MARY MCHALE

I'm not sure what records you've already searched, but here's a link to some info about Ballygarriff, which contains further links to records from Griffith's Valuation and the 1901 and 1911 censuses:

https://www.townlands.ie/mayo/carra/turlough/strade/ballygarriff/

There appears to be only one McHale family shown in Ballygarriff in the 1901 and 1911 censuses, headed by a Patrick McHale.  Mary is not shown for either year (perhaps she had moved away by then), but Patrick might be her father, and the others listed could be siblings (or their children).  In Griffith's Valuation (mid-1800's), there is only one McHale tenant listed in Ballygarriff, an Ellen McHale.  Perhaps she was Patrick's mother (with his father having perhaps died by then).

The Catholic parish records which are available online for Ballygarriff go back to 1821 for marriages and 1847 for baptisms, so it is likely that you would be able to find a baptismal record for Mary.  Those records are available here:  https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/1083   If you locate Mary's baptism, you would then have the name of her mother, and if interested you could then trace backwards from that year to find older siblings (and in the other direction to find younger ones).

At the Family Search database [https://www.familysearch.org], there are a half dozen records for Mary McHale's born in the 1870-1880 time frame with fathers named Patrick, with several noted as being in Mayo, but none marked clearly as being in Turlough, though one is in Backs, which is just north of Turlough.  If you open a (free) account there, you could exchange messages with the people who created those records and compare notes (their screen names will show in each record, with a link to use in contacting them).

The McHale surname (Mac Céile in Irish) appears to be native to northern Mayo.  MacLysaght, in his Surnames of Ireland, had this to say:  "MacFirbis says this derives from one Cele Ó Maolfaghmair whose family were co-arbs of Killala (céile means companion [he's referring here to the Cele part of the name Cele Ó Maolfaghmair, not to the name of the town of Killala]). The form Mac Eli is used in the "Annals of Loch Cé'. A Mayo sept.  The Howells [English settlers], early settled in the same area, were called Mac Haol, which was also anglicized as McHale.  Without the prefix Hale (numerous in Ulster) is an English locative name."

Hi, 

Thanks very much for your help.

My grandmother only has 1 surviving child, ny auntie Norah.

Your information will spur me on to get a full record of my grandma's family.

Let mne know if I can help you.

Kind regards

John Barrett

Mary's grandson