Parnells in the Drumcullen area

Eglish, also known as 'Eglish & Drumcullen', is the corrent Catholic parish for Drumcullen civil parish, but unfortunately the baptism records only go back to 1809. Marriages & death / burials to 1819. Images of the registers are available on the National Library of Ireland website. There seems to be some gaps in the surviving records. Transcripts of the registers are available on FindMyPast and Ancestry (pay-websites)

There were two old Catholic chapels for the parish, one at Rath townland in Drumcullen civil parish, and a second at Ballycollin townland in Eglish civil parish (the links are to the OSI maps - c1840).  

Griffith's valuation was carried out in this area in the 1850 and this shows no Parnells in either Eglish of Drumcullen civil parishes.

I had a look for any Parnell burials in the available Eglish & Drumcullen Catholic records but there were no matches that I could see.

The films of the Death/Burial registers for the Catholic Parish of Eglish & Drumcullen are included on the (free) National Library Website, see section 3 of the registers.  The records are also indexed on FindMyPast and Ancestry.

The National Library website also has an interesting 1840 Catholic Census of the parish, see section 5 of the images - it looks like a list of heads of household along with their occupation, plus counts of others in the household. I dont see a particular system or surname index so might take a bit of work to browse through these...

Are you certain your Parnell/Lowry family were Catholic ?

Unfortunately there are very few surviving legal records available from this time - e.g. all the the records relating to Transportation trails compiled before 1836 were lost during the events of the civil war. Some trials were reported in Newspapers of the time, and a serious one involving disturbances & guns might have been notorious enough to feature.  Do you have clues as to where this Trial might have taken place ?

The first newspaper I'd suggest checking would be Freeman's Journal published in Dublin (available on several pay-websites), which was printing back to this time, but if a paper closer to the area the incident and trial took place was being published at the time than that might be better

see - Transportation Database, National Archives of Ireland  and some usefull links on TraceyClann

The problem with their being no available parish, Legal or Transportation records is that there may be no further specific details on John. If court records had survived they might have given residence, accomplices etc. Ordinary people just didn't leave much of a paper trail.. 

There are about four entries for the surname Parnell in King's County on the Tithe Applotment records - all in Ettagh civil parish, which might be worth considering as possible relations to your Parnells. The Tithe records didn't include everyone, only certain types of agricultural land were eligible. Ettagh civil parish is located a little to the south of Drumcullen - just Seirkieran in between. Griffith's Valuation had far better coverage and would be more likely to show your Parnells exact location. There are only three Parnell entries for King's County on Griffith's all as Immediate Lessors - middlemen, or owners, but none as occupiers.

Parsonstown is the old name for Birr - originally the town was named Birr, then changed to Parsonstown and later back to Birr.

I had a quick look in Freeman's Journal for 17th July 1834 and the few days after but it's difficult going - the print quality/scan is not good. The King's County Chronicle newspaper covered this area, but as far as I can tell only started publishing in about 1845.

I see the single Parnell household in Pollduff, which is in Roscomroe civil parish. On the 1911 there are three young daughters and a son, so there may be descendants still in the area, although not all with the surname Parnell. The free IrishGenealogy website has images of marriage records up to 1941 and deaths up to 1966, so might help trace this family forward. I had a quick look through the records - looks like one of the girls, Julia died age 19 in 1915, another daughter Margaret died single in 1922, the father Patrick died in 1926 (daughter Sarah A. is informant), the mother Bridget died 1937 - daughter Sarah Anne is again the informant. I didn't see a death or marriage for Sarah Anne or the son Michael in the area (the civil registration name switched from Parsonstown back to Birr in the 1920s). There a couple of other Parnell households in the county at the time of the 1911 census - about 25 individuals in all.

Facebook is probably the best place to look for a local groups, I'd check for any for Birr. Many of the groups are private, so you dont get to see what's going on until you send a join request.