RootsChat.Com
Ireland (Historical Counties) => Ireland => Antrim => Topic started by: jnomad on Friday 03 September 21 21:46 BST (UK)
-
Does anyone know anything about this burying-ground?
Thomas M'Lorinan, Methodist minister, died April 17 1880 at Warrenpoint. According to the Belfast Newsletter for April 20 1880 his remains were to be removed for interment in the family burying-ground, Antrim, on that day.
His father was Henry McLorinan, farmer, who died at Castle Street, Antrim on January 12 1875. Mother so far unknown, at least to me.
-
May be a coincidence or nothing at all (quite likely!), have you seen
25 November 1868
Letters of Administration of the personal estate of Alexander Mackey late of Antrim County Antrim Wesleyan Minister a Bachelor deceased who died 29 April 1865 at same place were granted at Belfast to John M'Lorinan of Mill-street Belfast County Antrim Soap Chandler a Nephew and one of the next of kin of said deceased.
Alexander Mackey died 29 April 1865, age 80
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QGCX-5JNZ
Though BNL, 1 May 1865, says a bit younger!
The Rev. Alexander Mackey, of Antrim, an eloquent and zealous Methodist minister, died on Saturday, at Antrim, in his 78th year.
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln was still in the news!
There's a marriage in Belfast in 1855 of John McLorinan, 35, father Henry, a Farmer, to Mary Robb.
Though he was a writing clerk, not a soap chandler.
And I don't know what happened to him!
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1855/09484/5437118.pdf
Scrub the rest!
-
Well, we have a book, "History of Methodism in Ireland", vol 2, The Middle Age.
Chapter 18, 1805
Page 269
Mary Mackey, a Unitarian, hears singing from a Methodist funeral procession, seems taken by it
Mary marries William Johnson
Mary has a sister Martha*, and a brother Alexander, an exceedingly promising young man! They all seem to become Methodists
footnote (Martha)
*Afterwards Mrs. M'Lorinan, mother of the Rev. Thomas M'Lorinan
On google books, and here
https://archive.org/details/historymethodis02croogoog/page/n284/mode/2up
-
Thomas M'Lorinan, Methodist minister, died April 17 1880 at Warrenpoint.
Hopefully is the son of Martha mentioned!
Is there a death registration for him (Newry?) :-\
The only Martha in the death indexes (which start in 1864 of course) seems to be Martha McLorinan who died 20 April 1895, age 78, at Quinnville Terrace, Holywood, Belfast.
Obviously not Mary Mackey's sister! But she was a spinster, and cert says daughter of the late Henry McLorinan, a Shopkeeper
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1895/05933/4685549.pdf
Could that still be Henry the farmer? :-\
Death announcement in the BNL says she was late of Antrim.
There is a very brief write up on the Rev Thomas M'Lorinan in the Belfast Morning News, 5 May 1880.
From free text
Born August 1818
Entered the ministry in 1845
Spent several years in the Didsbury College, Manchester
-
Has Simpson come up in the researches?
The informant on the Martha McLorinan 1895 death was John Simpson of Quinnville Terrace, Holywood.
Now, the following year, on 21 October, there is the death of John Simpson of Quinnville Terrace! He was also aged 78.
Occupation Farmer
Informant Martha Harrison of QT
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1896/05885/4669489.pdf
Lisburn Herald, etc., 24 October 1896, adjusted ocr text (check original if possible)
SIMPSON—October 21, at his daughter’s residence, Quinnville Terrace, Holywood, John Simpson, late of Stoneyford. His remains will removed for interment in ? Presbyterian Churchyard on Saturday morning, the 24th inst., at 10.30, passing Lisburn 12.30. Friends will please accept this intimation.
So is Martha Harrison, the informant, John Simpson's daughter? The name Martha is certainly interesting!
There is a marriage at Magheragall, 7 March 1872, William J Harrison, 31, Farmer, and Martha Simpson, 21, father John Simpson, Farmer
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1872/11294/8143334.pdf
Announcement in the BNL, 15 March 1872
William John Harrison, Brookhill, to Martha, eldest daughter of Mr. John Simpson, Stoneyford, near Lisburn.
A marriage back on 6 April 1847, at Antrim, that looks hopeful.
John Simpson, Farmer.
+
Mary McLorinan
So faint, it's hard to read!
Is John's residence Stoneyford?
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1847/09320/5374885.pdf
It is indexed on FamilySearch, Mary's father is Henry McLorinan.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QL3W-YVHT
-
A final snippet, relevant or not :-\
BNL, 28 Nov 1898
LOST.
10S REWARD to anyone returning Gold Brooch, with topaz setting, lost October 26th, in Holywood, to Mrs. M'Dowell, Quinnville, Holywood.
-
John Simpson, Farmer.
+
Mary McLorinan
So faint, it's hard to read!
Is John's residence Stoneyford?
