Woodwards in or near Cloghprior Tipperary

In local history book ' Portrait of a Parish, Monsea and Killodiernan' by Daniel Grace there is interesting information on Cloghprior House and the Woodward family. 

I live in New Zealand and don't seem to be able to access a copy (i have tried) Any ideas

Helen

 

Helen,

In his book Daniel Grace states that in 1857 Frank Woodward of Cloghprior family took a lease on Prospect House (nearby) and farmed it until his death in 1908.

Frank had at least 2 daughters – Rebecca (1859 – 1949) and Annie (1867-1929).  

I didn’t find a birth record for Frank but I found a marriage of Francis Woodward and Jane Cleburne on 20 October 1853 (rootsireland.ie). He was 32, Church of Ireland and occupation was ‘gentleman’. His father was William Woodward. Might this be your Francis? I didn’t find any marriage of Woodward and Biggar.

Gravestone inscriptions for Cloughprior cemetery, compiled in 1982, are at tipperarystudies.ie cloughprior cemetery; you’ll find Woodward gravestone inscriptions on page 24.

Landedestates.ie has information on Cloghprior House, Prospect House and Woodward family.

If you email me at siobharr1@gmail.com I’ll send you copies of the relevant pages from the book.

Siobhan

 

Hello Helen,

In your Woodward Family Tree it looks like you have William Woodward (1729-1813), as Freeman's father. But Freeman was born in 1824, according to your records, which is 11 years after William's death. Could the William Woodward who died in 1813 actually be Freeman's grandfather? Do you know if William Woodward and Rebecca Rogers had a son named William, who in turn, may be the father of Freeman?

Thank you.

Dave Boylan

 

HI Dave

I got my dates muddled up Freeman died in 1824 He was born in 1755. Being a younger son he moved to Dublin and married Mary Biggar in 1797

William and Rebecca did indeed have a son called William b 1753. He had 2 sons called William the older one was born 1778 lived 1 year and the younger one born 1784 had a lot of children, one of whom has passed down a lot of info to us.

Hi Siobhan

I'll email you, thanks

 Helen

 

Many thanks for your reply Helen, and further information about Freeman/Francis Woodward.

The reason I had asked about Freeman/Francis’s date of birth was that I had found a transcription of his marriage to Mary “Bigger” at the free irishgenealogy.ie website’s “Church Records” collection. This record shows the couple were married in St. Peter’s Church of Ireland, Dublin City, on 1 June 1797. The transcription notes that the address and occupations of Francis and Mary were N/R, meaning, “Not Recorded.” The names of their mothers were also N/R.

See the transcription below from irishgenealogy.ie:

Area - DUBLIN (COI), Parish/Church/Congregation - ST. PETER

Marriage of FRANCIS WOODWARD of N/R and MARY BIGGER of N/R on 1 June 1797

Husband Name FRANCIS WOODWARD

Wife Name MARY BIGGER

Address N/R      

Address N/R

Occupation N/R

Occupation N/R

Father WOODWARD

Father BIGGER

Mother N/R       

Mother N/R

Further details in the record

About the record

Book Number     Page  Entry Number    Record_Identifier

N/R   N/R   N/R   DU-CI-MA-47526

The church register page containing this record has not yet been imaged.

---

Many of these Dublin parish registers have digitized copies of the originals, but in this case the original marriage record for Francis and Mary was unfortunately, not imaged.

I believe the St. Peter’s Church of Ireland where the marriage took place was the St. Peter’s that had been located in Aungier Street, Dublin City.

This had been the oldest Church of Ireland parish in Dublin.

According to the archiseek.com website, St. Peter’s closed in 1950, and was “demolished” in 1983. See:

https://www.archiseek.com/2013/1867-st-peters-church-of-ireland-aungier-st-dublin/

It is very unfortunate that many old churches, homes, and buildings over the years have been demolished in Ireland. With each demolition, a physical piece of Irish history is lost. What’s left are stories about those places and any photos that may exist, showing what they had looked like before they were taken down.

There will not be a civil registration birth record for Freeman Woodward. The Irish government did not record birth or death records until 1864. Civil registration actually began in Ireland in 1845, but at this time only Protestant and civil marriages were recorded. Marriages for all religious denominations were recorded, beginning in 1864, along with birth and death records.

This means that you would have to search Church of Ireland parish registers to see if a baptism record exists for Freedman, if the Church of Ireland records go back far enough in time to have recorded his baptism as well as the marriage of his parents.

Unfortunately, over half of the Church of Ireland parish registers were destroyed in a fire at the Public Records Office (PRO), located in the Four Courts Building in Dublin, during the Irish Civil War in 1922.

