The Two Harrington Families of Templederry

Created by CH and ChatGPT (AI)

There were two Harrington families in the Templederry area of Tipperary..... 

Were these two Harrington families related?

Were they related to Hingertys?

Let's begin with a bit of geography.... 

Where is Templederry?  

Where were these two Harrington families located in relation to each other?

Location of Templederry in Ireland

Location of Templederry in Tipperary

Location of the two Harrington families in Templederry Parish

Family 1:

Family 1 was discussed in a previous post Link to previous blog post

Descendants of Family 1 still live and farm in the Cloghinch area.  Their family oral history has them arriving in the Templederry area with the Great March of the O'Sullivans in 1603.

They believe that they, along with a larger group of men, women and children were purposely left behind in the mountainous forests of this area to keep them safe during the time of the March. A number of (non-Harrington) families in the area hold this same oral history.

Templederry does lie along the route taken by the Great March of the O'Sullivans. It is a mountainous area (in relation to the rest of Tipperary). Locals can point to a field high up the hill called "Harrington's Field" claiming that Harringtons cleared that land and were the first to farm it.

However, there are no Harringtons listed in the in the Hearth Tax list of 1665-7 nor in theReligious Census of 1766. Other family surnames who are still in the Templederry area (e.g Ryan) are listed in the Hearth Tax list for this area. Why are there no Harringtons listed?

If the family arrived in 1603 as part of the Great March, one would expect the surname to be in one or both of these lists.

There is documentary evidence of Family 1 living at Cloghinch/Clohinch:

- in the Tithe Applotment Lists (1830s), 

- the Griffiths Valuation (1850s), 

- one Baptism entry in church records (1830) 

- and the 1901 Census. 

All of these entries relate to the same land where the family still lives and farms today.

A direct male descendant from this family took a 37 Marker YDNA test in mid 2023 and he matched all 11 of our Hingerty testers as well as Harringtons in Cork. The Cork Harrington matches support the Great March theory.

His test has been upgraded to a BigY700 test to give us more information about his relationship to the Hingerty testers and the Cork Harringtons.

(We had hoped to receive his results by Christmas, but unfortunately his test failed a final quality control at the end of the process and therefore the test will be re-run. This will cause a delay of some months. We can only wait......)

Family 2:

There is documentary evidence of a second Harrington family living and working in the Templederry area in the 1800s. Are they related to the Cloghinch Harringtons?

In the Tithe Applotment lists for 1825 there is an Abey Harrington leasing land at Shamballyard, a townland within the parish of Templederry.

In the same lists in 1830 an Abraham Harrington leased land in Templederry parish. However, there are no details as to the exact location of this land.

In the Griffiths Valuations (1850s) there are 3 Harrington men, Abraham, John and James leasing  plots of land from the same landlady in the townlands of Falleeny and Shamballyard. These townlands are located within the parish of Templederry and adjoin each other. The land records give no indication of the relationships between these three men.

Looking at the maps that accompany the Valuations, it becomes clear that the plots of land in Falleeny and the plots in Shamballyard are adjoining. So the 3 men (brothers? father and sons?) farmed one continuous plot of land that just happened to straddle two townland borders.

An Abraham Harrington and his wife Bridget (nee Hingerty) arrived in Melbourne in 1848 aboard the ship "Adelaide".

According to their shipping records Abraham was 24 years old and Bridget was 22 years old. Both reported that they were from Templederry. Abraham was listed as a farm labourer and Bridget as a dairywoman. 

In later records they were said to have been married in 1846.

No Irish marriage record has been found for them, however this is not unusual as church records are inconsistent for this time period in Ireland.

Abraham and Bridget eventually settled in the Omeo district of Victoria and had a family of 10 children. They have many descendants alive in Australia today.

So, where in the parish of Templederry was Abraham from? ... and where was Bridget from before she married Abraham?

Only one early church entry for the surname Hingerty has been found to date in the parish of Templederry. 

Catherine Hingerty married Jeremiah Wixted/Worsted in Templederry parish in 1849. They went on to have at least two children. 

Was this Catherine related to Bridget? Were they sisters?

Who and where were Bridget and Catherine's wider family?

YDNA Testing:

A direct male descendant of the immigrant Abraham Harrington, recently took a Y37 YDNA test. He matches the other Templederry Harrington with an estimated Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor of 1500 with a range from 1000 to 1800s. (The wide date range can be reduced and more accurate if the Y37 tester upgrades to BigY700.)

The only Hingerty testers he matches are those from USA.

An upgrade to BigY700 would give us more detailed information which might assist us to determine the relationship between the two Templederry Harrington families and their relationship to any of the Hingerty testers.

To date, with the level of test results we have available, we can say that the two Templederry Harrington testers do share a common direct male ancestor. That is, they ARE related within a timeframe that supports the theory that their common ancestor arrived in Templederry from south west Cork at the time of the Great March.

All that we can say at this point about their relationship to the Hingerty testers is that there is some relationship between Hingerty testers and the two different Templederry Harrington testers. They are related. 

However, the Shamballyard/Falleeny tester is more closely related to the USA Hingertys (who's ancestor went to the USA pre 18001) than to the other Hingerty lines we have tested. The Cloghinch descendant matches all the Hingerty testers.

Summary:

As is often the case with our Irish family research:

- the documentary evidence is patchy and inconclusive.

- the YDNA results to date show a connection, however....

- the Australian/Templederry tester needs to upgrade to BigY700 to give us more data and hopefully, more clarity.

- We look forward to finally receiving the results from the Cloghinch Harrington tester's upgrade to BigY700.

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