Beara Peninsula Families
Over the course of 30 years researcher, educator and author Riobard O’Dwyer assembled stories, documents and family associations of the inhabitants of the Beara Peninsula of Southwest County Cork, Ireland. This work was made all the more tedious by the inaccessibility of the original parish records. The records were not made public until the 1990’s and available only with permission of the Bishop of the Diocese of Kerry until they were digitized in the 21st century. Riobard never told me the story of how he got special access to the parish records, but he faithfully transcribed thousands of vital church records over the years. The records are in faded parish books written in Gaelic and Latin with only the briefest details in each entry. O’Dwyer took his transcriptions, assembled the names into family groups, augmented the family groups with stories gathered from living descendants from all over the peninsula, and began publishing his work.
In 1976 “Who Were My Ancestors? Eyeries Parish” was published. This was followed by volumes “Who Were My Ancestors? Castletownber Parish” and “Who Were My Ancestors? Allihies Parish”. He continued to collect stories and add to his notes about each family until he determined he had enough additions to produce his master works “Annals of Beara Volume I – Adrigole and Allihies Parishes” 2009, “Annals of Beara Volume II – Bere Island and Eyeries Parishes” 2009 and “Annals of Beara Volume III – Castletownbere and Glengariff Parishes”. The volumes contain information for families from 1776 to 1992 with the records primarily from the parish records dating from 1822 to 1956.
Riobard passed away in Eyeries in 2020, but has left a wonderful family legacy. His works have enabled thousands of researchers find their roots in Ireland. Although the raw Diocese of Kerry vital records are available online, you have to know rather specifically what you are looking for in order to find each record. O’Dwyer took care of that effort for us. However, none of O’Dwyers works contained an index. Additionally, there is another challenging peculiarity in the works. Researchers in the US are use to finding vital records with individuals listed by their formal legal names. This is not so the parish records and thus not in O’Dwyer’s works. Further, the original record may not contain the form of the family name one would expect, but instead by its Gaelic version or the family branch name as a surname. Thus, Patrick Sullivan who immigrated to Massachusetts may have his baptism name listed as Padraig, Patsy, Pat, Pats, Paddy, Pad and his surname shown as O’Sullivan, Shearhig, Hurig, Seer, Gow, Rochtierre, Cohu, Ukirre, Fune, Rua, Bawn or others branch names used on the Beara Peninsula parishes through the end of the 1800’s.
Riobard O’Dwyers’ original research papers were acquired before his death by the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, Boston. They have worked toward making the works accessible and have developed and index of Annals of Beara – Vol I. They have also have available searchable versions of these works. However, they are for paying members of the society. So, unless you are sure you are looking at relatives on the Beara Peninsula, there are still some accessibility issues.
This web based work is meant to make the research completely accessible. The “Annals of Beara” volumes I, II and II have been gathered into a family history database, organized by family line to be completely accessible. Branch names or shown along side the more common surnames to help researchers know what to look for in the primary records.
Any questions about the content, observations about the data, corrections to my transcription or Riobard O’Dywer’s apparent assumptions can be directed to me at DrEdFoley[at]hotmail.com.
Some readers may be interested in another web site – SullivanFamilesofFallRiverandBristolCoMA.com – which contains the skeleton summary of my 6 volume work of “Sullivan Families of Fall River and extended Bristol Co. MA”. Most of these families have been traced back to their townlands on the Beara Peninsula.