For more information go to the Irish Genealogy Toolkit link at: https://tinyurl.com/ycke3uc7

The question is, were the Cloghprior Church of Ireland parish registers also destroyed in the Four Courts Fire?

To find out if the registers escaped the fire, I went to the free website, “The List of Church of Ireland Parish Registers,” at: https://tinyurl.com/msfj5zb2

This website shows that the “Cloughprior” Church of Ireland registers were combined with the Finnoe Church of Ireland registers. You’ll see the entry for Finnoe & Cloughprior is highlighted in green. This means the registers for the Cloughprior and Finnoe were destroyed in the Four Courts fire, but that “subsequent materials were located and lodged either in the RCB Library or PRONI…”

The entry shows that the Cloughprior and Finnoe “subsequent materials”  of baptism are available from 1809 to 1886; marriages from 1809 to 1844; and deaths from 1813 to 1886.
The RCB stands for is the “Representative Church Body” for the Church of Ireland located in Dublin City.

PRONI (the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland) is also cited, as PRONI primarily holds records for six of the historical Ulster counties, which today are in Northen Ireland, and include the counties of Antrim, Armagh, Derry, Down, Fermanagh, and Tyrone. There are three other historical Ulster Counties, including Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan, but these are the in the Republic of Ireland.

But PRONI also holds what are mostly Protestant church records for other counties in the Republic of Ireland, including County Tipperary. See the PRONI link at: https://tinyurl.com/yzsr6ms8

I recommend first contacting the RCB in Dublin to find out more information about the Cloghprior Church of Ireland registers of baptisms, marriage, and deaths/burials. See the RCB Genealogy link at: https://store.ireland.anglican.org/genealogy

RCB staff will not do comprehensive research. For research you can visit the RCB if you travel to Dublin, or you can hire a professional genealogist who will undertake the research for you.

For a list of members who will do research for you, see the Accredited Genealogists Ireland link at: https://accreditedgenealogists.ie/members/

You can also contact PRONI to see if they hold Church of Ireland parish registers for Cloughprior.

The Cloughprior/Finnoe Church of Ireland baptisms start too late to have recorded Freeman’s baptism, or the baptisms of his siblings, but the registers may have the baptisms and marriages of his relatives baptized or married in the parish after 1808.

In her reply of 15 August 2024, Siobhan had mentioned the Woodwards being recorded in Ireland’s Landed Estates. The Landed Estates website, where information can be found about the family in the Woodward estate, can be accessed at the following links:

https://landedestates.ie/estate/3575; https://landedestates.ie/family/3472

The Landed Estates website also includes a map of County Tipperary showing where the Woodward estate is located.

From the Google Map I accessed a Google Street View of the former Woodward property. The street view shows that construction staging surrounded the house, and so it looks like the house was under renovation. To the right of the house are several outbuildings.

The link that follows is a Google Street View of the house from the road: https://tinyurl.com/59yxjrtt

The second Google Street View shows a closeup of the house surrounded by the construction staging: https://tinyurl.com/49u977j4

Going back in time I found the Woodward property on an Ordnance Survey Map from the 1829 to 1841 time period. The map labels the Woodward house as “Cloghprior Castle.” The map, from the Tailte Éireann website, is attached to this reply.

PROSPECT HOUSE

Concerning Prospect House, Information from the Landed Estates website shows explains that Frank Woodward leased Prospect House, in Prospect East, Tipperary, from Edwin Cuthbert in the late 1850s.

Frank is a nickname for Francis, and so I’m wondering if Frank was Freeman/Francis Woodward’s son, or perhaps grandson.

The Landed Estates page for the Prospect house, which also includes a photo of the home, can be accessed at: https://landedestates.ie/property/4457

A Google Map accompanies the page for the Prospect house, but a Google Street View only shows a long driveway leading to the property: https://tinyurl.com/au8vux6a

The Prospect House was also recorded on an Ordnance Survey Map from the 1929 to 1841 time period. The map shows the Gate Lodge and the long driveway leading to the house where Francis Woodward had lived in the late 1850s. The map is attached.

THE TITHE APPLOTMENT BOOKS

I wanted to see if I could find any Woodwards living in Cloghprior in an Irish agricultural land record called the Tithe Applotment Books.

The Tithe Applotment Books were compiled in the 32 counties of Ireland from 1823 to 1837, and can be searched for free

at the National Archives of Ireland website link: https://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/search/tab/home.jsp

The Tithe Applotment Books recorded farmers who either owned the land or who leased the land from the owner.

I found that a “Willm” Woodward was recorded in the Tithe Applotment Books in the townland of Cloughprior, Civil Parish of Cloghprior in the year 1825.

