Neal Mooney of the Ballynacree Quakers

Diana,

There are copies of the Ballynacree Quaker records in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast. They might also be on-line on findmypast (pay to view).  I researched the Ballymacree records in PRONI some time ago. I don’t recall exactly when they start but I am not sure they go back to 1700. They might start around the 1720s. You would need to check. The "lead" family seem to have been the Moores as early men's meetings were at the Moore house in Ballynacree. The Moores originated in Cumberland.

Each Meeting House copied their main records (ie birth, death & marriage) to the Provincial Branch (in this case Lisburn) so you should check the Lisburn records as well as Ballymacree itself as they may be more complete. My recollection is the Ballymacree Meeting was quite small with about a dozen families. It appears to have closed or merged by the mid 1800s. The nearest was probably Millquarter, near Ballymena. It’s closed now too though there is still a Quaker graveyard there (The Green Garden).

Frankly I think you may struggle to find any records for either the Henry or Neal families due to the general lack of records in Ireland for the period you are interested in.

I note what you say about DNA pointing to the Neal family coming from Clare. Most Quakers in Ireland were of English origins, having arrived in the 1600s, and were engaged in industries such as milling, textiles, shipping, imports, iron production and railways. They tended to be found in the east side of Ireland as that’s where most of those industries were located, and were pretty well unheard of in Clare and the West of Ireland. If from Clare, then presumably the Neal family had moved across Ireland and converted to Quakerism. 

Yes, presumably the Neals (O'Neill, Irish type 111) did migrate--maybe even to the North, but my father's y-line unfortunately doesn't tell me when. It might have been an ancient migration long before the emergence of the Friends, or the family might have migrated as Friends to escape local persecution, famine or whatever. I don't know of any particular persecution of the Quakers in the area they presumably came from, but there may have been. I have been told there wasn't ever a large community of Quakers in Clare. They also might have become Quakers after they migrated. So many open-ended possibilities!

Also, since both Mooney and Neal were Irish, and both are said to have ended up in Antrim (we have proof of this for Mooney but not for Robert or Henry Neal), I wonder whether there might have been some attempt to move up in society by becoming Protestant, if that was how Irish Quakers might have seen migration to the North, then to the American British Colonies. Just another unsubstantiated possibility I suppose.

DianaN,

The guide to Irish Quakers that I read said they were pretty well unknown in the west of Ireland, primarily because it didn’t have the commercial opportunities they sought. There was little or no industry there then. (Looking at the 1901 census of Co. Clare, there isn’t a single Quaker in the county). There are no records of any Meeting Houses in Clare, ever. There just weren’t any Quakers there. If the Neal family originate in Clare it’s highly unlikely that they were Quakers then.

The first Quaker meetings in Ireland were around 1654 in Lurgan, Co. Armagh, when the denomination first arrived from England, so any timescale for the family becoming Quaker really has to be after that. They probably moved from Clare to Dublin or Ulster for work or commercial reasons. Famine wasn’t a significant issue in the 1700s (the 19th century population explosion, combined with blight caused the famine in Ireland). Some other factor likely caused them to move if they were in Antrim in the 1700s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers_in_Ireland

Moving up in Society is an interesting suggestion, but if that was their motive, why not just become Church of Ireland?  Friends have a fairly strict code of conduct and weren’t slow to reprimand or expel those who didn’t abide by it.  The Monthly meetings are full of investigations into Friends who were alleged to have drunk alcohol or conducted their businesses in an unprofessional way. And of course they couldn’t marry out. They had to marry another Quaker, or be expelled. That caused a lot of difficulties. They resisted the tithes and so were frequently in trouble for refusing to pay them. A tough life in some respects. Not everyone’s choice. And in spite of perceived English hierarchies, there were many wealthy Catholic merchants and business people. You didn’t have to leave that denomination to improve yourself. There was a Catholic upper class in Ireland, and a middle class developed all through the 1800s. Asenath Nicholson was a wealthy American who toured Ireland for a year in 1846 visiting every county but one (Cavan). Her account of her travels was published as “Ireland’s welcome to the stranger.” Well worth reading. She frequently mentions meetings with wealthy and successful Catholic families. She noted that many Upper Class native Irish looked down on the poor as disdainfully as their English counterparts. (She also commented that not all the good landlords were Irish and not all the bad ones were English).

I suspect your ancestors must have become Quakers because they particularly identified with Quaker values.  But I have no way of suggesting how you might ask them if that’s correct!

Very few Irish Catholics migrated to North America in the 1700s. The vast majority in that century were Protestants, and those were mainly Presbyterians (ie descendants of Scots who had settled there in the 1600s). Some Church of Ireland and other denomination did go too but the majority were mainly from Ulster and were mainly Presbyterian. Roman Catholics (ie native Irish) started to migrate in big numbers in the 1800s. The migrants who left in the 1700s were mostly descendants of people who had already made one move so were more accepting of the idea of moving again, but in addition they tended to be slightly better off financially and so able to afford the journey.  They left for some of the same reasons that led to Catholic migration in the 1800s ie lack of land, unfair rents, inability to buy land, poor harvests, low prices for cotton and linen, religious restrictions imposed by the state, and so on. Just they were more inclined to go and, in the case of Presbyterians, their Ministers often encouraged them to go. They often accompanied their congregations to North America. So perhaps a bit better organized too.

That's useful, Elwyn. Yes, I expect the Neals probably weren't Catholic by the time they emigrated. Whether they were also Quakers upon emigrating is another question, I suppose. It would be interesting to know more about the relationship of the Neals and the Mooneys. They might have met each other in Pennsylvania, but an interesting clue lies in Neal Mooney's wife's name--purportedly 'Anne Neal'. I've found no support for this suggestion, but if it is true, it may mean the Neals were resident in the Ballymoney area, or that Neal Mooney met them while visiting Dublin or Carrick Fergus, where he also visited the Quaker communities. I have had a very short visit to Lisburn and the Quaker records, but it is only Mooney who is documented. I hope to get back to Lisburn again soon. Many thanks!

My cousin recently published a book on the McCurrys of Myroe "Never to be Heard from Again' and Y DNA has the McCurrys also originating in County Clare. Legend has it that Muirach O'Daly committed murder and fled to Scotland, the name of Currie becoming synonymous with 'The Bards of the Isles'  I think the people moved freely between Ireland and Scotland in the middle ages with litle distinction between Irish and Scottish, that came later. The Celtic names have no obvious link on the modern surnames and changed dramatically. My Mother was raised in Limavady and has many DNA matches to the Quakers of Ballymoney. The Society of Friends was born out of Cromwell's Puritan era, appealing to those who needed no middle man in their relationship with God. 'Thou art God', the inner light, but they did return to conventional religion when the Quaker numbers waned. see https://www.blackburn-tree.org