IRL-CARLOW-L Archives

From:
Subject: Quaker records
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 08:43:24 EDT

As noted in recent message exchanges, extensive Quaker records are available
on film from the LDS Library. I would like to add a couple of thoughts about
these records.

1. There are also fragmentary records from other locations, which I did not
make a record of when I had the film for study of the Carlow Monthly Meeting
records. Cork, Limerick, and other County Carlow towns come to mind, but
please don't hold me to that. Check for yourself.

2. The Quakers did not employ ministers as such. Monthly Meetings were
organized for the purpose of business proceedings. Religious observances were
conducted by smaller groups who quietly observed prayer meetings, baptisms,
marriages, and burials. The smaller groups usually sent one or two representatives
to the Monthly Meetings, and it appears that their reports of baptisms,
marriages, and burials were made a part of the business minutes.

3. From my observation that there were scads of Doyles in the Quaker
records, I infer that there were many nominal Irish Catholics who married into Quaker
families. From there, many drifted back and forth without the deep
recriminations which accompanied the mixed marriages of Catholics and those of the
Established Church.

4. I was interested primarily in the Lecky family, who owned the grand house
at Ballykealy, near Ballon. The Lecky roots go back to beginning of the
Quaker records and the family seems to have maintained the high social and
economic level typical of prominent families until the 1950s, when the estate was
sold. The Doyles were tenants at Ballykealy, and though they emigrated before
the Great Famine, I am sure that the Leckys were held in high esteem. My
Grandfather, a fourth son, was named John James, probably to honor their former
landlord, John James Lecky. Might he have been an uncle, as well? I wish I knew.

If there any of the Leckys out there, I would very much like to share family
data, particularly information related to burials at the family burial ground
at Ballykealy.

Pat Doyle

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