You can see the index for William at the National Archives of Ireland link at: https://tinyurl.com/3jwvpztx

The name Willm Woodward is highlighted in blue. Click on either his first or last name, and you’ll be brought to a copy of the original Tithe Applotment Book entries for him in Cloughprior.

You’ll see two facing pages. William is recorded at the top of the right- hand page under Willim Woodward Esq. The title Esq, or Esquire, denotes a “Gentleman.”

He is actually recorded three times in Cloughprior, once under his name, Willm Woodward Esq, and twice under “Same.”

What this means is he held three different parcels of land in Cloughprior, one parcel which was a little over 12 acres in size; one which was a little over 17 acres in size, and the third at over 19 acres in size.

He likely owned rather than leased the three parcels of land. According to the Cloghprior entry for Cloghprior House at the Landed Estates website, William sold his property in 1844 to Edwin Cuthbert.

This William Woodward may have been Freeman’s older brother, or perhaps his brother William’s son, also named William.

With Kind Regards,

Dave

SOURCES

irishgenealogy.ie 
archiseek.com 
Irish Genealogy Toolkit 
The List of Church of Ireland Parish Registers
Representative Church Body of Dublin (RCB)
Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)
Accredited Genealogists Ireland
Siobhan's Reply to Helen of 15 August 2024
Landed Estates Website
Google Maps
Google Street Views
Ordnance Survey Maps: Tailte Éireann
National Archives of Ireland: Tithe Applotment Books

Hi Dave

Thanks for your reply and all the links to follow. I have been chasing them up. You included a couple of photos of the Woodward house. Can you clarify for me which house?

This is what we as a family know - Freeman was born at Cloughprior in Tipperary in 1755, Freeman was a younger son of William Woodward and his wife Rebecca Rogers.

 

“A licence was granted by the most Revd Father Robert Archbishop of Dublin etc to solemnise the marriage between Freeman Woodward of Aungier street, Dublin, gent and Mary Biggar of the Parish of St Peters, Dublin, Spinster, directed to the Revd Robert Fowler A.M. Vicar of said parish. Dated 31 May 1797”

 

Freeman and Mary, daughter of Lennox Biggar and Elizabeth Biggar nee Huson, married at St Peters Dublin on 1^st June 1797.

 

Together they had two children

·        

George (1798 – 1840) only son and heir

·        

Rebecca

 

Freeman died intestate 1824. Letters of administration were granted to Mary then living at 6 Clarendon St Dublin. (We have a copy)

Freeman was a younger brother of William who was eldest son of William and Rebecca. This William was  the grandfather of Francis Sadleir Langford Woodward of Prospect House. Francis/Frank did a lot of genealogical research on the family, wrote heaps in a lectern Bible sized book and passed it down to his daughter Eleanor and son-in-law who was my great Uncle George Otway Woodward (a descendent of Freeman – and yes, Eleanor and Otway were third cousins.) Otway added more to the book. He had no grandchildren so the book is now in my keeping.

We believe that Freeman’s wife was Mary Biggar.

My thinking is that William Woodward in the title allotment book is Frank’s father

The ancestor who came to Ireland with Cromwell was a William and each of the next 5 generations had a son called William. They need careful sorting out!

Helen

 

Hello Helen,

The photos of the Woodward House are Google Street Views of the same house in Cloghprior. One of the views is from the road, the other is a closeup of the same house. The closeup shows more detail of the house and surrounding landscape. For instance, you can clearly see three large chimneys. There may be a 4th chimney hidden behind the roof line.

Also, if you look at the enlarged Google Street View carefully of the house, you’ll see another, smaller stone house without a roof. It looks like this smaller house may one time have had a thatched roof. It’s possible the smaller house is just as old, if not older, than the large house.  

Just to the right of the house with no roof is what appears to be a barn with a corrugated roof, probably used for storage or maybe for hay.

The street view from the road shows more barns to the right of the house in the distance.

The Google Street View enlargement shows construction staging around the whole house. It looks like someone was doing major renovations to the place.

The Google Street View of the property is from 2021, and so a lot of the renovations to the house may be completed at this time.

I found an Ordnance Survey Map of the property from the 1829 to 1841 time period. The house on the map is labeled, “Cloghprior Castle.” The map is attached to this reply, and is from the Tailte Éireann website.

The Ordnance survey Map appears to show a decorative garden just to the south of the house. Perhaps this was a flower garden.

Helen, do you or any of your family have plans in the future to make the long journey from New Zealand to Ireland so that you can visit the Cloghprior?

Thank you for your reply.

Dave