Alternate names may be Dunlevy, Donlevy, Dunlavey or Dunlevey. This is a last name in many Irish records, but it is also supposed to be a village somewhere. Appreciate your assistance.

In spite of the pressure put on me by Tom to succeed [gr], I really can't find anything. I used the townland listings (1867 towns and townlands in Co. Monaghan), but couldn't find a suitable placename for Dunleavy or similar spellings. I also searched the various Discovery maps which cover Monaghan, for a possible village or settlement which might have a name, but not listed anywhere as an official placename. No luck there, either. I scanned around the border areas of the six abutting counties for a possible border village/townland which "might" be considered as being in Monaghan. Nope.

Could you give us the source(s) which mentioned Dunleavy as a placename in Monaghan? If it's a handwritten document, perhaps you could send me a jpg of the pertinent section. It could be a handwriting problem. I guess you'd have to do this off of the forum. I'm at: PeteScherm@aol.com .

Have you asked on the Monaghan Rootsweb list? I haven't seen this question raised on that list, I don't think (I'm on about all of the Irish county lists, so I often miss stuff). One former Monaghan resident - now living in N. Ireland, I believe - who knows a lot about Monaghan is Jack Storey. He's at: jack.storey@btconnect.com .

Another, ridiculously involved, technique would be to try to look-over the six-inch scale maps for Co. Monaghan. These maps are probably originally from the the mid-1800's, but they are still used regularly (perhaps a bit up-dated) for county planning purposes. However, the search engine for these maps is townland-based. I'm quite sure that Dunleavy would not be accepted as a townland. However, once you get to a map, you can use the map tools to "wander around", but it would be a very tedious - and disorganized - way to do it. If you want to experiment, here's the URL: - http://193.178.1.178/Monaghan_gPlan/default.aspx?fn=04319 -.

You can contact me off-forum, if you'd prefer (although this forum has been very quiet for a few months, so Tom and I are glad for any communications [gr]).

Pete

I have found various spellings such as Dunlevy, Donlevy, Dunlavey and Dunlevey. There is also "A genealogical history of the Dunlevy family By Gwendolyn Kelley Hack, full-text at http://books.google.com/books?id=mTZKAAAAMAAJ&pg

Possibly they meant Dunlewy, County Donegal, or Dunlavan, County Wicklow, or Dunleary, county Dublin, but that doesn't fit the known facts below. Dunlevy means "Lughach's fort" per Placenames in Ireland at http://www.n-ireland.co.uk/genealogy/placenames/placenamesd.htm

Below is what the citation says. He was born about 1770.

"John Morrow was a native of Dunleavy, County Monaghan, Ireland, where he tended a grist mill. He married Nancy, daughter of John Gamble and some years after his sons and father-in-law had

immigrated to Bradford county, he and his wife came also. Mr. Morrow was an expert builder of

stone-wall fences and was thus employed by the more thrifty farmers after settling in Wilmot [Bradford County, PA]. His death occurred Oct. 24, 1837, aged 67 years and that of his wife, April 1860, in her 85th year. Both (are) inhumed in (the) Lacey street cemetery [Laceyville, PA]."

It is known that he lived and worked in Slieveroe and Drumalt, both in Kilmore Parish, county Monaghan. I guess the Dunleavy notation will ever remain a mystery.

You wrote: "I must assume that whoever made this entry in "Pioneer & Patriot Families of Bradford County PA," by Clement Heverly, 1913, p. 415 was mistaken."

I don't think we can say that the entry was wrong. You mentioned that "John Morrow was a native of Dunleavy", and that he was born about 1770. That was decades before the Ordnance Survey, and it wasn't until 1826 that legislation creating a Boundary Department of the Ordnance Survey was enacted. This dept. was headed by Richard Griffith, a few year prior to his more well-known position in charge of valuations. Although he did retain most of the townland names (which were later anglicized by John O'Donovan and his cohort, in conjunction with the townland residents), Griffith did combine, modify and even even eliminate some previous townland names - in the name of standardizing and regularizing the townlands and civil parishes, according to a number of criteria which apparently had been agreed upon with the OS bosses......although some of his decisions were not universally appreciated at the time.

I think it's likely that Dunlevy was a local name which was not officially recognized when the Ordnance Survey came around. Jack Storey has contributed dozens and dozens of "alternative" names for various Monaghan townlands, to the Monaghan Rootsweb list. I went through his lists that I've saved, but didn't see a Dunlevy or such in them. He would probably be your best source.

Incidentally, Slieveroe and Drumalt are nearly neighbors, 4 miles NW of Ballybay town. The two townlands are only a mile apart at their nearest points, and two and a half miles apart at their farthest points. I went to the Monaghan planning URL, that I mentioned before, to check the area around these two townlands - but didn't find anything in the short time I spent there (I'm on a slow dial-up, and didn't allot enough time for the search).

Pete

Thanks so much for the detailed info. I always wondered just how the old Gaelic names became Anglicized, but hadn't gotten round to reading about it. So Dunleavy, or some such spelling, may well have existed at that time after all. I will contact Jack Storey and see what he says. Thanks again.

Well Pete, Jack Storey did indeed provide the answer. He wrote me that "In Kilmore there was only one Fort (Dun) and it was Dunraymond (Raymond's Fort), previously Dunleavy (Leavy's Fort). Slieveroe and Drumalt are quite near to Dunleavy (Fort of the Leavy family). It was Leavy's prior to Cromwell when it became Raymond's."

So Dunraymond is what used to be Dunleavy. It is 4.7 miles north-northwest of Ballybay, and only 2 miles from Drumalt, and 3.4 miles from Slieveroe, where John Morrow and his family lived.

Thanks for your tenacity Pete.

I'm glad you got your answer. I had noticed the Dunraymond townland nearby, at the time of writing to you to "not abandon hope", and was going to mention it to you........sort of as an indication that there were other Dun-"surname" townlands in the area and that there might have been others at one time. But I forgot to mention it [gr]. It is interesting, however, that the name change apparently occurred more than a century before the 1770 date.......and yet, the old name was still being used. This shows just how complicated placename-searching can be. And also - perhaps - just how much resentment remained as a result of Cromwell's adventure in Ireland.

Pete