The Carrigkilter Land Story follows the land evidence connected to Patrick Dargan / Dorgan and the Dorgan family of East Cork. It brings together valuation-office records, Griffith’s Valuation, map references, landlord records, later land changes, and the 1896 sale of the Carrigkilter farm.

Carrigkilter is important because it gives the Dorgan family story a specific place on the East Cork landscape. Parish registers identify people and family relationships, but land records help show where the family lived, leased land, farmed, and later made decisions that shaped the move from Ireland to the United States.

This page should be read as a land-history companion to the Patrick Dargan / Dorgan narrative and the Carrigkilter Research Hub..

Carrigkilter and Ballintemple Parish

Carrigkilter is a townland in Ballintemple Parish, Barony of Imokilly, County Cork. In the Dorgan family archive, it is the central place connected to Patrick Dargan / Dorgan in the mid-nineteenth century.

This parish and townland context matters because East Cork records often overlap across nearby places. Carrigkilter should be studied alongside Ballybraher, Churchtown South, Ballycatoo, Ballymacoda, Cloyne, Ballycotton, Garryvoe, Ladysbridge, Midleton, and other nearby locations.

Correct place identification is essential. Patrick Dargan / Dorgan’s Carrigkilter land evidence belongs to Ballintemple Parish and should not be confused with Garryvoe Lower or with later Dorgan households in Cloyne or Rhode Island.

The 1847 Valuation Office Book

The 1847 Valuation Office Book provides important land evidence for Patrick Dargan / Dorgan before the printed Griffith’s Valuation. In this record, Patrick Dargan appears in Carrigkilter in connection with land, a house, offices, and valuation notes.

The record identifies Patrick as an occupier in Carrigkilter and helps show that the family’s connection to the townland was already established before the 1853 Griffith’s Valuation. These earlier valuation-office records are especially useful because they may include details not found in the printed valuation, such as tenure notes, property descriptions, or information about houses and outbuildings.

This record should be compared with the 1853 Griffith’s Valuation, Carrigkilter map reference 8, later valuation revision books, parish-register records, and neighboring households.

The 1853 Griffith’s Valuation Record

Griffith’s Valuation provides the strongest mid-nineteenth-century land record for Patrick Dargan / Dorgan in Carrigkilter. In 1853, Patrick Dargan is recorded as a tenant of Thomas G. Durdin in Carrigkilter, Ballintemple Parish, Barony of Imokilly, Union of Midleton, County Cork.

The record identifies the place as Carrigkilter townland and gives the key map reference as sheet 89, map reference 8. This is important because it connects the written valuation entry to a specific location on the valuation map.

For the Dorgan family archive, this record anchors Patrick Dargan / Dorgan in Carrigkilter after the Great Famine and provides a foundation for comparing later land records, census records, parish-register evidence, and family migration records.

Map Reference 8 and the Carrigkilter Holding

The map reference connected to Patrick Dargan / Dorgan is one of the most important parts of the Carrigkilter land story. Griffith’s Valuation identifies the relevant map evidence as sheet 89, map reference 8.

This reference helps connect Patrick’s written valuation entry to a specific holding in Carrigkilter. Instead of identifying only a townland, the map evidence helps narrow the family story to a particular place within the townland landscape.

Maps should be studied together with the written valuation entry, later valuation-office records, townland boundaries, roads, neighboring holdings, and family records. Together, these sources help reconstruct the physical setting of the Carrigkilter Dorgan family.

Thomas G. Durdin and the Landlord Connection

In Griffith’s Valuation, Patrick Dargan is listed as a tenant of Thomas G. Durdin. This landlord connection is important because it places Patrick within the estate and landholding structure of mid-nineteenth-century East Cork.

The Durdin family held land in the Imokilly area, including lands connected with Carrigkilter and nearby townlands. Studying the Durdin estate helps explain the legal and economic setting in which Patrick Dargan / Dorgan occupied land at Carrigkilter.

The landlord connection should be compared with valuation-office records, Griffith’s Valuation, later revision books, estate-sale records, and the 1896 sale of the Dorgan farm. Together, these records help show how land occupation, tenancy, purchase, and later sale shaped the family’s story.

The 1896 Sale of the Carrigkilter Farm

The 1896 sale of the Carrigkilter farm marks one of the most important turning points in the Dorgan land story.

A notice in the Cork Examiner reported that the interest in Patrick Dorgan’s farm at Carrigkilter was sold by auction. The holding was described as 27 acres, 1 rood, and 30 perches, situated between Ballycotton and Cloyne. The farm was held in fee simple, subject to payments connected with the Irish Land Commissioners and the Commissioners of Public Works.

The buyer was Mrs. Margaret Curtin of Glanturkin, and the sale price was £142 10s.

This record is important because it shows the transfer of the Carrigkilter holding shortly before Patrick Dorgan left Ireland for the United States. It connects the family’s East Cork landholding story to the later emigration story and helps explain why this branch of the family does not appear in the 1901 Census of Ireland.

From Carrigkilter to Rhode Island

The sale of the Carrigkilter farm helps explain the family’s move from East Cork to the United States. After the farm sale in 1896, Patrick Dorgan left Ireland for America. Mary Catherine Hartnett Dorgan and the children followed in 1897.

This movement changed the family story from a Carrigkilter landholding narrative into an Irish-American family history. Later records in Providence, Rhode Island, including census records, marriage records, and family documents, continue the story after the family left East Cork.

For this reason, the Carrigkilter land story is not only about property. It is also about migration, family decision-making, economic pressure, and the way one East Cork family branch became part of the wider Irish diaspora.

Why the Land Story Matters

The Carrigkilter land story helps connect several parts of the Dorgan family archive. It links Patrick Dargan / Dorgan to a specific townland, a landlord, a valuation map reference, a farm holding, and a later land sale.

Land records are especially valuable because they place families in the physical landscape. Parish registers may show baptisms, marriages, sponsors, and witnesses, but valuation records and maps help show where the family lived and farmed.

For the Dorgan family, Carrigkilter is more than a place name. It is the landholding that connects East Cork parish records, Griffith’s Valuation, the Durdin estate, the 1896 farm sale, and the family’s later move to Rhode Island. This makes Carrigkilter one of the central places in the Dorgan Family archive.