Changing from protestant to catholic in carlow?

[finglaspete]

Hi
I am tracing a branch of my family tree down in the kildavin/clonegal area of county carlow, I have long come to a dead end in relation to one of the families i am tracing here, I can go back as far as 1805 when my GGGF Doyle was born(this it what it says on his gravestone) But that is it, there are a couple of others dotted around about the same date but that's it.

Now just 2km away is a protestant cemetery in clonegal and there are lots of Doyle graves there dating back as far as the 1600's. I know my GGGF married a protestant, but could it have been that he was once a protestant himself?

The other thing, there are no recent(1800's) Doyle graves in the protestant cemetery. Is it possible, that because of events around the way, possibly even the 1798 rebellion would have caused protestants to fear there situation and convert. Please lets discuss, I'd love to just clear this up.

thanks in advance.
Pete

[Winterbloom21]

Hello Pete,

I think you might find that it was not terribly unusual for Catholics to be buried in Protestant graveyards in the days before Catholic Emancipation because there was  no  other choice.    E ven later, certainly here in England, you will find Catholic sections in Protestant graveyards.    Of course, it is not outside the bounds of possibility that your gggrandfather may have changed his religion - we know that people did, for various reasons.

Incidentally, is your screen name a clue to your whereabouts?    If so, that's where I come from.
Siobhan

[aghadowey]

Can you clarify exactly what sort of place this "protestant cemetery in clonegal" is? I suspect it would be Church of Ireland which was the Esablished Church rather than Presbyterian, Methodist or other Protestamnt denomination.

Perhaps it's this C. of I. church?
http://www.discoverireland.com/gb/ireland-things-to-see-and-do/listings/product/?fid=FI_71006

See under Places of Interest-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonegal

[finglaspete]

Hi again
Yes, it's a Church of Ireland cemetery, But i quite like the idea that that winterbloom21 has suggested, that the now church of ireland graveyard could have been the graveyard for all of the area at the time, and that it interned catholics too. though i would love to see some more opinions on this, as it is really important to me to know if my Doyles in this area were buried there because they were CoI, or was it the local 'omni'cemetery?

to winterbloom, yes, i live in Ballygall, but am originally from London, have been here since '98

[Winterbloom21]

Have you looked on the various sites to see if you can find a baptism for him?    I know it's hard to track these things down over there that early but you never know.   What evidence do you have relating to your gggrandparents marriage?     Incidentally, for what it's worth, it was much more common for the changes in religion to be from RC to Protestant rather than the other way around.    How far back have you definitely traced the Catholicism in your family?    The usual form would be either for the family to change from RC to Protestant, especially if they were a family of some means, to make life easier for them in a number of ways.    Sometimes they would do it for employment purposes, too, to keep the wolf from the door. (or at least pretend to).

Probably one of the commonnest reasons for a change of a family from Protestant to RC would be the marriage of a Protestant man and an RC woman, as a result of which all the kids would be raised Catholic and so it would carry on.     I would have to say that a change from Protestant to RC, for an individual, would be pretty unusual.    Especially if your gggrandfather ws actually married to a Protestant - it's not really logical.

Ballygall, eh?    Just a couple of streets from where I was raised. (McKee Road).   I did it the other way around - went to London in 1970!

[tomdog]

Finglaspete theres a man in clonegal ,his name is Willie White elderly man and is into the history end of things,have you ever contacted him?

[finglaspete]

Hi Tomdog
No I haven't heard of Willie White, i will go and look for him, is he on any forums, or do i need to contact him personally?
Thanks for the pointer, as this is a real bee in my bonnet!
all the best
peet