Tenants in St. Mary’s Newtownbarry, Wexford 1824

Small Sources 32: Below is a list of 18 tenants of the Colclough estate in the townlands of Curraduff (probably the townland now spelt Coorduff) and Ballycreen (also called Boolycreen or Boolygreen) in the parish of St. Mary’s Newtownbarry, Co. Wexford. The family names in the rental are generally those that are associated with Wexford, such as Tobin, Cavanaugh (usually spelled Kavanagh) and Whelan, but also include less common names such as Cowman, Osburne and Robinson. If you are interested in information on any of these families, you may find a source in our e-book title ‘Sources for Irish Family History 2021‘. It lists 6,500 books and articles dealing with over 2,500 Irish families.

The precise location of the holdings is complicated by the fact that there are two other townlands called Curraduff in surrounding Civil Parishes. However, given the mention of the townlands of Clonyburn and Ballycreen in the same document, it is probable that it is in the Civil Parish of St. Mary’s Newtownbarry, as the 2 other townlands are also in that parish. The Colclough family residence was in Tintern in the south of the county, but they held property in many parts of Wexford.

The single-page rental document is among the Colclough Papers in the National Library of Ireland, NLI Ms 29,758 (1). Rentals are the records of the landlord on tenants, their holdings, and their payments. Although these might appear to be purely business records, many contain rich family information. A full description of rental formats and practices, and on the useful family information they can provide is in our blog Rentals as a resource for Irish family history.

The image of the document was created by Ancestor Network in the National Library of Ireland and is reproduced here through their courtesy. If you need help in following up on anything related to this source, or any other Irish research, you can outline your requirements to us and we will let you know what we might be able to do for you. Ancestor Network will also offer 1 free hour of research by a professional researcher to conduct further research on these individuals, or on other tenants of this estate. We can also obtain images of the original documents. Click here and quote ‘Wexford SS32’ in the subject line.