I have determined that my great, great-grandfather was Archibald Savage who was alive in Ballycastle when his son Henry married in 1878. He seems to have been the man of that name who drove the mail car between Ballymoney and Ballycastle c. 1869.

On the PRONI site there is a report of a Coroners Inquest on an Archibald Savage who died 16th July 1891 in Ballycastle. It seems likely he is my Archibald or a relation. I would love to learn more about this.    Do I need to visit to PRONI  to find out? Also do local libraries have newspapers of the period which may have mentioned it?

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PRONI hold that inquest under reference:             ANT/6/1/1/2/56

You either need to go there and look it up yourself, which is free, or get them to do it for you. If they look it up, there is a fee which is around £15 per 15 minutes, plus copying costs.

 Ballymoney Library holds on microfilm: Ballymoney Free Press Jan 27th 1870 and then May 15th 1873-December 1934; Ballymoney and Moyle Times May 10th 1989-Dec 2009.

I have no idea how much information a coroner's inquest report contains. Is it the equivalent of a death certificate or does it contain more information? I hope to visit  Ballymoney Library later in the year.

The coroners report is not the equivalent of a death certificate. There’s a death certificate as well, (registered by the coroner). The coroner’s report examines the cause of death and produces a report with conclusions on that. How much is in there will depend on the circumstances of how he died.

Thanks Elwyn. I was trying to decide whether to send for the coroner's report instead of the death certificate which presumably would give wife's name date of birth etc, I assume that I would really need both; one for family information and the other for the human interest story. Would that be right?

Irish death certificates are not very informative. You won’t get a date of birth, or his wife’s name. All you get is the date and place of death, name, sex, estimated age (which you probably already know was 86 in 1891), marital status and occupation, cause of death, name of the informant (who will be the coroner in this case) and the date the death was registered. I’d say you’ll get more information than that from the coroner’s report.

Thank you Elwyn. I will take your advice and apply for the coroners report. The age you quoted makes it unlikely he was the father of my great grandfather, who was married in 1878 I expect I will need to go to Antrim for relevant information.

Elwyn.

 I ordered a copy of the coroners report from PRONI  which confirmed that Archibald was my great great grandfather.

it was a great pleasure to read the story it told and I was moved to hear the words spoken by my relatives. 

Thank you for your advice.

Excellent. Glad it all worked out so well.