Reconstitution of an Irish Quaker Meeting from Friend’s Records—A Critical Appraisal

This paper presents the results of a very detailed assessment of the accuracy and reliability of the archival records covering a period of 236 years, from 1678 to 1914, for members of the former Newgarden and Carlow Meetings, located in County Carlow, as a prelude to creating a computer-generated artefact (called a Reconstitution Model) from the data. While it was clearly demonstrated that the sources have many shortcomings, they are diverse and when reviewed in a global sense it was often the case that shortcomings in one source were compensated for in another. The Model is an amalgamation of all sources of data (Quaker and non-Quaker) and, while the verification process revealed some possible deficiencies, they are not serious enough to invalidate the Model or conclusions generated from the Model. Thus it may be used with some degree of reliability as a tool to explore and elaborate on a range of issues pertaining to the Meeting. For purposes of illustration Meeting population dynamics are discussed and analysed together with probable reasons for its eventual failure. Since the records for the Carlow Meeting are fairly typical of those available for other Irish Meetings there seems to be no impediment to applying the methods and approach described in this paper to explore and compare the internal dynamics and demographies of other Meetings.