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1847/09320/5374885.pdf
Certainly looks like it, John.
I've tried to darken it a bit. Looks like the vicar wrote it as two words (see attached).
Stoneyford village is in the townland of Island Kelly in Derriaghy CP.
https://www.townlands.ie/antrim/massereene-upper/derriaghy/island-folly/island-kelly/
-
Ah, thank you very much, Kiltaglassan. It does look as you say.
Apparently I had some mystery relatives living near Stoneyford in the early 1900s, one day I might find out who they were!
It seems we can tie together Martha and Mary (Simpson) as daughters of Henry McLorinan. Hopefully the right Henry, it doesn't appear to be a very common surname. Be nice to have some proof, but the Martha name is good, if his wife was Martha Mackey.
Have been struggling with finding very many people in "Quinnville Terrace", and perhaps the lady who lost the gold brooch in Holywood is not connected.
John
-
Wow! I've been doing errands while the replies accumulated.
I think you have revealed the main thing I hoped to find out from a gravestone, if someone knew what was meant by the family burying-ground and someone found a grave with a helpful inscription: namely the maiden name of the wife of Henry McLorinan, who died at Castle Street Antrim in 1875. It was already established that the Rev. Thomas McLorinan was uncle of Lizzie, daughter of John McDowell (died Antrim 1886), who was almost certainly a son-in-law of Henry McLorinan. So Thomas was a son of Henry McLorinan, and the mother you have found for him, born Martha Mackey, was Henry McLorinan's wife, mother-in-law of John McDowell.
I haven't found a record of her death. Maybe it didn't get a civil record, as seems to have been the case with her son Thomas McLorinan. Or maybe it was before civil records started.
I had looked for Martha McLorinan as a daughter of Henry McL, because the Valuation Revision Books for 1867-1881 have a house on Castle Street with Henry McLorinan crossed out and replaced by Martha, presumably when Henry died. And I had found the death of Martha McL, spinster, and noted that it was reported by John Simpson, whose marriage (if it's the same person) to Mary McL I had found, tentatively identifying Mary as a daughter of "my" Henry. About Martha, I was given pause by her father being described as a shopkeeper, not a farmer. And come to think of it, what is the profession of Mary's father on that marriage certificate? Kiltaglassan's enhancement doesn't make that end of the certificate much clearer; might it actually be grocer, not farmer as I was assuming? There was a grocer (and haberdasher) Henry McLorinan on Main Street Antrim in 1870 (also the Misses McLorinan, haberdashers; daughters?), and I had thought that must be a different Henry McLorinan. Is it possible that one person was called a farmer in some records and a grocer/shopkeeper in others?
I had found Alexander Mackey on the list of Methodist ministers in Ireland when I was looking for more on Thomas McLorinan, and the name intrigued me for a quite other reason. I have been interested in finding a Thomas Parker for John McDowell's eldest son to be named after. (The first two, Thomas Parker McD and Henry McLorinan McD, used all three names in many contexts. The youngest, John junior, seems to have been just John. Having a middle name seems to have been significant.) Now Henry McLorinan McD had a friend Alexander Mackey Parker (born Antrim 1841), who was a witness at Henry's marriage and later the father-in-law of Henry's daughter Elizabeth. The Rev. Alexander Mackey, a bachelor, wasn't anyone's father-in-law, but perhaps Alexander Mackey Parker was named after a charismatic preacher, as was also apparently not uncommon. I can't resist adding that Lizzie McDowell Stewart's youngest son, so a nephew of Henry McL McD, was called Alex Parker Stewart, according to the 1901 census.
I would still be interested in knowing if anyone knows what was meant by the family burying-ground!
There's a lot else that's intriguing in what you have uncovered. For instance, was Samuel Johnson, father-in-law of John McDowell junior and eponym of his son Samuel Johnson McDowell, a descendant of Mary Mackey and William Johnson? But even without raising new questions, there's plenty for me to digest. Many thanks.
-
"The family burying-ground" simply means a family plot- since most Methodist Churches probably didn't have a graveyard check local Church of Ireland & Presbyterian graveyards (although there might not be a headstone/legible headstone).
-
Thanks, aghadowey. I didn't suppose there would be a separate graveyard for the McLorinan family. But I found it a bid odd that the BNL notice implicitly assumed that anyone who saw it and wanted to go the funeral would know which graveyard (C of I, Presbyterian) the family plot was in. And I wondered if anyone knew the answer to that question.
About John McLorinan being a writing clerk when he married and later a soap chandler: in the 1865 Belfast directory he figures on Mill Street as a chandler, but in 1870 he's chandler and book-keeper. Maybe he wasn't succeeding as a chandler. There's the death of Mary McLorinan on 30 June 1890, in Belfast workhouse, taken there from 55 Mountjoy Street (was the workhouse a substitute for a hospital for poor people?), in the presence of her husband/widower John McLorinan, clerk, of 55 Mountjoy Street.
