Michael Morrisey born 28 sept 1836, Castlecomer, Kilkenny to Bryan & Catherine (nee Beard)

The baptism is listed on the index on RootsIreland (pay-website), and the parish is matching Castlecomer RC, so they likely lived in or near the town. If your Morrisey lived outside the Town the baptism transcript might show the name of townland they lived.

The same index is showing about six siblings to your Michael, all younger than him - James 1838, Margaret 1840, Thomas 1841, Judith 1844, Mary 1846 and Patrick 1849.

I dont see a good match for the marriage of Bryan and Catherine so far..

luckily Bryan/Brian is not a very common name, so stands out from all the other Morriseys. There's a good match for him on Griffith's Valuation, dated 1849/1850 for this area. The listing shows him leasing a house from a James Sutclifffe in the townland named Clashduff Upper. This townland is in Kilmacar civil parish, which is close to Castlecomer town so could fit with those baptisms.

I'll locate the townland on the maps and post a link...

Here's the townland of Clashduff Upper on the 1st Edition OSI maps. This section was surveyed 1839. It's very close to Castlecomer town, which is less than 3km to the north east, and was even closer to an RC chapel on the outskirts of the town.

You can access Griffith's Valuation free on the AskAboutIreland website : here  You can view images from the Valuation books, and also maps.

The plot numbers on Griffith's often dont quite match up the maps on AskaboutIreland but it appears that the land that James Sutcliffe lived and farmed was the section to the west, and there's a collection of buildings above and just to the left of letter 'C' in the townland name that are probably his property. Maybe  your Michael worked for James and lived in of those smaller buildings shown ?

For directions to Clashduff Upper townland starting from Castlecomer town on a modern google maps see this link

Thanks Shane. Good luck with your search Karen. Hope you enjoy your visit, let me know how you get on!

Best wishes

Clare Doyle

Genealogy Support 

Hi Karen hope you enjoyed your trip to Ireland as i did and visiting where our ancestors came from,I also am a great grand child of Martin & Maren Morrissey my grand mother was Kitty Morrissey who married Patrick Burke would like to contact you and compare notes

Regards

Lester Oliver