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community life in the early nineteenth century

Mayo

Hi

I have been researching my McLean and Murphy families from the Belmullet district/parish and have traced them back to the early nineteenth century. I am looking for some information about what life would have been like in a farming community prior to the famine? How would people have met and married for instance? Would the social aspect of life at this time have revolved around the local church? or would they have been more likely to marry neighbours or 2nd cousins? I am curious because looking at baptism and marriage records as well as Griffiths Valuation there is a recurrance of the same surnames in small communities and it seems that people didn't move around the district very much. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Karen Coatsworth.

Karen Coatsworth

3 replies

There's a good book about County Mayo which you might want to read, entitled Land and Popular Politics in Ireland:  County Mayo from the Plantation to the Land War  (thus, covering the period from the 1600's to the late 1800's.  New copies are a bit expensive now, but I just checked and there are reasonably priced used copies available at Amazon.

Another source of info is the Irish National Folklore Collection Project:  https://www.duchas.ie/en  In the 1930’s, Irish schoolchildren were sent out on class projects where they interviewed mostly older people in their parish about the history and customs of the area.  Some of the interviews were conducted in English and some in Irish (Gaelic), because in some areas back then elderly people may not have been entirely fluent in English, or may have felt more comfortable speaking Irish (and the schools also wanted the children to practice their Irish).  Over 250,000 interviews were conducted.  The content of the interviews varied from place to place, but can cover local history, local place names, people they knew, local myths and superstitions, and other customs, such as how holidays or weddings were celebrated and even on what day of the week people customarily did their washing or baked bread.  It is said to be the largest national folklore collection in the world, and the interviews can be fascinating.

I checked just now and there are a good number of documents from Belmullet (mostly in English), at this link:  https://www.duchas.ie/en/src?q=belmullet

kevin45sf@yahoo.com

Thank you Margot and Kevin
I will check out the film book and website for information
Very grateful to you both :)

Karen Coatsworth

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