About one Henry McLorinan being both a farmer and a grocer/shopkeeper: in the 1880 Belfast and Ulster Province directory Henry McLorinan, grocer, is still listed on High Street — five years after the death of the farmer. It looks as if there were at least two with the same name. Perhaps the Simpson connection doesn't belong with "my" Henry, the father-in-law of John McDowell. Martha's father seems to have lived on Castle Street, as did Henry the farmer, but maybe not in the same house. There are also Roman Catholic McLorinans on Castle Street, surely not related.
-
Death in a Workhouse does not mean poverty and it's likely she died in the hospital attached to the Workhouse.
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Belfast/
-
No one has expressed a view about the profession of Mary McLorinan's father on the certificate of her marriage to John Simpson. I think the first letter could be G. Anyway, the way John Simpson is connected to the death of Martha McLorinan suggests that Mary and Martha were sisters, and Martha's father is described as a shopkeeper. No one has expressed a view about whether a grocer/shopkeeper might also be described, at his death, as a farmer. The names Mary and Martha are indeed suggestive that they were named for the Mackey sisters, but even so I'm inclined to be doubtful that these probable sisters are daughters of Martha McLorinan born Mackey, and to think their father is a different Henry McLorinan.
One more thing: might it be significant that Mary's marriage, in 1847, was in the Church of Ireland? Methodist marriages in Antrim apparently go back to 1836. Would Martha McL, née Mackey, presumably a fervent convert to Methodism with her sister Mary and brother Alexander back in 1805 or thereabouts, have been happy for her daughter to marry in the established church? And wouldn't it have been up to the bride's family where the marriage would be, even if the Simpsons were C of I (as they seem to have been)? Just asking; I would be happy to be instructed about this.
-
I thought Henry's occupation might also be Farmer, but, having another look, possibly not!
Really it is too indistinct to be sure!
What about the witnesses? One of them looks as though it might be a Johnson, and I can only come up with Bristow as a first name!
Now there was a Bristow Johnson around (could have been several I suppose!) who was in Dublin, and seems to be one of the correspondents in the "Johnson Letters", featuring Henry Johnson, who I think has gone to Canada, Henry's wife Jane in Antrim, and others.
PRONI Reference T3478
Alexander Mackey is in them, writing to Henry in Canada.
And Jane, writing to husband Henry in 1849, says
"Your mother is well and she desires me to remember her to you your Uncle Mackey is well"
Should be some punctuation in there!
But is that witness Bristow Johnson? :-\
Marriage of Bristow Johnson and Frances Peacock in Dublin in 1851
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1851/09411/5409269.pdf
-
Is any of this relevant to you ?
Surname(s) Graveyard Civil Parish Graveyard Location County
McLORINAN Friar's Bush Shankill Belfast Antrim
Gravestone Inscription IHS Erected by Henry McLorinanin memory of James McLorinan who departed this life August 19th 1853 aged 24 years Also three infant children Also his beloved wife JAne who departed this life July 18th 1847 aged 70 years Also the aboved Henry McLorinan who departed this life March 1st 1877 aged 83 years
Comment [Beside Hugh McLorinan's monument] Henry McLorinan was a bricklayer at the corner of 42 Smithfield and West Street Belfast from about 1840 untill 1843 when he opened a delf shop there. In 1852 he began dealing in glass-ware as well and two years later opened additional premises at 33 Smithfield (on the north side). By 1858 he had been joined by one of his sons, and two years later the firm was entitely concentrated in enlarged premises an the corner of the west side of Smithfield and West Street. He appears to have retired by 1865 as Charles McLorinan had taken over the concern and was living at 7 Landscape Terrace, Crumlin Road; two years later he moved to Holywood. By 1870 Charles left the West Street premises, but was still in Smithfield and now living on the Antrim Road. Sometime before 1877 Charles moved the firm to 98 High Street and in the 1890's he became a JP; it appears that about this time he started a legal practice at 87 Donegall Street. In 1897 he sold his china shop to W Crawford & Son. In that year, also, he became LLD and was living on the Limestone Road. The solicitor's firm had become Shiels & McLorinan and in about 1920 moved to 14 Donegall Street. Charles seems to have died in 1930
Surname(s) Graveyard Civil Parish Graveyard Location County
McLORINAN, WILLIAMS Friar's Bush Shankill Belfast Antrim
Gravestone Inscription IHS Erected by Hugh McLorinan, Belfast, in memory of his father Felix McLorinan who died 14th August 1814 aged 46 years Also his daughter Ann who died 18th January 1832 aged 1 year Also his wife Alicia McLorinan who died 29th October 1837 aged 34 years Also his mother-in-law Margaret WILLIAMS who died 12th December 1837 aged 56 years Also his sister-in-law Mary Williams who died 11th July 1838 aged 37 years Also his eldest son Daniel who died 22nd May 1862 aged 34 years Also his brother Daniel who died 30th June 1862 aged 56 years The above named Hugh McLorinan who died 6th December 1882 aged 90 years Mary, pray for him
Comment [Massive headstone sunnounted by an unusually large neoclassical capstone with urn and cross] It is possible that Hugh McLorinan was a native of Ahoghill, Co Antrim, as his brother Daniel was described in a death notice as having lately lived there. Hugh McLorinan was established as a builder at 46 Institution Place, Belfast, by 1837 if not earlier, although he is not listed in the Belfast directories until 1841. In 1842 he opened a builder's yard at 20 Upper Church Lane, before moving in the late 1840s to 37 Academy Street where he operated as a builder, grocer, spirit dealer and undertaker until about 1851. From then until about 1864, he was at Institution Place only, trading as both a builder and spirit-grocer, and in that year he acquired additional property at nos 61 and 63 Meadow Street. He appears to have left Institution Place between 1865 and 1868 and lived for a few years at 16 Camden Street, off University Road when he was discribed as being a grocer, spirit dealer, architect, builder and valuer, with his business address at Meadow Street. By 1870 he had left Camden Street and moved to 47 Meadow Street. He continued as a wine and spirit merchant, and builder untill his retirement in about 1879 when he went to live at 1 Limestone Road, and the concern was wound up.
