The Dennigans of Tomiskey

The Laurence Dennigan who first moved to Tomiskey had a brother Thomas John, and his descendants have already conducted a great amount of research into the family origins. Thanks to them, much information has already been gathered, and they provided Tony (Thomas Anthony) Dennigan, the current holder of the Dennigan farm in Tomiskey, with the drop-line pedigrees that are included on Page 7 of this document. These pedigrees have proven invaluable in this research, and though some of their content is questioned, and some has been rechecked, they have been used in compiling this history.

An Outline of the Dennigan Surname

In the locality of Tomiskey the name Dennigan is generally pronounced as Dinnigan. Spelled in a variety of ways, it is a Connacht variation on the name Donegan. Donegan had a number of origins: Cork, North Tipperary, Monaghan, and, from the 17^th Century, Roscommon and Westmeath.⁵
As virtually all of Ireland’s censuses prior to 1901 were destroyed in various ways, the researcher is forced to rely on other documentation as census substitutes. One of the most commonly used in Griffith’s Valuation,⁶ a survey of all house and land-holders in Ireland conducted between 1848 and 1864. It lists heads of household only, and then only those liable for the payment of rates. It is thought to show about 70% of all heads of household of the period.
In the case of the Dennigans of Longford, including several variants of the name – Denigan, Dennigan, Dinigan, Dinnegan, Dinigan – the following Civil Parishes⁷ show their location on Griffith’s Survey:

Civil Parish	No of Holdings in Parish
Ardagh	1
Ballymacormick	6
Clongesh	2
Kilcommock	2
Killashee	1
Rathcline	4
Templemichael	1

Table 1: Dennigans in Longford

5 Mohill Civil Parish and Bornacoola Roman Catholic Parishes are both mostly in County Leitrim, but contain some townlands from County Longford.

6 Richard Griffith, Primary Valuation of the Tenements of Ireland, Dublin, 1848-1864. Accessed on www.irishorigins.com (subscription site)

7 The Civil Parish generally corresponds to the Church of Ireland Parish, and was the basic unit of civil administration until the mid-19th Century. It should not be confused with the Roman Catholic Parish, even though often both the Civil/Church of Ireland Parish and the Catholic Parish bore the same names, they did not necessarily share the same boundaries. An example would be the Civil Parish of Mohill, which contains all the townlands of Bornacoola Catholic Parish, but clearly Mohill Catholic Parish would not contain Bornacoola townlands.