Mary Ellen Igoe of Leekee, Swinford, Foxford Co. Mayo b. 1898 to John Igoe and Mary Durkan

Hi Roger,

Thanks for all your assistance in this.  I am doing the research on behalf of a lady named Alison whose Grandmother Mary Ellen as described above left Swinford in 1920 and hopes to make a visit to these shores next year.  I will refer her to this site and review the information you so kindly offered.  Thanking you for all your efforts in this matter.  I am also looking at a Swinford FB Page and may raise some of these questions on that platform to see it it is possible that she can link up with any of her Irish relatives.

Regards,

Frank

You may already know this, but there are records for what appears to be this Igoe family in the FamilySearch database.  If you're familiar with that database (https://www.familysearch.org), then you can find Mary Ellen Igoe at ID number LTJ8-95T, with her birthdate listed as 11 July 1899.  Her parents are listed, but no earlier records have been linked to them thus far.  At that site, you can see the screen name of the person who has input the information, and are able to send an internal message to the person, in case you want to discuss the family.

You probably already have some of the following info, but you mentioned in your last message above that you're looking for information in Swinford, so I thought I would mention that place names used in official records can be confusing at times.  Larganmore (in Irish, An Leargain Mhór) is a townland in the Catholic parish of Killasser, and is in the civil parish of the same name (Killasser), and you can see more info about it here:  https://www.townlands.ie/mayo/gallen/killasser/callow/larganmore/

However, Larganmore is also in the electoral district of Callow.  That can be confusing, because there is also a townland named Callow in Killasser parish, a bit to the southeast of Larganmore.  My grandmother, as it happens, grew up in the townland of Callow.

To make things even more confusing (at times), when civil birth records began in the 1860's, they were recorded by registration districts which cover larger areas than just one parish (often, a number of parishes are included).   For Killasser, the civil registration district was Swinford/Swineford, which is the name of the town just south of the parish of Killasser.  So, when one finds a civil birth record listing a birth in Swinford, that does not necessarily mean that the child was born in the parish of Swinford (sometimes referred to by the parish name of Kilconduff), although sometimes the civil record will also list the actual parish (or even townland) of the child's birth.

The Catholic parish records which are available online for Killasser, which go back to 1847, can be found at this link:  https://www.townlands.ie/mayo/gallen/toomore/toomore/leckee/

Leckee (in Irish, Leic Aodha) is, as noted in one of the messages above, in the Catholic parish of Toomore, and the civil parish of the same name, just to the west of the parish of Killasser, and you can find more info about it here:  https://www.townlands.ie/mayo/gallen/toomore/toomore/leckee/

Leckee is also in the electoral district of the same name.  The civil registration district for Leckee, though, as for Killasser, is Swinford.

The Catholic parish records which are available online for Toomore, which go back to 1833 for marrriages and 1870 for baptisms, can be found at this link:  https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0131

Hi

I noticw that you are looking for a Michael Igoe {Igo].  We have been doing the geneology for my family the Queeneys [McWeeney}.

they are in Wolverhampton UK 1849, living in the home of Michael Igo,  on the UK cenus  they all state they are from Mayo,

We were in Ireland last year and could not find where my family originated.  We emigrated to Australia in 1964 from Wolverhampton.   

Patrick Queeney was the father of Owen his mothers maiden name was Morgan? mogan? Maughan}. He married Mary Rowan? Ruane? in Wolverhampton in 1850

the witness at the wedding was Michael Igo and his wife, then Owen was godfather to their child

Dont know if this is any help

Jenny Johnson

Hi All,

(Should you wish to avoid all the diatribe here the main points are listed below)

I began this piece last night and had it just complete but hit some link on the page and was unable to retrieve the 10 lines or so I had put together.  So I’ve learned my lesson and will transcribe this first to my word doc and then copy to you.