-
That's fascinating, jonw65. Once again, you make an intervention that changes the whole picture!
Now that I know there was such a person, I can see that the witness is Bristow Johnson. Surely there can't have been a lot of people with that name.
I had not heard of the Henry Johnson letters. From the bit you cite from a letter of Henry's wife, Henry was a nephew of Alexander Mackey, so his mother was Mary Mackey who married William Johnson. You don't say how Bristow Johnson figures in the letters. But the Dublin marriage certificate doesn't say where the groom's father lives or lived, and there was a William Johnson, grocer, on Main Street Antrim in 1852. It looks plausible, pending refutation from the letters, that Bristow Johnson is a brother of Henry.
That means that if Mary McLorinan's father is the McLorinan who married Mary Mackey and fathered the Rev. Thomas McLorinan, Bristow Johnson was her cousin; their mothers were sisters. And that surely makes it likely that she, and by extension her probable sister Martha, belong in that family: sisters of the Rev. Thomas, daughters of Mary Mackey. That gives a nice explanation of why Bristow Johnson is a witness.
I still have a problem about the profession of the father-in-law of John McDowell, in whose presence Henry McLorinan, farmer, the person I thought was John's father-in-law, father of John's wife Elizabeth, died at Castle Street in 1875. Can that Henry McL be the same person as the father of Martha McLorinan, shopkeeper? And what about there still being a Henry McLorinan, grocer, on High Street in 1880?
I'm tempted to think the father-in-law of John McDowell junior, Samuel Johnson, grocer, is another brother. Perhaps he took over his father's grocery.
Thanks for all that, sam.b. But those McLorinans are surely Roman Catholic, whereas the Henry McL I'm interested in at least married a Methodist, and had at least one of his daughters married in the Church of Ireland. I don't think the McLorinans you have introduced are related. Of course if you go back far enough everyone is related to everyone else, but I think any connection in this case is quite distant. I've seen it suggested that the RC McLorinans in Co Antrim were Irish long before the Plantation, whereas the Protestant McLorinans may have been Scottish imports.
-
Sorry, I meant the McLorinan who married Martha Mackey.
-
And daughters of Martha Mackey.
-
Hi
The transcribed letters are on PRONI, there are references to them on the internet, but I haven't seen them anywhere else
https://apps.proni.gov.uk/eCatNI_IE/SearchPage.aspx
I can't find an easy way to search for them by using the reference mentioned, or dates, there probably is one, you'll find it or someone will tell us!
Exact phrase "Bristow Johnson" brings up two letters, one sent to my dear Henry, signed dear Brother
Exact phrase "Jane Johnson" brings up several letters
Match ALL words, looking for Mackey + Johnson, brings up about six letters
-
Great, thank you. You gave the PRONI reference for the collection, but I dumbly assumed that to browse in it I would need to visit PRONI, which isn't going to happen.
So it's established that Bristow Johnson is a brother of Henry, a nephew of Alexander Mackey, and a son of Mary born Mackey. And it's plausible that the reason why Bristow Johnson is a witness at the marriage of Mary McLorinan is that he is her cousin; she is a daughter of Mary's sister Martha, who became the mother of the Rev. Thomas McLorinan. And it's plausible, from the Simpson connection, that the spinster Martha McLorinan is another daughter of Martha Mackey, another sister of the Rev. Thomas McLorinan.
