Looking for McGowan information

Sparky1955,

I attach a record of the marriage of Michael McGowan and Bridget Mayock in1865.

The address for Michael is recorded in the church record as "Bornagoulane". I cannot find this name in either the Tithe Records 1823 - 1837 or Griffith's Valuation c1850. Apparently a local address?

Credit: Subscription site  www.findmypast.ie

Further information on Mayock - Bridget:

Baptism - January 26th 1845 - Father - Peter and Baptism of Bridget on March 23rd (Not 28th) 1845 - Father - John. Google "Catherine Mayock" Ontario, Canada. It may be of interest.

Regards,

It makes sense that the wedding took place in Addergoole parish, since that appears to be where the bride was from.  "Bornagoulane" would presumably be Barr na nGabhlán ("top of the forks [in the road"), but McCoy's right that there's no official townland of that name in Bohola (or anywhere else in Mayo), though there is one down in County Cork.  Probably a local "sub-townland" name, so when you visit someone local may be able to help you find it.

You can see more info about the townland of Ballymoyock [that's apparently the current spelling] at this link:

https://www.townlands.ie/mayo/tirawley/addergoole/addergoole/ballymoyoc…

If you look there at the further link to the history of the townland name, it's quite interesting.  The oldest recorded form of the name shown is Leithbhaile Maidheag, which means "Mayock's half homestead" or "Mayock''s half-townland", and one of the entries indicates that it's named after Maigeog Barrett.  The Barrett's were a Norman-Irish family who settled in the area about 800 years ago and intermarried with the "native" Irish.  Some of them took on (or created) other surnames found in the area, such as the name Mac Andriú, which was later anglicized as McAndrews.  The info about Maigeog Barrett appears to be taken from the Irish National Folklore Collection Project's records.  In the 1930’s, Irish schoolchildren were sent out on class projects where they interviewed mostly older people in their parish about the history and customs of the area.  Some of the interviews were conducted in English and some in Irish (especially in areas like Mayo where many older people still spoke Irish).  Over 250,000 interviews were conducted and they are available online at the Irish National Folklore Collection Project’s site:  https://www.duchas.ie/en

The content of the interviews varied from place to place, but they can cover local history, local place names, people known to the person being interviewed, local myths and superstitions, and other customs, such as how holidays or weddings were celebrated and even on what day of the week people customarily did their washing or baked bread.  It’s said to be the largest national folklore collection in the world, and the interviews can be fascinating.  There’s an ongoing project to translate into English the information which was collected in Irish.  I have two grandparents who grew up in the Bohola-Killedan-Killasser area, and found lots of interesting info there.

Thank you both so much for the information I find it fascinating looking back at family history and searching for those little bits of the jigsaw to fill in the gaps.

I’ve done quite a lot of research on both mine and my wife’s family history in the last few years but really wished I’d have talked to my Grandparents about it when they were alive so I could have learned so much more.

I was bought a DNA test for my birthday earlier this year and it proved very accurate linking me to two communities, the Midlands (I was born in Wolverhampton, currently living in Dudley) and Connacht (North Connacht & North Mayo).

At the moment none of my children or Grandchildren have any interest in the family history but maybe one day my research will prove valuable.

It was in 2018 the year I retired when we visited Ireland travelling the ring of Kerry and ending up in Dublin staying at a few Airbnb’s along the way and met some lovely people so it’s definitely time to start planning another visit possibly next year.

Once again many thanks ‘McCoy’ and Kevin.

Best regards

Steve