Peter Cooney

Life

How we know this: Strong original evidence documents the marriage and Derrycriff household from 1884 to 1894; Peter’s birth, later life, and death remain unknown. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]

Work and occupation

• Landholder
• Farmer and Road Contractor

Where they lived

Use the place list first. The map below is optional.

The pins show approximate places. The line only joins them in time order; it does not prove the route travelled. 3 of the places listed above are recorded only as a county or country, so they are not pinned. Cemetery and burial places have red pins.

Historical context

These background articles explain the places, work, and events in this entry.

What we still don't know

• Find Peter and his household in the 1901 and 1911 Irish censuses.
• Obtain Peter’s death record and a record giving his age or birth.
• His approximate 1860 birth is only a search estimate, not a documented date.
• [LANDHOLDER, NOT LABOURER — AND HIS FATHER WAS THE LABOURER] The 1884 marriage image, read again on 8 August 2026, enters Peter Coony himself as a Landholder and his father John Coony as a Labourer; Margaret's father Thomas Needham is also a Landholder. Finding 71 recorded all three as labourers and that reading is withdrawn. The correction matters because it changes the shape of his life: the archive had him rising from labourer to farmer during his marriage, when in fact he was already a landholder on his wedding day and it was his father who had been the labourer. The rise happened between the generations, not within his own.
• [THREE CROSSES, FOUR YEARS APART] He registered Bridget in 1886, Thomas in 1887 and Peter in 1890, and made his mark every time — and made one again at his marriage in 1884. Four occasions across six years, all read from the images. He could not write his name, and this is a settled fact about the man rather than a hurried afternoon at the registrar's.
• [FROM THE REGISTER] His marriage entry of 26 February 1884 gives him as of full age, a bachelor and a Landholder, son of John Coony, Labourer — who is not marked deceased, so John was very likely still alive in 1884. Peter signed with his mark — and so did his bride. This entry read “his bride signed her own name” until 11 August 2026, repeating a claim about Margaret Needham that finding 125 withdrew: the marriage line reads “Marget ✕ Needham, her mark”, and seven of the eight people married on that page made a mark.
• [NEW, AND UNEXPECTED] The 1901 census puts his mother, Bridget Durkan, aged 90 and widowed, in the house. She was not in this archive at all, and she pushes the Cooney line back to a woman born about 1811.
• [AN OBSERVATION, NOT YET A PROBLEM] The 1901 household holds only four of the children this archive assigns to him and Margaret — Mary 17, Thomas 14, Peter 10 and Ellen 7. Bridget (b. 1886), Anne (b. 1888) and Helen (b. 1895) are absent, and at fifteen, thirteen and six they might be expected at home. They may be in service, with relatives, dead, or wrongly attached here. The census image, and the 1911 sheet, would show which.
• Find the household in the Irish censuses and obtain Peter’s death; his c. 1860 birth is only a search estimate because the marriage record gives his age merely as “Full.”
• [CONFLICT] Islandeady, County Mayo, is explicit and must not be replaced by Island Eddy, Galway. The records do not prove that this Derrycriff father was father of the Army sergeant or the Army correspondents Bridget and Annie.
• [CONTROLLED NEGATIVE — AND A LIMIT WORTH KNOWING] With the Catholic parish registers now known to be searchable, his baptism was looked for: a Peter Cooney of about 1854 with a father John and a mother Durkan. Nothing. The same search for Margaret Needham's baptism returns nothing either. The indexed register set that produced six Condon baptisms in Cork and a Fitzgerald baptism in Kerry appears not to cover Islandeady in Mayo. So the collection is a real unlock but an uneven one, and coverage must be tested diocese by diocese rather than assumed.
• [COULD NOT WRITE] Peter Cooney signed with a mark on his marriage register of 1884, 'Peter X Coony', so he could not write his name. Of the twelve people in this archive whose registers have been read, some couples both signed, some both marked, and in three of them one partner signed while the other did not — it followed schooling and trade rather than family or sex.
• [COULD NOT WRITE, AND HE WAS FAR FROM ALONE] He registered his daughter Mary's birth himself in December 1884 and made his mark, as he had at his marriage ten months before. The register page he appears on holds ten births from the Islandeady townlands, every father a farmer, and nine of the ten informants signing with a mark — only Michael Gibbons of Cogaula wrote his own name. His wife Margaret, who signed hers, was the exception in that country, not he.

References

1. [1] Irish civil marriage register — Peter Cooney and Margaret Needham, 26 February 1884, Islandeady, County MayoBack to citation 1a Back to citation 1b
2. [2] Civil indexBack to citation 2
3. [3] Irish civil birth register — Mary Cooney, 11 December 1884, Derrycriff, IslandeadyBack to citation 3a Back to citation 3b Back to citation 3c Back to citation 3d Back to citation 3e Back to citation 3f Back to citation 3g
4. [4] Irish civil birth register — Bridget Coony, 16 February 1886, Derrycriff, Islandeady, Co. MayoBack to citation 4
5. [5] Irish civil birth register — Thomas Coony, 16 February 1887, Derrycriff, Islandeady, Co. MayoBack to citation 5
6. [6] Irish civil birth register — Anne Coony, 11 August 1888, Derrycriff, Islandeady, Co. MayoBack to citation 6
7. [7] Irish civil birth register — Peter Coony, October 1890, Derrycriff, Islandeady, Co. MayoBack to citation 7
8. [8] Irish civil birth register — Ellen Cooney, 1 August 1894, Derrycriff, Islandeady, Co. MayoBack to citation 8a Back to citation 8b Back to citation 8c Back to citation 8d
9. [9] Irish civil death — Peter Cooney, 29 December 1943Back to citation 9a Back to citation 9b
10. [10] Irish civil marriage register, Peter Cooney and Margaret Needham, 26 February 1884, Islandeady, Co. MayoBack to citation 10a Back to citation 10b
11. [11] Peter Cooney household, 1901 census of Ireland, Derrycreeve, Islandeady, County MayoBack to citation 11
12. [12] Peter Cooney household, 1911 census of Ireland, Islandeady, County MayoBack to citation 12

See also

• Return to the Cooney / Farrelly branch
• See this family in the full tree
• Browse all original records