I think John McDowell's wife Elizabeth is another daughter, a sister of Mary, Martha, and the Rev. Thomas. That her maiden name is McLorinan is near enough certain. As Shanreagh noted, two of her children have McLorinan as middle name. (Jane is Jane McL. McLorinan on John's gravestone, but what else is that if not McLorinan? Henry is definitely Henry McLorinan McD.) An extra bit of evidence: her son John junior calls his first daughter Elizabeth McLorinan McDowell, surely in honour of his mother. (She is Elizabeth McClernon McD on the civil record of her birth [Larne, June 21 1886], but on his will probate she is Elizabeth McLorinan Napier, married woman, daughter.)
The only problem is the profession of the person who is coming into view as Martha McLorinan's husband Henry McLorinan, the father of these siblings: Rev. Thomas, Mary, Martha, and Elizabeth. The Henry McLorinan who died in the presence of John McDowell in 1875 is a farmer. The father of Martha is a shopkeeper. In between, the father of Mary is a farmer? or perhaps grocer? And we know there is a Henry McLorinan grocer, and sometimes haberdasher, in Antrim at the time. The only suitable Henry McLorinan on the civil records of deaths in Antrim around the right time is the one who died in 1875. So I'm stuck with my question: could he have been both a farmer and a shopkeeper, specifically a grocer/haberdasher?
-
Sorry, Jane McL. McDowell. Bad proofreading.
-
Hi
Well there seem to be people about described as "farmer and grocer", or the other way round.
Googling " farmer and grocer" and "antrim" brings up some results.
So Henry may have had a farm and a shop. Or he may have been a grocer who at one time had been a farmer.
There isn't too much about him that I can see. In the newspapers it's the Smithfield Henry who has more or less a monopoly.
I think there is enough in all the links we have found to suggest that you have the right people. Bit surprising that Henry didn't leave a will, but we can't have everything!
John
-
Great, thank you! That's just what I was hoping for: a FH expert giving his blessing to the idea. But it turns out that I could have reassured myself just by a bit of googling.
Next problem, which may be insurmountable given that most of it predates civil records: confidently identifying a suitable Thomas Parker for Thomas Parker McDowell to be named for, and hopefully to be father of Alexander Mackey Parker. I have a Thomas Parker who died in Rathbeg in 1883, reported by his son Alex, who also figures as executor of his will. But that Alex is a farmer, and I don't know if that can be made to fit Alexander Mackey Parker.
I'm very grateful for your interest.
John (me too)
-
Following our private messages, I thought it would help to post here, as you suggested.
The marriage of Henry McLorinan and Martha Mackey was reported in the Belfast Magazine in November 1809. If you google ‘Skeffington Bristow Mackey’ you can see the notice.
It’s interesting that these families used Skeffington and Bristow as forenames. The Viscounts Massereene were Skeffingtons and their agent in the 1750s was Samuel Bristow. Before that it was Roger Bristow, who named one of his sons Skeffington. It seems likely that there is a connection.
-
Another mention of a McLorinan family burying-ground: Belfast News-Letter June 7 1880, death of Margaret, relict of the late John M'Lorinan, at Courthouse, Antrim; her remains to be removed for interment in the family burying-ground, Meeting-House Green, that afternoon. (The notice is signed by M. M'Lorinan.) I don't know if this is the same family. But does anyone know where Meeting-House Green is or was?
And any help with connecting the McLorinans of Market Square and the Courthouse with the family of Rev. Thomas (or establishing that there is no connection) would be very welcome.
-
Antrim Courthouse is still in the town centre, where it has always been, at the bottom of the main street. It was a courthouse right up until about 2000 and today is a theatre and cafe. If you google it, you'll find plenty of references to it. There's no burial ground near it, just commercial premises and part of the walls of Antrim Castle.
Antrim Castle was the Skeffington family home but was burned down in 1922. A small section of the original building still remains as do the outbuildings and formal gardens which are now a public park. There's no family burial plot there. The Skeffingtons were buried in Antrim Church of Ireland graveyard and there are various inscriptions to them in that church.
Meeting House is a term many Presbyterians use to describe their church. So Meeting House green is likely to be beside one of the Presbyterian churches in the town. Antrim 1st (aka Mill Row) used to be on Mill Row, beside the Sixmilewater. It moved to Fountain St at some point in the past 50 or 60 years. Not sure when. Don't know of any green near the old church. There is also a long disused Unitarian (Non Subscribing Presbyterian) church pretty well opposite the current Antrim 1st Presbyterian. The Unitarian church has not been a church for 100 years but the building is intact (last used as a boxing club). It does have a graveyard attached. The graveyard is fenced and locked but Antrim Council keep the keys and visitors can borrow them if they wish.
-
Thanks, Elwyn.
