My grandmother Mary Ann McLaughlin was born in an area named Urbalreagh. On her birth register the informant was Donald Mclaughlin and his area is listed as Magherard. Her parish was Clonca in Donegal.
Does Urbalreagh and Magherard still exist or has the names changed, etc.??? If they still exist what major area would be close by??
I have looked on maps to locate these areas to no avail.
Thursday 25th Apr 2013, 11:43AM
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The usually spelling of the townland that Donald McLaughlin came from is Magheryard. It?s 413 acres of agricultural land and there were 5 McLaaughlin farms on it in 1857 according to Griffiths Valuation. They all farmed the land in common. Magheryard is about 5 miles north east of the village of Malin, on the top end of the Inishowen peninsula. (It?s near the most northerly point in Ireland). Nearest big town would be Carndonagh.
Magheryard is probably too small to show up on the usual on-line street maps. You need either large scale local map showing townlands or you can use the Griffiths Valuation on-line maps to find it.
There were 7 households in it in the 1901 census:
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Donegal/Malin/Magheryard/
Urbalreagh is another townland nearby. In 1901 it had 17 households, again including some McLaughlins. (The name McLaughlin is very common throughout the whole Inishowen peninsula. I think historically they are supposed to be descended from people who came down from the Western Isles of Scotland in the 1500s. Possibly Gallowglass ie mercenaries, originally.)
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Donegal/Malin/Urbalreagh/
A townland is an Irish administratiove unit of land. There's not necessarily any town in a townland, and for these 2 they are both just rural agricultural areas.
Ahoghill Antrim
Thursday 25th Apr 2013, 12:10PM