A Thomas Bourke married a Margaret McDonagh in the RC parish of Newport in SW County Tipperary in 1840, that might be a possibility.
Awesome work gaffy. I will look into that later this week!
If you don't mind me asking how did you readily find that information, what sources did/do you use to get such quick hits. I understand that it might not be THE match I am looking for but I will be looking to get more possibilities, more so than what I can get.
The link only works if you have an Ancestry subscription (otherwise you are invited to take out membership) but this looks like the family in 1870: https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M8KW-XBX
Have you found Thomas and/or Margaret in any later census records?
In order to have any chance of finding receords (if they do survive) in Ireland you will need a fairly exact location (parish if not actual townland) not just the county or 'Ireland.' Therefore, you need to search through all possible U.S. records for clues (not easy with a common surname)- newspaper obituaries, death certificates, gravestone inscriptions, cemnetery & church records, etc.- as well as all possible relatives who might have old letters, addresses, etc.
Sorry everyone, I will be sure to double check family search as I use both family search and ancestry. I just started utilizing ancestry.com so I will be sure to better use the ancestry so that I can at least relate to people who, as you said, might not have the subscription services. Silly me, I didn't even think about that.
I did find that census from 1870, I am trying to find the 1960 census where Thomas, the son, would have been 1. I have just learned about wildcards (*!) while searching, I will also give that a try.
Thanks for your encouragement everyone, I will scrub all of the censuses that I have and hopefully come away with county. The family thinks Gallway or Mayo counties. I will give that a shot.
-Chris