Old Moybologue Graveyard.

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Old Moybologue graveyard is sited 7 miles south of Bailieborough in the Townland of Ralagh Beg in the parish of Bailieborough, County Cavan. It lies alongside a country lane a mile or so south west off the L3538 near Tierworker, County Meath.

The graveyard is surrounded by dry stone walling with one roadside iron gated entrance. It contains the ruins of a late middle age Catholic church that served the surrounding Townlands from possibly the late 1400's and the ruins of a later priest house.The church itself was called St Patrick's and after falling into a state of ruin by the early 1600's was rebuilt but burnt out during the mid 1600's war. Although used for a while as a school after partly reroofing it in the early 1700's it was left to the elements and by the mid 1700's the site was used permanently as a graveyard. Services were held at the nearby Tierworker Catholic Church also called St Patrick's that was built to replace it.

There are over 350 memorial stones ranging from a simple stone to engraved headstones with family history carved on them. The graveyard is now protected by the Bailieborough Parish Council and it's memorial stones have been carefully recorded and photographed by the Moybologue Historical Society. Volunteers watch over it and help keep it tended for all to see.

My ancestors the Donnelly brothers born in the 1770's have two headstones on a large family plot that is, like a lot of the others, a valuable aid to family research. Coupled with this are digitalised online records from the old Moybologue parish books of baptisms and marriages on the NLI registers website that give an insight to the people who attended those services that took place at St Patrick's a century and a half ago.

References

Site dedicated to Moybologue graveyards and Church

Ireland

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Hello!

I am looking for Edward Donnelly, born around 1830. He emigrated to America. He was married to Margaret McCormick from Collinstown, Westmeath. They married in January, 1858 but I do not know where they married or when they left Ireland.

Jimmy

Sunday 29th March 2020 11:59PM

Hi Jimmy.

My 3 ancestors were brothers born in either Tyrone or Armagh but arrived and settled in Greaghnadarragh a township near the Cavan / Westmeath border a mile from Tierworker its Church and Cemetery. Edward Donnelly could have been a cousin and like some of the brothers children born about the same year as him and in the 1860's emigrated to America. I do a lot of research on Ancestry sites and have seen Edward Donnelly's name a few times either in New Jersey or New York. The best thing to do is use the websites like the free one familysearch.org or Ancestry.co.uk which costs a fair bit and go on the search page, base it in the United States and type in just Edward's name, birth year and born in Ireland, living in New York State then click search and look for a census with his wife Margaret Donnelly. That will start you off on a search. Chris