Know Your Parish St. Patrick's Donegall Street, BelfastAuthor(s): Owen KellySource: North Irish Roots, Vol. 11, No. 2 (2000), p. 30Published by: North of Ireland Family History Society (NIFHS)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27697330 .

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KNOW YOUR PARISH \ ST PATRICK'S DONEGALL STREET; BELFAST

|| On April 10,1810, the following advertisement appeared in the Belfast Press. t?M

The Catholic inhabitants of Belfast are ready to receive proposals for u||?i the erecting by contract of a chapel to be built in Donegall Street. Plans toM

may be seen at Mr. Patrick Davis', of North Street, who will give 1? information regarding the same. Proposals will be received until July 4, ]$3?k and no longer". Jfjfllla

The advertisement was directed at stonemasons and carpenters. Belfast was by ?lll^H?If? then an expanding community of 25,000 people. i?IHllnXBS^ Even so, north of Carrick Hill was all farm land and the major roads, such as the M^^I^^KkS Antrim Road, the Shankill Road and the Crumlin Road, hadn't come into being. ^WftJBafflHBIi

The church of St. Patrick's was dedicated by Bishop McMullan on March 5,1815. It cost ?2811 to build and of this figure ?1711 was raised by the Protestants of Belfast.

In 1822 Sunday school was introduced. It started promptly at eight o'clock in the morning and continued without a break until it was time for 12 o'clock Mass.

The present church, which replaced the Old Church of St. Patrick, was consecrated by Bishop McGettigan on August 12,1877.

The Bishops of the diocese lived in the presbytery of the Old St Patrick's Church until the early 1870s, when Dr Doman bought Chichester Park as the episcopal residence.

OWEN KELLY

This article is based on a series which first appeared in the IRISH WEEKLY 60 years ago.

Note: PRONI hold records as follows on MIC.1 D/66-67 R.C. St Patrick's (Donegall Street) (Down and Connor diocese) Baptisms, 1798-1811,1814-67 and 1875-80; marriages 1798-1812 and 1814-67.

PRONI LECTURES

By Christine Loyal, Member B1229

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland has begun to give public lectures on the first Thursday of each month. Due to the large response from the public these lectures have been split into three areas

rotating each month.

1. PRONI made easy - 2. Tracing your family tree - 3. PRONI and the local historian

I attended the 'tracing your family tree' lecture in September. The lectures are free but you must book a

ticket, as numbers are restricted. There were approximately 100 in attendance in September. The speaker was a member of PRONI staff who was extremely knowledgeable and had a good sense of humour. She took us through the main sources of records pointing out the guides available on each topic in the search room. There were examples of "typical" (hard to read) records under each topic. I think

most people are aware of the 1901 census, street directories from 1809, Griffith's valuation, church records, but I discovered that there were a few other records that could be beneficial.

(a) Landed Estate records might contain leases, rent rolls and wage books and correspondence about "wee Jimmy" going to America.

(b) School records would not only contain details of the child but the father and his occupation, previous address, emigrated to?, and transferred to another school with details.

(c) Boards of Guardians for workhouses, hospitals and lunatic asylums - possibly not for the fainthearted

and not necessarily to find a few ghosts in the closet. Sometimes details are given of local benefac tors. I found it interesting that a "disease" in the workhouse could be "pregnancy".

I would thoroughly recommend this series of lectures as I believe that everyone would learn something new, even if only a small snippet, but it may help to fill that missing piece of the jigsaw.

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