Keating/Lynch of Kilbaha Clare

Dear mforster

As you probably already knew, and as Patricia has suggested above, tracing Keatings in Kilbaha at the time your emigrant ancestor Honora was born is difficult, both because the surname is so prolific and because parish registers from before 1853 have not survived.

Kilbaha on the marriage certificate could refer to the townlands of Kilbaha North and Kilbaha South, or to the wider hinterland including the village of Kilbaha, standing mostly on the townland of Kiltrellig, or the local church, known to many as the Church of the Little Ark, and school, now Halla Eoin, both in the townland of Moneen.

If Kilbaha refers to the two Kilbaha townlands, then Honora's father was very likely the Patrick Keating who in Griffith's Valuation in 1855 occupied (no. 61e in Kilbaha South) a house with rateable annual valuation of 5 shillings & sm. garden (sharing just 1a 0r 30p with 14 others).

I will hazard a guess that you may be the Margaret Forster at

https://www.ancestry.com/community/profile.aspx?mba=00b1e89c-0006-0000-0000-000000000000

with an AncestryDNA match to at least one person who has invited me to view his match list, and with a tree including your Honora Keating at

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/198108426/person/242579520110

I agree that the following obviously incomplete transcription from

https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/don_tran/graves/moneen_graveyard_transcriptions.htm

may refer to the couple named on the Lyons/Keating marriage certificate:

Erected by Bridget Keating Kilbaha. In memory of her parents Bridget and Patrick Keating who died November 2nd 1893 and Feb 27th 1896 died respectively & 88 years. R.I.P.

I found a civil death record for the father commemorated on the tombstone:

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/view/?record_id=cide-4093080

Name: Pat Keating

Date of Death: 1896

Group Registration ID: 4093080

SR District/Reg Area: Kilrush

Deceased Age at Death: 88

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/files/civil/deaths_returns/deaths_1896/05904/4675464.pdf

The subject of the death record was a tailor, consistent with his tiny landholding back in 1855.

The Bridget Keating who erected the tombstone is very likely the Bridget Keating at

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Clare/Kilballyowen/Kilbaha/1077440/

and

https://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Clare/Kilballyowen/Kilbaha__South/362865/

If you could identify the "Relative" enumerated with her in 1901 but gone by 1911, that might lead to a breakthrough.

I would start now by looking for marriage, death and/or emigration records for the two ladies in the censuses.

From the 18th of this month, you will also be able to look for them in the 1926 Census of the Irish Free State, due to be released on that date.

You can search the free indexes at

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/civil-search.jsp

or pay to search the slightly more comprehensive indexes at

http://clare.rootsireland.ie/quis.php?type=birth&new=1

which luckily include death records for Carrigaholt and Kilrush dispensary districts among their minimal coverage of County Clare. Kilrush was the local hospital for Kilbaha during the relevant period.

Is there any additional detail on Honora's death record? All that I have access to is an index entry:

Australia, Death Index, 1787-1985

Name Honora Lyons

Death Date 13 Sep 1913

Death Place Queensland

Registration Date 1913

Registration Place Australia

Father

Patrick Keating

Mother

Bridget Lynch

Registration Number 004374

Page number 15734

Another Keating family migrated from Kilbaha to Hampton, which I can see is about 27km north of Toowoomba. You can read about them at

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Keating-3131#Descendants

Michael Keating from Kilbaha, who died in Hampton on Christmas Day 1890, was father-in-law of another Clareman, Patrick Higgins. Patrick's greatnephew, Michael D. Higgins, then President of Ireland, attended a Higgins Family Reunion Mass in Warwick in October 2017:

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/warwick/gallery-the-visit-to-warwick-by-president-higgins-of-ireland/news-story/daf03db4fcb362ebc5519f35ff533dbb

The President made indirect enquiries to Clare Roots Society about his Keating connections before that trip.

Was there any contact between the two Keating families after they settled in Queensland?

I am scheduled to come to Kilkee on 25 May to meet a group of American students, talk to them about researching Irish ancestors, and take them on a Loop Head tour, so hopefully our paths will cross.

Kilballyowen and Moyarta civil parishes were administered as a single Catholic parish until 1878. My generic advice on researching in the area, which may be of interest to you, should still be somewhere on this website, but if (like the author) you can't find it, there's also a copy on my own website at

https://pwaldron.info/Moyarta/

Best wishes

Paddy Waldron

Paddy:

Thanks!

Roger

Margaret:

Here is the link to our Meet and Greet form https://irelandxo.com/meet-and-greet

Roger

I am a little confused, Margaret.

Are you saying that Patrick Higgins and his wife Margaret Keating were related somehow?

I can see from the sources on WikiTree that the maternal grandmother of Margaret Higgins née Keating was a Lillis (or Lilles, an unusual variant spelling).

I thought that the mother of Margaret Higgins née Keating was a Keating both by birth and by marriage.

Are you saying that two Keating men lived near each other in Kilbaha, or that Patrick Higgins at some stage moved to Kilbaha from Newmarket-on-Fergus at the very furthest away point of County Clare, where he was baptised on 18 October 1839?

I found another Keating connection between Fodry and Brisbane.

John Mahony married Margaret Keating of Fodry on 19 Feb 1854 in Carrigaholt Catholic parish (then including Kilballyowen civil parish).

They lived in Tullagower in Knockerra/Killimer Catholic parish for some years.

The Mahony family (John, 29; Margaret, 27; Simon, 7; and Michael, 6) arrived at Brisbane on 17 Jul 1863 aboard the Beejapore; see Queensland, Australia, Passenger Lists, 1848-1912. The youngest child, Bridget, appears to have remained in Fodry with her mother's family, and still has many descendants in West Clare.

John Mahony is said to have a sister Margaret Mahony who married a John Keating; see the following from

http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/keating/387/

"John and Margaret (Mahony) Keating - emigrated to the USA circa 1864 -

John born in Fodra Co Clare, Ireland circa 1830 (son of Thomas Keating and

Bridget Keating); Margaret born in Tullagower, Co Clare Ireland circa 1830

(daughter of Patt Mahony and Mary (Boland) Mahony.

...

Regards

Helen O'Sullivan"

I hope to meet up this Thursday with another visitor from Australia who claims descent from John Mahony's brother.

Was it coincidence that shortly after the 1854 Mahony/Keating marriage (some time between 1855 and 1858) a Michael Keating and his family moved, on eviction, from Kilbaha to Gowerhass? I know some of the descendants of the Gowerhass Keatings, some of whom are also still living in West Clare.

There were way too many Patrick Keatings to conclude without lots of additional evidence that one who was evicted from Moyarta West was the same person as either of those who later lived in Rehy or in Kilbaha.