Diane Magone

The  marriage is showing in the Civil records on GRONI/NIDirect on the 20th September 1876, names appear as Hugh McGeown and Agnes Fegan, and the district is Newry and Mourne - which fits with Clonallon/Mayobridge. The GRONI system includes a full transcript and and image of the register, but you require a few credits to see the full details, which should include place of marriage, residences for the bride and groom, status & occupations, sometimes their ages (often just entered as 'full'), the names and occupations of their fathers, and names of witnesses.

There was, and still is, a Catholic Chapel a short distance to the south west of the village - see OSI Map (c1840) and Google Street view.  There are some additional details on the parish and church on Ros Davies' website, see : Clonallan Parish  (scroll down to the entry for "Mayobridge Catholic Church- St. Patrick's")

The records for the Catholic parish of Clonallon/Warrenpoint are included on the National Library website, but I was not able to locate the marriage - see : Sept. 1876

The civil marriage record would generally include a little more detail so I think that's option to go for.

Thank you so much!  I was able to obtain a copy of their marriage license from GRONI and now know the original spelling of the Magone name (none of my relatives were quite sure how it was spelled).  This will prove to be most helpful in my family genalogy research.

  Looking forward to visiting County Down soon!!!

Diane,

The idea of a single or correct spelling for a surname or a place name is very much a recent phenomenon and before that, especially in Ireland, there was no consistency. Names were spelled phonetically and each variation was down to the whim of the particular person recording the information. You will often see the spelling change as the records go back. This rarely indicates a particular deliberate decision to alter the name nor even a mistake. Not everyone was literate, but even when they were, exact spelling simply wasn’t something they bothered about. In addition to varying the actual spelling, O’ or Mac prefixes were optional and were often omitted.

In Irish (gaelic) the spelling and prefixes vary depending firstly on what case is used (eg genitive usually requires the insertion of an extra “i”), and secondly with a woman’s name, it changed according to her marital status. It is a further factor in explaining why no-one in Ireland worried about the “correct” spelling. There wasn’t one. Expect the spelling to vary.

Hi Diane, I have Magone relatives from that area as well.  My Great Grandmother was Alice Magone. born 1866. Her parents were Patrick Magone and Rose Mcginnis. I'm sure their is a connection somewhere. Love to hear from you.

Cheers,

Suzy