Where do I begin again? Oh yes, my delay in responding can be largely explained by the fact that the volume of stuff you kindly furnished led me around in different routes and this coupled with the whole thing of trying to get my head around that which is the maize of townlands/civil parishes/religious parishes/electoral districts/baronies.  I have had some of experience of all this; having spent a good number of months attempting to look for the origins of my Mother-in-Law’s grandfather, William Twohig, in the townland of Knocknagappul, Ballinagree, Co. Cork.  The difficulty posed was there were 7 Twohig families between that townland and the neighbouring ones.

One difficulty or should I say challenge with regard to the Igoe family and habitation in ‘Leckee’ or ‘Larganmore’ and these not being neighbouring parishes separated by at least 10km, is that when on a visit of the Griffith’s listings of townlands for the civil parish of Killasser, numbering 89 in all, I did not happen upon the name of ‘Leckee’ as a Townland in that parish.  Now I know from your comments above that ‘Leckee’ townland forms part of the Killasser Civil Parish and maybe I’ve picked it up wrong and instead it is part of a different Civil Parish?  I also, as a further check did a search of the the place name: “Leckee” but got a “no results” prompt. Oh, and yes, i had a look at the Griffith’s Valuation maps, and granted they can be difficult to work with, but did not see a ‘Leckee’ townland in the area of ‘Larganmore’?

To add to this, I was onto Alison, an American descendent, the granddaughter of Mary Ellen Igoe McQuade who has asked me to look into this matter and we have had some good news in the matter of making contact with an Irish relative who via email furnished Alison with much new information.  He maintains that the family came from the townland of AttiMcHugh.  So for the time being I will leave all this with you.

Alison’s newly discovered Irish relative has added new information regarding the Mary Ellen Igoe McQuade’s siblings that you Roger kindly investigated for me.  He happened to mention the Michael Brennan also but said Michael was married to Norah and that they did not emigrate but had one daughter.  Further, in the matter of Bridget, he says that she joined a religious order in Cork.  I have asked Alison to forward on a copy of the email to allow me look into the matter more closely.  Oh yes, Roger the additional siblings for Catherine and Honor is most welcome.  I now know why much of this information escaped me as I was looking in the RC Parish of Killasser and not Toomore

Kevin,  to answer your question raised about the family tree in www.familysearch.org.  Yes, I did come across this, and did see the name and know the identity of the subscriber.  This happened fortunately around the time that Alison happened upon one of her Scottish relations on her father’s side of the family.  He has been investigating  his family for the last for the last 20 years or so I am told.

Finally, Jean, while there might be some connection between your Michael Igoe and Mary Ellen’s sibling I’m afraid they are not the same, as my ‘Michael’ was born in 1901.  Your Michael indeed would appear to have been either a distant relative or old Mayo neighbour.  I hope you have some success in trying to put all this together but looks like a major challenge.

Main Points:

1. In the Griffith’s Valuation Listings for Townlands for the Civil Parish of Killasser I did not come across the townland of ‘Leckee’
2. Why would AttiMcHugh come into the equation albeit it is a neighbouring townland to Larganmore?
3. Norah Igoe, Mary Ellen’s sister married Michael Brennan and they had a daughter
4. Bridget Igoe another sibling of Mary Ellen’s Joined a religious order in Cork.
5. Catherine and Norah have been added to Mary Ellen’s Number of siblings
6. The creator of the tree in www.familysearch.org has been identified and has been in touch with Alison.
7. Jean’s Michael Igoe and the brother of Mary Ellen Igoe are not the same person

 

Thanking you all for your patience and kind contributions made to this project.

Regards,

 

Frank Keating

Cork

Thanks for that Roger.  Much appreciated.

Frank

Frank,

Just to clarify - the villages of Muckroe and Leckee combined are listed as Larganmore in Griffith's Valuation.  The postal address Leckee, Attymachugh, Foxford.  Some confusion may also have arisen in above posts as there are two townlands in Foxford/Toomore parish with the name Leckee.

John