Peter O'Rourke aka Peter Roarke of Tully (civil parish of Fenagh, near St. John's Lough) appears on record in 1833, with a holding of 5 Irish acres. His landlord was William Lewis.
The present Co. Leitrim (formerly the territory of West Breifne) was known in ancient times as Breifney-O'Rourke. The O'Rourkes of Breifney were chiefs of the great clan of Ui Briuin Breifne and as a result, this surname is numerous in this county. Ó Ruairc was anglicised as Ruarke, Roark, O'Ruarke, Rooke, Rook, O'Rooke, Roke, Roske, Rocke, Roake, and more.
On 10-Feb-1840, Peter Rorke & Alice Baxter of Tully baptised a son, Francis Rourke, in the RC parish of Fenagh where the Rourkes were numerous. (In this same parish, in 1847 the wedding of a Francis Rourke took place).
The only other Baxter baptising in this parish at that time was Bridget Baxter who was married to James McLoughlin.
A Francis Rourke of the parish of Fenagh married Anne McGrail on 29-Nov-1877.
The adjoining townland of Fenagh Beg had at least two related households in 1833, that of John Rourke and possibly their widowed mother Catherine Rourke.
By the time the Great Irish Famine had concluded, most of the old surnames associated with Tully were gone, including O'Rourke. Only two landless cottager households remained; Thomas Masterson (d.1877) and wife Ellen McTiernan (d.1879) who had been baptising in Tully in 1837 and 1841, lived out the rest of their lives in Tully. (His mother had died in Tully in 1837). Eleanor Heaney. What remained of the Tully and Fenagh beg Rourkes had migrated to the adjoining townland of Corlough.
In 1858, at the time of Griffith's Valuation, Tully was primarily held in fee by the landlord, with a grazing farm of 41 acres held by his tenant Michael Doyle (whose father, Bernard or Bryan Doyle had been misrecorded in the earlier Tithe records as Bernard Boyle)
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| Date of Birth | 1st Jan 1800 (circa) | |
