Earlier this year, I started gathering a collection of citations from online issues of the Journal of the Co. Kildare Archaeological Society and Surround Districts. Lots of gems in here on Keatings in the Co. Kildare area, and I’d like to do the same with other available journals (as well as find a good source for issues not readily available online). I ordered the entries in my notes by the earliest year referenced in each article. I’ve some ideas for a searchable database containing these entries, but for now, here they are in article form.
One can expect the “Mr. Keating” in this piece is the well-known Maurice Keating of Narraghmore (Naramore/Narramore), or at least one of his family.
In 1709 a Dr. Thomas Molyneux, M.D., grandson of Daniel Molyneux (who in 1697 was appointed Ulster King of Arms), made a tour from Dublin to Kilkenny, and on the return journey paid a visit to Belan, which he describes thus:–
“Friday, 25 Nov. Left Knockbegg (in the Queen’s County, near Carlow), and arrived in one hour and a half by Kilken to Bealin, Mr. Stratford’s, in the County Kildare. Here is a very handsome improved garden of greens, grass, and gravel, very pleasantly situated on the banks of a small river (the Greese), which is very prettily cutt into canals and fish-ponds, and well-sheltered by well-grown trees. From Bealan by …[blank]1… to Naramore, Mr. Keating’s is four miles thro’ the finest open sheep walk campaign countrey that ever I saw, excellent land, but all unenclosed and under sheep. From Narramore two hours and a half brought us by Mr. Nixon’s to Kildare thro’ a sheep walk and corn countrey. At Kildare we lay Saturday ye 26th.” 2
1 ? Mullaghmast.
2 Page 302, vol. vi, “Journal of the Kilkenney Archaelogical Society.”
Fitzgerald, Walter. “Belan.” Journal of the Co. Kildare Archaeological Society and Surrounding Districts V (1906-1908): 239-252. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Journal_of_the_Co_Kildare_Archaeological/YiIvAAAAMAAJ (accessed March 3, 2021).