Courthouse is given, in the News-Letter notice, as the address at which Margaret died. Her late husband John is described as a bridewell keeper on the certificate of her death at irishgenealogy.ie. And there the address is given as Market Square; I assume that's where the Courthouse is, and I assume there was accommodation in the Courthouse for bridewell keepers, court keepers, weighmasters, and such. There's a younger John, weighmaster and bridewell keeper, who died at Market Square in 1882, aged 44. And he had a brother Henry (who put a notice of his death in the BNL), described at his marriage in 1865 as son of John McL, court keeper.
Also at Market Square there were Joseph McL, woollendraper, died 1875, and his widow Margaret, who died 1887. And (I think) several daughters.
-
I think that the bridewell was the cells in the police station which is across the road from the courthouse. I have been in that courthouse many times. It's not very big. There was a court upstairs, accessed by raised steps at one end and underneath were facilities for the local market. I think the weighing facility was outside. There were probably a couple of holding cells but my understanding is that prisoners were brought across the road from the police station on the day of the court hearing. I don't think there was ever accommodation in the courthouse. It's not big enough. It may well have had a keeper but I doubt he lived there. Could be wrong though.
Looking at the 1901 & 1911 censuses for Market Square, I only see the police officers in the police station/barracks. I don't see anyone living in the courthouse.
-
Thanks again. It's a bit odd that the death notice for Margaret in the BNL says she died at the Courthouse. Perhaps it means a house in Market Square adjacent to the Courthouse? I don't think I've seen it as a residence anywhere else; these weighmasters etc. are usually placed in Market Square. (There was certainly a court keeper; John McL is so described at the marriage of his son Henry.)
About First Antrim Presbyterian: Genuki says a new meeting house (for the Millrow congregation, seemingly) opened on the Church Street site in 1837, and in 1860 the congregation changed its name from Millrow to First Antrim Presbyterian. It says the church has/had a graveyard, but there doesn't seem to be much room (on the Genuki map) for a green. But there's what looks like plenty of green space across the street, as you suggest.
-
I found an 1868 marriage (Bristow Charters to Anne Murphy) said to have taken place in the Old Presbyt. Meetinghouse, Antrim. The link below makes it seem likely that the building that was so named was the disused Unitarian church Elwyn mentioned, which was previously a boxing club. Built 1700, so already old by 1868. I gather Unitarian and Non-Subscribing Presbyterian were equivalent or nearly; or is that wrong?
https://velvethummingbee.com/2018/11/09/old-meeting-house-antrim/
And perhaps this church's graveyard, or part of it, was Meeting House Green?
As Elwyn said, the graveyard is managed by the town council. I've asked the cemeteries department of the town council if they have records of nineteenth-century burials there, and in particular of McLorinans.
-
Yes Unitarian and Non Subscribing Presbyterian are the same thing. As I understand it, NSPs don’t believe in the Trinity. They believe that there is just a single unified entity (ie God), hence the term Unitarian. They also don’t proselytize, but otherwise their beliefs are fairly similar to other Presbyterians. Many NSP congregations were originally “mainstream” Presbyterian but split in the 1800s. And when that happened they sometimes kept the old church records. (But not in the case of Antrim).
That church could certainly be the Old Meeting House. I don’t think there are any surviving records for Antrim NSP church. (Certainly none are listed in PRONI’s guide). Though it hasn’t been a functioning church for 50 years or more, the NSP Minister in Larne has responsibility for the building. You could check with him/her.
I’d be surprised if there are any burial records for the church as Presbyterians generally didn’t keep burial records.
Just to throw a little more confusion into the situation, there is also Antrim 2nd Presbyterian congregation, often known as High St church. That used to be in High St. It’s moved now to a new site beside the Council buildings on the edge of town, but has been in existence since the 1850s anyway. (It’s baptism records start in 1850). I am not sure if it ever had a graveyard but there might have been a green near it at one time.
-
2nd Antrim (High St.) Presbyterian Church started 1850 (they 1st met in Primitive Methodist Chapel, 1st minister ordained 1851, church opened 1853) so there won't be any earlier records.
-
Thanks, Elwyn and aghadowey.
I think it's pretty certain that the church called the Old Presbyterian Meetinghouse in 1868 is the disused NSP/Unitarian church. The marriage of Bristow Charters and Anne Murphy there (19 June 1868) was conducted by Rev. James McFerran. In the Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory for 1870 he's listed as the Unitarian minister in Antrim.
I'm inclined to discount 2nd Antrim (and indeed 1st Antrim). No doubt they were described as meeting houses, but this church looks like the best candidate to be The Meeting House, so that its green might be expected to be recognized, in a BNL death notice, under the label Meeting-House Green. And it certainly had/has a graveyard!
For what it's worth: Mary Mackey, who spearheaded the conversion to Methodism of the Mackey siblings, Mary, Martha, and Alexander, was previously a Unitarian. (See reply #2 on this topic.) Martha became the mother of Rev. Thomas McLorinan, one of the people said to have been buried in the McLorinan family burial ground. It's surely likely that this was the family church of the Mackeys before the conversion.
