Kilgeever Parish Baptisms 1850-1922

Mathew O'Keane (Keane) was a teacher who came to the Accony area in the late 1830's or early 1840's. After marrying Catherine Prendergast of Accony, the family emigrated to America in 1848 and settled in rural Wisconsin about 100 miles north of Chicago where Robert, their great-grandson, still lives on a little corner of the family farm. He went back to Mathew's profession and became a teacher. Robert and his wife Susan visited us for the 2009 reunion and plan to return soon.

In the 1950's the Church of the Latter Day Saints (the 'Mormons') visited many parishes in Ireland and transcribed baptismal records which they preserved in their Utah headquarters. It is these records that Robert painstakingly accessed in compiling the list we have here, the only complete list that we know of for the parish of Kilgeever, including Clare Island and Inishturk. There is a 12 year gap between 1883 and 1894 and some other gaps in the early records, probably caused by damage to the original registers. Otherwise, this is a unique resource and one which we hope to enlarge and convert to a searchable database in the near future.

Robert & Susan O'Keane photographed in Murrisk Abbey on their visit to Ireland in 2008.

If anyone would like to contact Robert about this work you can email him at okeane.robert@gmail.com

Click here to see the full list of Baptisms (Adobe pdf file)