Irish Catholic Parish Records

Today I thought I would look at the Catholic Parish records on the National Library of Ireland site. I know it has taken me awhile to do this. I don't know where any of my people come from let alone what parish they were in. But then today I remembered with the research I had done on the free weekend of Find My Past, I had found that the Nilands had been married in the Parish of Aghamore. So into the records I went. First I tried to find the marriage record for Pat Niland and Sarah Caulfield. They were married 19 January 1864 and found that the records started in December of 1864. So I was not able to find that. The Baptism records were good for the years the children were born. So I gathered up the birth records for them on Family Search and got into it.

Catholic Parish Records at the NLI, Aghamore Parish/Microfilm 04217/03, page 6; Nov. 1864-Jan. 1865, entry for Dec. 4, Thos. Nyland

I found records for all 6 children. The records went back and forth with the spelling some were Niland, others Nyland, and Sara would be Sally a couple of times. First I found Thomas, on the Family Search record his birth date was 4 Dec 1964 and place was Kilkelly, Mayo, Ireland. The Church record has the same date but it is not identified as the birth or baptism date. The Church record has a column heading of Village, this entry said Mountain.

Catholic Parish Records at the NLI, Aghamore Parish/Microfilm 04217/03, page 82, May 1876 -Aug. 1876, entry for Mary Nyland

All of the children are the same with Family Search saying Kilkelly except for the youngest, Mary. Family Search has Mountain, Mayo, Ireland. I have not been able to find anything about this village of Mountain but I had seen the reference to it before.

"Pennsylvania, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1800-1962", [online database], (Ancestry.com, accessed 17 Oct 2015), entry for Austin Niland, age 18, arrived Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 17 April 1910 on S.S. Merion.

I saw this on the ship manifest for Austin Niland's arrival. In the column for name and address of relative in country you came from, he listed his father in Mountain, Aghamore.

I am finding that my Niland or Nyland family seem to be in this area of Aghamore. So I have to keep looking and maybe I will get them connected with my 3rd great grandmother, Catherine Nyland Welsh. I so wish I could get back to Ireland with this information I have now that I didn't know 11 years ago when I was there! Maybe some day?