I wasn't hoping for church burial records. I was hoping someone might find McLorinan graves in the graveyard. And of course Mackey graves would be interesting too.
-
I wasn't hoping for church burial records. I was hoping someone might find McLorinan graves in the graveyard. And of course Mackey graves would be interesting too.
Let me know what the Council say. I don’t mind getting the keys from them and having a look for you. I have been in it a couple of times before.
-
Thanks a lot, Elwyn. I haven't heard back from the council yet.
-
Hello, Elwyn.
My contact in the cemeteries department says they have no records about burials there. So it would be great if you would have a look.
As I said, Mackey graves would also be interesting. Another topic I started here, Mackey family of Antrim, has drawn a response from someone looking to place five Mackey siblings born in the 1810s and 1820s, and their father, evidently from Antrim, in the family from which Mary, Martha, and Rev. Alexander come; you might want to look at that.
-
Hello, Elwyn.
My contact in the cemeteries department says they have no records about burials there. So it would be great if you would have a look.
As I said, Mackey graves would also be interesting. Another topic I started here, Mackey family of Antrim, has drawn a response from someone looking to place five Mackey siblings born in the 1810s and 1820s, and their father, evidently from Antrim, in the family from which Mary, Martha, and Rev. Alexander come; you might want to look at that.
I am away in Scotland at present but if you leave that with me, I’ll try and get in in the next week or so. I'll keep an eye out for any Mackey graves too.
-
Another likely burial in the McLorinan family burying-ground, wherever that was: Eleanor Charters McLorinan, who died, a spinster, 19 November 1870, at the home of her father Henry McLorinan on Bow Lane (which was later called Castle Street; Henry died there in 1875). BNL death notice (21 November 1870) says she was his sixth daughter; I'm missing two. (Besides Eleanor, I have Elizabeth, who married John McDowell and was buried with him in the Friends' graveyard Moylinny; Martha, who died a spinster at Holywood in 1895; and Mary, see below.)
One of the daughters, Mary Simpson, who died in Stoneyford 28 September 1879, was to be taken to be buried in Antrim Churchyard (BNL death notice 30 September 1879). Does that mean the churchyard of the C of I church? That's where she was married. Perhaps that's another possibility for the family burying-ground.
One more thing: was/is there a Methodist graveyard?
-
Another likely burial in the McLorinan family burying-ground, wherever that was: Eleanor Charters McLorinan, who died, a spinster, 19 November 1870, at the home of her father Henry McLorinan on Bow Lane (which was later called Castle Street; Henry died there in 1875). BNL death notice (21 November 1870) says she was his sixth daughter; I'm missing two. (Besides Eleanor, I have Elizabeth, who married John McDowell and was buried with him in the Friends' graveyard Moylinny; Martha, who died a spinster at Holywood in 1895; and Mary, see below.)
One of the daughters, Mary Simpson, who died in Stoneyford 28 September 1879, was to be taken to be buried in Antrim Churchyard (BNL death notice 30 September 1879). Does that mean the churchyard of the C of I church? That's where she was married. Perhaps that's another possibility for the family burying-ground.
One more thing: was/is there a Methodist graveyard?
I don't know what was meant by Antrim churchyard. There is a small churchyard beside the COI church but it probably only has 30 gravestones. It cannot have been the main graveyard for the area.
There was no graveyard attached to Antrim Methodist church (long closed now). Some Methodist churches did have graveyards but most used the COI or other public graveyards.
-
Thanks, Elwyn.
When you say Methodists used the COI or other public graveyards, that seems to imply that there was a dedicated COI graveyard somewhere? Just not, anyway for a new burial in 1879, in a place that could be described as a churchyard?
I'm wondering if the widower John Simpson, who put the notice of Mary's death in the BNL, was trying to express what he had arranged about the funeral with Mary's family (probably with her sister Martha, who seems to have taken over as head of household when their father died). Perhaps she meant the churchyard where the McLorinan graves were, and he (not being from Antrim himself) assumed that could be described as Antrim churchyard.
It still looks like a live possibility that there might be a patch of McLorinan graves, maybe including Mary Simpson, in the graveyard (churchyard) of the NSP/Unitarian church.
-
The only COI graveyard in Antrim that I know of is the small one around the church. It doesn't look big enough to contain 400 years worth of burials. The council opened a cemetery in Moylena Rd. I am not certain when but I don't think it was there in 1879. (I can find graves from 1912 onwards so suspect that's when it opened). So I really don't know where the 1879 burial took place. I'll have a look at Antrim COI next time I am over there for Mary Simpson.
-
Thanks again.
