Coming to Ireland Next Monday Sept 5 2016 to Visit our Stanton Home

Hello John,

I will address your question 2 on the burial location. The Old Kilmeena Graveyard is about 5.5km from the Island and would be the obvious place of burial. However there is a historic burial ground Killeen Graveyard which is situated at the point the Island joins the mainland and given the timeframe it is very possible he is interred here with others from the Island.

Given the arrival date you have it is not possible for you to receive a reply from any letter that may have be sent and you may have to make enquiries on your arrival at the Old School house or one of the other residences locally for any background on the graveyard. It is likely that the graveyard is on private property and permission to view should be sought, which should not be a problem.

JohnHi P McG,

Oh my gosh, what a wonderful reply, thank you!  Very interesting, about the Killeen Graveyard!  I had not come across any reverence to it and that would explain why Richard's grave does not show up in Old Kilmeena Cemetery, according to the photographing and recording that cousin and friend, Bernie McCafferty [descendant of the Inishgowla Gills] has done.  From the listing of the Stanton grave in Old Kilmeena he has given me, it appears that those graves are all of the line of Thomas Stanton, son of Bridget Stanton, in the 1850's Griffith Valuation of Inishgowla, which is why I set about wholly documenting the Bridget and son, Thomas Stanton, line.  I will be connected by email and Web in Ireland so will be reachable upon arrival.  And thank you about the pointing me to the Old School house and nearby residences.  I will absolutely follow up.

Thank you heartily again for your reply!

John

 Hello John,

I am aware of Bernie McCafferty online site and notice he does not have this particular graveyard on his list of Mayo burial grounds. I am not sure if he has listed those with discernible headstones but there are many he has not listed which are generally identifiable from historic maps even some with identifiable grave markers.

As what you will find at Killeen cannot at this stage be confirmed but I have attached two pics identifying the location for you to view.

Enjoy the short time you will over there.

Hello P McG,

Excellent, thank you for the map and satellite pic.  That gave me the incentive to reacquaint myself with Google Earth, find Killeen Cemetery based on the pics you sent and then map out a route from the Anchor B&B where we will be staying in Newport to Carraholly and the cemetery.  On a hunch, I went again back to Bernie McCafferty' Clew Bay to Cleveland site and checked his cemetery listing.  He does have one for Kileen Cemetery http://www.bernieworld.net/Cemeteries/Killeen/Killeen%20Cemetery.htm

But is it the same cemetery you refer to?  The locations he lists appear to place it differently

John

Hello John,

The two locations are indeed different and the location for the Carraholly site is

Killeen Graveyard

Kilmeena Parish
53.81166, -9.59663

Street View http://bit.ly/2aXtXAb

There are three further burial grounds known as Killeen in Mayo .

Hello P McG,

And thank you again! Oh my, having 5 is just to make things easy.  I remember the "Oh no!" moment I had when just first starting research and finding out there are 3 Inishgowla Islands in Clew Bay.  Griffith's Valuation was my saviour on that one. thanks also for the link, Street View http://bit.ly/2aXtXAb. That confirmed I did indeed find the right spot with Google Earth this morning.

I have a question. In your previous post, you said "there are many he has not listed which are generally identifiable from historic maps even some with identifiable grave markers".  Are those historic maps and identifiable grave markers available and, if so, how?

Cheers,

John

Hello John,

The primary historical map source is the link below , in addition to which there are sources relating to Heritage/Archaeology and protected structures which go into identifying burial grounds across any County.

http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V2,515699,813054,5,9

I have a Google Map for burial locations in Mayo and some other Irish Counties but these are not Public and now not likely to be for some time. It is similar to the FAG Cemetery Mapper http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/mapCems.cgi?countryer=4&stater=47&countyId=2791

A screen shot of two for Mayo and Galway I have is in the uploads

Hello P McG,

I had been aware of the OSI but not the viewer; how I missed that I don't know but am much grateful being able to use the viewer now as it is very helpful.  Thank you.  And to for the 2 jpg's of the burial grounds. I used the OSI viewer to see the 4 Killeen cemeteries around Westport and will let Bernie McCafferty know about those.  I contacted him and he had known only about the one he has up on his website.

Bernie sent me a list of all the Stantons buried in the Old Kilmeena Cemetery; however, when I did the research I found that those Stantons were all those who were of the Bridget Stanton 1798-1865 with son Thomas Stanton line.  None of them were from the Richard Stanton 1814-1881 line, from which I hail.

I just again looked at the 1901 Census for Inishgowla and, now after having researched the Bridget/Thomas Stanton line, I know realize that the only 1901 entry for the Staunton Family were all from the Bridget/Thomas line.  That makes sense because, after Richard died in 1881, his wife Catherine and son, John then joined the rest of Richard and Catherine's children who had all previously emigrated to the USA.  That means that Richard in 1881 was the last of his line to be buried in Westport. I'm not sure if that helps in identifying his location but it may.

The Civil Death record [information below] for Richard Stanton notes that he died on 1 Apr 1881. However, it does not list the graveyard.  I do know that they were Roman Catholics.  

So that leaves me with 3 questions that if I can know the answers will help me focus my search in Westport.

Does that mean that there would have had a church burial?  

How would I go about finding out where they attended church?

Would the church then have a record of where he was buried?

__________________

Civil Death Record

Name:RichardStanton

Date of Death:01-Apr-1881

Age:67y

Parish / District:Westport district

Address:Inishgowla

County:Co. Mayo

Status:Married

Denomination:Civil Parish 

Occupation:FARMER 

Sex:Male

Graveyard:

Relationship:Householder

Parish:

Name:John Stanton

County:Address:Iniahgowla

Notes: JOHN STANTON SON

Hello John,

A church burial would have been the norm. Each parish seems to have had their own method of recording deaths though those I have seen to date do not indicate the cemetery they were interred.

Ireland between 1860 and 1880 saw a lot of activity with the reconstruction of many Roman Catholic Church’s and the principle two Church sites were Moyna and Fahy. Street views of the sites both old and current are shown below with the uploads of the historic map sites which is the same for Moyna but slightly different for Fahy.

The local priest Fr. Jim Walsh is away until Sept. 10th and it is unlikely any temporary replacement will have the authority to allow you to view any records there may be on site. There are two community centres which will have no doubt dealt with enquiries similar to your own and an approach to them may go some way to answering any questions you have. Contact details are shown below.

Moyna Church (St. Brendan’s) http://bit.ly/2ciff2v

Kilmeena New Cemetery - http://bit.ly/2cokXDx

Site of Fahy Church (Old) http://bit.ly/2bTHAv1

Holy Family, Fahy Church http://bit.ly/2c321e0

Kilmeena Old Cemetery http://bit.ly/2b9yJXb

Fahy New Cemetery http://bit.ly/2aYc8Bj

Kilmeena Community Centre: Sean Joyce, Muckla, Carrowholly, 09825084. Fahy Community Centre: Pauleen Goggins, Fahy, Westport. 098-41305.

Thank you P McG,

That is really very helpful information and I am very grateful.  Knowing the names and locations of the 2 primary churc sites of Moyna and Fahy.  Thank you too for the Kilmeena and Fahy Community Centres.  I will make contact with both as well as the two churches.  Thoug we pass through Westport next Wednesday the 7th, our real stay in Newport won't be until the following week.  We will be at the Anchor B&B from Tuesdy the 13th to Saturday the 17th, will after Father Walsh's return on the 10th.  Is Father Walsh the local priest for both parishes or does each parish have its own priest?

John

Hello John,

Both the churches are part of the same parish. As with a lot of rural parishes it is not uncommon for a single priest to cover two parish churches as it is in this case.