Kilternan parish registers 1817–1900 transcribed and indexed: a new contribution from the Anglican Record Project
Archive of the Month – February 2015
To view indexed transcripts click here.
For the full list and onward links to all the parish registers digitized and available via the Church of Ireland website, click here
Descriptive label form the front of the first combined register for Kilternan, RCB Library P346/1/1 Since his last contribution in November 2013 under the auspices of the Anglican Record Project (exclusively made available online via Archive of the Month) Mark Williams has been working away transcribing parish registers. For this month’s offering, he moves to south county Dublin and the parish of Kilternan, where he had family connections, and for which he has transcribed the complete run of baptisms, marriages and burials from 1817 (when register–keeping commenced) up to 1900.
Kilternan parish church, constructed to designs by John Semple, which opened for worship in 1826
Title page of the second combined register for Kilternan, RCB Library P346/1/2For this project, two combined registers have been completely transcribed together with the first five years of baptismal register from 1895 to 1900 and the first 54 years of one marriage register – providing a continuous 83–year run of records. As is the norm with the Anglican Record Project, the transcripts are enhanced by a comprehensive alphabetical index of names. All may be accessed as pdf documents from this website, whilst the original volumes from which the information was transcribed are available in the RCB Library where hard copies of the transcripts are also available for consultation.
Printed parish histories available in the RCB Library collectionsPrinted parish histories available in the RCB Library collectionsThe library also holds a number of printed parish histories, including the work of the Revd Thomas Arthur O’Morchoe (1865–1921) also known as The O’Morchoe, who was rector of the parish between 1894 and his death in 1921, published posthumously as O’Morchoe’s History of Kilternan and Kilgobbin edited by J.B, Leslie (Dublin, 1934). This is based on O’Morchoe’s papers (RCB Library MS 12) which include unpublished research notes on the parish history, correspondence and miscellaneous other papers.
Research notes on the parish history compiled by Revd Thomas Arthur O'Morchoe (1865-1921) also known as The O'Morchoe, in the O'Morchoe's papers, RCB Library MS 12. It is sobering to note that the earliest two combined registers had been lodged in the Public Records Office of Ireland (PROI) under the terms of the Public Records Office Act of 1867, where they were assigned bay and record numbers under the record treasury schedule. The treasury tags remain affixed to the inside cover of both volumes attesting to their narrow escape. Fortunately, a later amendment of this act of 1876 gave local clergy the option to take back registers into local custody, which duly happened in Kilternan’s case for its two earliest registers, with the result they were not consumed in the tragic fire during the civil war of 1922 which destroyed the PROI and hundreds of Church of Ireland parish collections.
Public Record Office labels as affixed to each of the combined registers for Kilternan on receipt following their transfer in the context of the Public Records Office Ireland Act of 1867.Public Record Office labels as affixed to each of the combined registers for Kilternan on receipt following their transfer in the context of the Public Records Office Ireland Act of 1867. A list of all the original parish records now available for Kilternan in the RCB Library is available at this link, which additional to the registers includes vestry minute books, registers of vestrymen, and account books.
Map of the parish, based on the Ordnance Survey Whilst known today as simply ‘Kilternan’, the geographical area it serves was originally covered by the two neighbouring parishes of Kilgobbin and Kilternan. In 1630 Kilternan was united with the larger parish of Bray (the registers of which dating from 1666 for burials, and 1670 for baptisms and marriages should be consulted for pre–1817 events at Kilgobbin/Kilternan).
By about 1630 the old church at Kilternan (located on Bishops’ Lane, off the Glencullen Road) was reported as being in a ruinous state possibly as a result of the depredations of the 1641 Rebellion, so probably not in regular use. In 1776 Kilternan glebe was transferred to the incumbent of Kilgobbin. The original pre–Norman church at Kilgobbin was re–built on the same site in 1703 to serve parishioners of Kilgobbin and Kilternan, but within 100 years, even this rebuilt church was considered to be both too small and in very poor repair, and efforts began to secure funding for a new church.
Old Kilgobbin church and burial ground. The war memorial continues to be the focus of acts of remembrance
George IV cap lxxxi (1824) creating the parish of KilternanBy Act of Parliament of 1824 the parish of Kilternan was separated from that of Bray and united to Kilgobbin. The act further ordered that there being no church in the parish of Kilternan, and whilst the church of Kilgobbin was too ‘small, inconvenient and out of repair and incapable of being enlarged to hold the parishioners with walls decayed’, a new church was to be constructed. To meet the costs, the Board of First Fruits provided a loan of £500, and Lord Powerscourt donated £500, with the balance covered by other donations, subscriptions and pew ‘proprietorships’.
Building plans for the new church by John Semple, RCB library Ms 934 Building commenced in 1825 to the Gothic designs of John Semple, architect to the Board of First Fruits for the ecclesiastical province of Dublin. His original drawings for this church which survive in the collections of the RCB Library attest to its ordered if stark but regular style, with carefully measured pews on the ground and gallery floors.
Parish register cover labels, RCB Library P346 The new church was consecrated on 10 December 1826, and shortly thereafter Kilgobbin Church was abandoned and unroofed, and has now become a protected national monument. It is the events of baptism, marriage and burial that took place in the old mother church of Kilgobbin up to 1826, and thereafter at the new church in Kilternan (up to and including the year 1900) that have been faithfully transcribed for worldwide consultation here.
The first baptismal entry following the creation of the new union of Kilternan, 9 November 1826.It is interesting to note that the same register (the first combined one) was continued following the union of the parishes – and the first baptism to take place in the new church was that of Maria Teresa, daughter of Thomas and Anne Thompson, of Springfield, on 9th November 1826.
To view indexed transcripts and index for Kilternan click here.
For the full list and onward links to all the parish registers digitized and available via the Church of Ireland website, click www.ireland.anglican.org/genealogy/registers
For further information please contact:
Dr Susan Hood
RCB Library
Braemor Park
Churchtown
Dublin 14
Tel: 01–4923979
Fax: 01–4924770
E–mail: susan.hood@rcbcoi.org
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