Local Knowledge of Dublin?

[Winterbloom21]

That's interesting.  I dismissed St. Mary's Pro cathedral on the grounds that they only started building it in 1816 and allegedly didn't finish it until 1825.     If it shows his baptism in 1816 they all must have been wearing the Georgian version of wellies and hardhats!     Just going to look at that link now.

[Winterbloom21]

Well, that's all very interesting.      I saw on the site that they were showing baptisms at St. Mary's Pro Cathedral back in the 1750s, but that cannot be true.      Until the early 1800s, Catholicism was still keeping its head very low in those pre-Emancipation days and St. Mary's Pro Cathedral did not exist.    They started to build it in 1816, and it was consecrated in 1825.     There was no Catholic Church on its site beforehand.

It is certainly the case that Catholic priests in those days often baptised children in private and kept their own records.    Maybe what we have here are older records that were subsequently stored at St. Mary's Pro Cathedral.             If that is the case, then the reference on his army record to having been born in the 'Parish of St. Mary's' may still refer to the old St. Mary's Parish in Mary/Jervis Street, which is very close by, incidentally - a ten to fifteen minute walk, if that.

[dermo]

According to Donnelly's "Short Histories of Dublin Parishes", the catholic parish of St Mary was set up in 1707. It seems that early baptisms and marriages might have been recorded in the registers of St Michan's.  While the Pro-Cathederal wasn't built until the early 19th century, Donnelly says that a chapel for the parish was built in Liffey St in 1729. He says the parish registers began in 1730.

[Winterbloom21]

Thanks for that, Dermo.   It's led me on to all sorts of interesting bits of reading, including a more detailed bit of history on the Pro Cathedral web site which I hadn't found before.    I hadn't known about the original chapel in Liffey Street, around the corner from the old St. Mary's Abbey.    I loved to read that the Castle apparently designated it 'a mass house' when it started up, rather than calling it a church!

It was also good to read about the establishment of the Protestant parish of St. Mary's in 1697, which  was 'secretly' declared the Catholic parish of St. Mary's ten years later by Archbishop Byrne 'in hiding'.   So all in all, it looks like we're talking about one and the same thing, when we refer to St. Mary's Parish.

I went to visit St. Michan's on my most recent trip in April.    It had been on my list for about forty years and eventually got around to it.    The tour guide was a revelation - he did the whole thing in the most outrageously camp over the top way for the benefit of the tourists, but once the formal tour was over and you asked him a question, he reverted to being a perfectly normal human being!   The tomb of the Shears brothers was heartbreaking.

[Winterbloom21]

Ye gods, isn't every day a school day?    I had no idea until I started reading a fabulous lecture from 2010 by Brendan Grimes on the dublin heritage.ie website that there is also an RC St. Michan's church in Dublin in North Anne Street.      This now clears up any confusion I had, Dermo, over your point about the old records possibly having been kept in St. Michans (there was I thinking 'why on earth would they be keeping their records in a C of I church?'.     Duh!

[eadaoin]

In fact, if you look at the names of the Civil Parishes, you'll nearly always see that there's a R.C. Church with the same dedication not too far away. Off the top of my head, as well as St. Mary's, there's ...

St Andrew, St Nicholas, St James, St Michan, St Catherine, St Audeon  .. (don't think there's St George!)
.. sometimes they're beside the Cof I church, sometimes the other end of the parish.

The Dublin Diocesan Directory is a useful book for finding out which and when R.C. parishes were divided/combined

regards eadaoin

[Winterbloom21]

Thanks very much Eadaoin.   I haven't had cause to do too much family history digging about Dublin, not actually having any family roots there (born there, lived there, but parents didn't come from there).   But it's a good point you make - I can add one from my own old neighbourhood, too - St. Canice.