Bates and Darlington ancestors

Liisa,

Methodism took a lot longer to become established in Ireland as a separate denomination than in England. In Ireland there was considerable resistance to separating from the Church of Ireland. It was 1815 before Methodists agreed to conduct their own baptisms. However because of continuing loyalty and other factors, many continued to use the Church of Ireland for sacraments for years after this and it was 1871 before all Methodists routinely performed their own baptisms.

For marriages, the earliest ceremonies conducted by a Methodist Minister in Ireland that I am aware of, date from 1835 (Belfast Donegall Square, the first Methodist church in Ireland). However in the mid 1800s there were only a few Methodist Ministers in Ireland (Methodism relied heavily on lay preachers). So the shortage of Ministers contributed to the continuing practice of marrying in the Church of Ireland. In addition, in the early years, many Methodist Meeting Houses were not licensed for marriages so that too contributed to couples marrying in the Church of Ireland.

So to summarise, you are unlikely to find many Methodist baptisms before 1820. Few marriages before the 1840s and only a handful for many years after that. If there are no Methodist records in the location you are interested in, I would search the Church of Ireland instead, as that’s the most likely place to find the relevant event.

Not many Methodist Meeting Houses have graveyards and so they may be buried in public or Church of Ireland graveyards (which are open to all denominations).

 

 

Inch Church of Ireland parish is one of just two CofI parishes currently included as transcripts on RootsIreland (pay-website), the sources list note baptisms between 1722 to 1901 but is not clear on coverage during this perid. A search of the transcripts show four of the Darlington children - all Inch CofI parish, the following details are recorded in each case - child's name, date of Baptism, residence is noted as Castletown or 'Castletown,parish Land Of Ahare'. , father's name of Robert and mother's first name only Catherine. (the following are not noted - date of birth, Mother's maiden surname or father's occupation).

Alice bapt. 21st March 1802
Joseph bapt. 18th May 1806
Lydia bapt. 10th November 1811
Sarah bapt. 22nd May 1814

No sign I could find of a baptism for Nathaniel or his sibling in the Inch records.  Alice was the earliest Darlington baptism found in the Inch parish transcripts included in the system.

According to the Parish Records List from the RCBL baptism records for Inch are available back to 1726, marriages back to 1727 and death/burials back to 1726. Copies appear to be held by both the National Archives and the Representative Body Library. The Library is currently undertaking the Anglican Record Project to transcribe registers, which could take some time, but might be worth keeping an eye out for updates to see if Inch Co. Wexford records show up...

I'm not certain regarding the placename 'Castletown,parish Land Of Ahare' - as there's no townland of that name in the parish.. there is a townland named Ahare to the south east of the town of Inch that could be connected see Ahare townland, Kilcavan/Kilgorman civil parish (placename database), it's located close to a town named Castletown.