The People

Cahernahallia/Knockanavar

Modern Cahernahallia is a townland in the northwest corner of the parish of Toem, bounded on the south by Ayle, on the north by Knockanavar (and beyond that by Glengar and Leugh), and on the east principally by Shanacloon.  County Limerick lies to the west.  As mentioned in “The People,” above, Buckleys first appear in widely available property records in the Tithe Applotment (TA) records of 1826, which show John & Darby Buckley holding 35 acres (Irish):

To make a long story short, we have since concluded that Knockanavar was carved out from Cahernahallia sometime between about 1826 and 1834, and that these parcels indicated above are in fact the same parcels held by the same John & Jeremiah (Darby being a variant of Jeremiah) in both sets of records – with Thomas added in 1851.  We have traced the possession of these parcels through successive years of the GV updates, to compile the following table showing the evolution of parcel holdings over time:

Working with this data and with a GV survey map (annotated in 1872), we were able to map these parcels held by the Buckleys in Knockanavar, as shown below: (Note: the parcel numbers on the map correspond to how the parcels were numbered in the GV update in 1872):

In response to a search by Phil Buckley, TFHR also provided the marriage and baptismal records for Michael Buckley and Catherine Harrigan of Knockanavar:

Subsequent inquiries to TFHR turned up additional baptismal data for the families of John & Darby of Cahernahallia, which is incorporated into the chart at the bottom of this page.

Utilizing the techniques discussed in the portion of this site called “The Process,” we have constructed the following partial family tree for the Buckleys of Cappawhite living in the townland of Cahernahallia/Knockanavar during ~ 1821-1885:

While we are confident that this is the best representation of the data we currently have, we would like to point out a few areas of particular uncertainty in this construction of the tree:

(1)  Although they were almost certainly closely related, it is our assumption that John & Darby of Cahernahallia were brothers.  There is circumstantial support for this belief, but we have no direct confirmation.

(2)  Michael (Knockanavar, b. 1814) is shown as being part of this family based on his marriage and residence in Knockanavar in the 1830s-1840s.  His approximate birth date is derived from US Census records after he immigrated to the US.  There is a small chance that this Michael is actually the son of Michael Buckley (Ayle), who does not appear to have emigrated from Ireland with the rest of his family in the 1840s.  When Michael (Knockanavar) and his wife, Catherine immigrated to the US, he settled in upstate NY near to Michael (Ayle).   This could indicate that Michael (Knockanavar) was indeed Michael (Ayle)’s son, it could mean they were otherwise related (I believe they stood in an uncle/nephew relationship), it could simply mean they knew one another, or it could be sheer coincidence.  Perhaps further research will tell.

(3) I believe, for a variety of reasons, that my great grandfather, Jeremiah, was the son of John – not Darby – of Cahernahallia.  My great grandfather, however, is referred to as “Jeremiah (Jun.)” in the GV updates, which is usually a designation reserved for the son of an elder lessor with the same name.  TFHR has not been able to locate any baptism record for my great grandfather, which would be able to put this question to rest.

According to the GV updates, the last Buckleys left Knockanavar sometime around the 1960s.  Some of us clearly are here in the US, though I have not identified any Buckleys from Knockanavar apart from the other descendants of my grandfather.  Whether the other Buckleys from this branch of the family moved into Cappawhite Village or down to Tipperary town, I cannot say. 

When I was in Ireland in the summer of 2005, I wandered the local cemeteries in Toem, Doon, and Donohill with my son, Sean, in search of any Buckleys from Knocakanavar.  The only one I found was a memorial marker for the family of my grandfather’s brother, Jeremiah, born in 1862: