William Flynn from Woodford, co Galway

Gerrie:

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!

Can you clarify if William's religion was RC or Church of Ireland. The Woodford RC records start in 1821 and are available online at Roots Ireland but I could not find a baptismal record for a William Flynn with a father John. Roots does not appear to have the C of I records for the parish.

Roger McDonnell

Hi Roger,

Thank you for the look-up!

My grandfather always said we were protestant Irish. On the 1861 Ontario, Canada Census William's religion is listed as Church of England and on the 1911 British Columbia Census it's listed as Methodist. The character reference we have for him was from H.E. Cowen, Protestant Minister, Woodford, County Galway, Ireland, April 4th, 1853. The minister writes: "..which I have had many opportunities of observing in consequence of being the Sexton’s son.". We've always assumed that William's father was the Sexton of the Protestant Church in Woodford because of the character reference.

From what I've read, the Protestant Church in Woodford no longer exists. I haven't discovered whether any of the records for the church have survived or if the cemetery still stands.

Gerrie

The Church of Ireland parish for this area was a Union of Lickmolassy & Ballynakill (Leitrim), and the recent RCB Library lists this union as 'Lickmolassy & Ballinakill Upper ' and indicates that they hold records back to 1775 for baptisms, 1792 for marriages and 1803 for death/burials. There were two churches in the union, one at Portumna and the other at Woodford.

p.s. 1848 Church of Ireland Ecclesiastical Directory includes the parish of Lickmolassy, Clonfert Diocese, with the incumbant as Lewis Hawkes, and as part of that entry shows a J. Cowan as curate with a resisdence of Woodford, presumably based at the second church. See 1848 Church of Ireland Ecclesiastical Directory  (page 314)

Hi Gerrie

I have been researching the records of the Church of Ireland in Woodford as my g g g grandparents were associated with it.  The Representative Church Body library in Dublin holds the original parish registers and I have spent many hours looking through them.  As it is not possible to copy / photograph them, I have made notes which include references to members of the Flynn family. Register P 225.1.1 contains records, including the vestry minutes, for the united parish of Ballynakill & Leitrim.  The vestry meetings were held at St Mary’s Church at Woodford. 

The earliest reference I have noted for James Flynn is that he was parish clerk in 1804 and had a salary of ten pounds per year.  He was still parish clerk at the meeting held on 5 May 1823.  On 9 February 1824, there was resolution to grant a pension to James Flynn of four pounds a year for his lifetime.  This was because of his “inability, inattention and carelessness to the affairs of the church” and his “extreme old age.”

My ancestor, Samuel Corner, became the parish clerk at a salary of six pounds a year which was to be increased to ten pounds a year on the death of James Flynn.  On 12 May 1825, the meeting resolved to pay Mrs Corner four pounds a year “for ringing the bell and keeping the church clean.” James Flynn died between 12 May 1829 and the meeting at Easter 1830.  At the latter meeting, William Flynn of Woodford was appointed Sexton in place of Mrs Corner.  It was noted that that the parish clerk then had access the full salary as clerk.

There is a gap in the minutes from 1833 to 1852.  In 1877 the parish was transferred to Portumna.

The church at Woodford has been demolished and there is very little left of the cemetery.  I was there in May 2016 and there a couple of gravestones but I have not made a note of any inscriptions.

I hope this information assists you.  I think that it is likely that these Flynns are related to yours although there may be a missing generation or John is William's brother.