Genealogically speaking, the burial place of Mary Simpson is only a side interest, especially if she wasn't buried with other McLorinans. What I hoped for from what was called the McLorinan family burial ground was clues about the origins of Mary's (and others') father Henry, whose son Rev. Thomas McL was one of those explicitly said to have been buried (in 1880) in the family burial ground. The other was Margaret, widow of John McL, bridewell keeper (1795-1865), who died in 1877. I know John's father (Bernard McL, tradesman) from the certificate of his marriage to Margaret (Harkness), his second wife, in 1848. And John was of an age to be a brother of Henry, who was born c. 1789. But was he? There was also Joseph McL, woollendraper, born c. 1794, so also of an age to be a brother.
-
Another mention of the family burial ground in a death notice for a McLorinan in Antrim: John McL, who died February 23 1882; notice in BNL the next day (posted by his brother Henry) says burial that day in the family burying ground, with location specified as Old Meeting-House Green. I think we know, from earlier in this topic, that the church called Old Meeting-House was the NSP/Unitarian church.
This John (born c. 1838) and his brother Henry (born c. 1840) were sons of John McL (c. 1795-1865), bridewell keeper, whose widow Margaret was also to be buried in the family burial ground.
And Rev. Thomas McL, son of a different Henry McL (c. 1789-1875), was also said to be buried (1880) in the family burial ground. If John, Margaret, and Rev. Thomas are all in the same patch of graves, that would surely be some reason to suppose it's the same family: it would be likely that Rev. Thomas and the younger John were cousins.
-
A couple more McLorinan burials.
Joseph McL, woollendraper of Market Square, died 27 December 1874; BNL says his remains are to be taken for interment in Antrim Churchyard. But his widow Margaret, who died 17 June 1877, was to be buried in the family burying-ground.
-
I learned only from response #3 here that the wife of Henry McLorinan (died 1875) was Martha Mackey. And I have become convinced only from the discussion here that they were the parents of Mary McLorinan, who married John Simpson.
Now I find on the Antrim History Forum a post from 2007: "… the wife of my Great Great Grand Father was a Mary McLorinan. Her Father was Henry of Antrim and her mother Martha Mc Key …." Signed Les Simpon — I assume a typo for Simpson. Posting as wessexblue; evidently living in England. No posts since by wessexblue; he seems to have joined just in order to post on a thread about John McLorinan the bridewell keeper.
So in 2007 there were descendants of Mary Simpson who knew the facts about her parentage that I have only laboriously learned from the discussion here.
-
I visited the Unitarian churchyard in Antrim today. It’s acquired a new name. It’s now the Alexander Irvine Park cemetery. (Alexander Irvine was a local lad made good who became a Minister and writer in the US).
There were no McLorinan graves obvious to me.
As with many graveyards there were plenty of graves with just stumps where a stone had once been, many were illegible and some face down. Plus there’s plenty of land with no gravestones at all. So clearly there’s scope for others to be buried there who no longer have any readable stone.
-
Thanks for taking the trouble to look, Elwyn. It's a disappointing result, but it seemed worth a try.
I see that you posted a similar message in your exchange with Peter Mackey on irelandxo.com. There was a Samuel Mackey, born 6 September 1756, who was a brother of Thomas Mackey, born 16 October 1746, the father of Martha McLorinan, wife of Henry McLorinan, my 3xg-grandparents. The age is right for it to be his grave that you found, and maybe other Mackeys are in unmarked and no longer marked graves. That Mackey family also figures on a tree on Ancestry.com called Original Robinsons in Dominica; I haven't tried to fathom the Robinson connection, but the death in Dominica that you found on one of the graves you saw fits.
-
There’s no shortage of illegible and damaged gravestones so the McLorinans could well be there. There are several with stone setts and fencing around them suggesting wealth, but where nothing legible remains on the gravestones within.
Good to know the Mackey graves are connected to the Robinsons somehow. The set up suggested that. Presumably Colonel Robinson was in the army and died in Dominica. Lots of gravestones here have memorials to folk who died in the strangest parts of the world. Such were the byproducts of colonialism. Two or three spaces or stumps in that Mackey/Robinson plot so who knows who is in there?
-
Some follow-up, much later.
I was worrying about Henry McLorinan being described as a farmer at his death but a shop-keeper in the death certificate of his daughter Martha. I've seen the baptism record of his (sixth, according to her death notice in the BNL) daughter Eleanor Charters or Charteris McLorinan (in the C of I church in Antrim town), in which he is definitely described as a grocer. A memoir by a grandson of his, a son of his daughter Mary and her husband John Simpson, says he had a good business at one time at the corner of Main Street and Railway Street opposite the church, but lost the business and the property too; the grandson speculates that he was too easy with his customers.
His funeral service was in the C of I church; maybe he is buried there.
-
BNL death announcement says his remains will be removed for interment in Antrim churchyard. I think that must mean the churchyard of the C of I church, since that’s where the funeral service happened.
(For some reason Ancestry doesn’t have the BNL for January 1875. They have all of 1874.)