quite a lot of info about these particular Starrs, including their probable English origin, and have today posted a summary of this information to Ireland XO, under the appropriate parish section (ie Ardcanny).  Cheers.  Paul Star, 23 March 2024.

Update: I've found a couple of death records that could match Darby Hogan - one from 1874 of an 80 year old from Carron, Tipperary; and another who has next of kin as Sarah Hogan from Pallas, Portroe - however it's from 1880 and he's 74 years of age which is 10 years too late. I've found a Darby Hogan who marries an Anne Carroll but i don't seem to DNA match with their possible descendants. Also on DNA level, my mother's test came through, and we both match to very detailed and interesting trees of Starr, and one or two Starrs - from USA (in particular I keep seeing the name Comfort Starr (1589-1654) from Kent whose son John B Starr (1626-1711) travels to USA and whose son is also Comfort Starr (1661-1729), others from Oldcastle, Co. Meath, from Co. Cavan, from Devon (Hannah Starr) and from Tyrone (where there are also in 19th and 20th catholic families named Starrs). I'll have more details soon once I get the chance to go through them more. Have any of you done DNA - it can find links back about 8 generations or just over 300 years give or take (I was born 1980 and my mother 1939 so you can see how far back it goes). Some of the trees are very detailed and both my self and my mother matching lowers the chance of false matches.

I forgot to mention there doesn't seem to be any connection in the DNA so far with any of the D'Esterre family from Limerick