Losing the Location

 

Sometimes, it seems the only way to locate our Irish ancestors would be to have some local guidance. That, at least, is how I felt after trying to find the location of the two Marys born to John Kelly and Johanna Falvey. Looking into Irish records from the outside, as a foreigner, may mean I'm missing something in the translation. It seems I've lost the locations mentioned in those Kelly baptismal records.

According to baptismal records in the parish of Killeentierna, the first Mary, born about September of 1864, was recorded as hailing from a place called Currow. The second Mary, arriving in March of 1867, was noted as being a resident of Barnfield.

All well and good—until I started looking for each location on a map. After all, there could have been a chance that we were seeing were two couples in the same time period, each with the husband named John Kelly—a very real possibility in Ireland—and the wife known as Johanna Falvey (again, in County Kerry, also likely). I needed to see how closely each location was situated to the other. If the two spots were distant from each other, the chance that these were baptismal records of two separate families would be much higher.

So much for plans. Since the tiniest of Irish geographic designations were classified as "townlands," I had expected Currow and Barnfield to be likewise within that classification. However, neither Currow nor Barnfield could be located on that oldies-but-goodies website I had mentioned last weekend. With a sigh of resignation, I turned to the much more modern resource for Irish land divisions, townlands.ie, but found no guidance there. So where was this place, Currow, after all?

I gave up and looked at Wikipedia. There, in an entry labeled—duh—Currow, I learned that, somehow, it was not considered a townland, but a village. Within County Kerry—at least I still have the right spot—it is part of the Electoral Division of Killeentierna, as well as being included in the Catholic parish of the same name.

Thankfully, the Wikipedia article continued with a section labeled Townlands, in which it explained how "the names of Currow's townlands reflect the local history and landscape." However, in reviewing those fifty-plus townland names, I spotted several which were, in other sites, labeled as townlands of Killeentierna. Which way was it?

Bottom line: Barnfield was a townland included in that list. Somehow, somewhere in the vicinity of Currow lies a place called Barnfield. Wherever it is, it would surely have been close enough to have been the residence of a family who had previously been said to be a resident of Currow.

Until I can find more definitive resources for that location puzzle, I'll need to set aside the question of the two Marys. Besides, there are other baptismal records connected to the Kelly and Falvey families to pursue. After all, this particular quest's purpose is to gather the names of godparents for the Kelly children, godparents who would be the possible siblings of either John Kelly or his wife, Johanna Falvey.