Where do my Mooney ancestors come from???

[c5el]

Thanks all,
Yes I think all the records you have all said are correct. His wife and children are mentioned in various documents but he's never with them. As you said josey there's records on rootsireland which I registered for but I think the registered father's name was different. I'm hoping his records were not those destroyed in the Irish records fire 1922  Maybe David did leave the family and no one knew of him as his granddaughter lived until the 1970s and never knew anything about him, not even him being Irish.

I also find it interesting that the marriage record I have says 1837 yet they don't have any children until 1849?

UPDATE: I've actually found on GRO a JOHN MOONEY 1845 Liverpool, ANN ELIZA MOONEY 1838 bolton union, WINIFRED MOONEY 1842 Liverpool, all with the mothers maiden name of Warburton

[heywood]

Agnes baptism

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NJZ9-726

Rose baptism

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N16T-2GQ

These births around 1861 might give the same occupation as the census - Railway labourer. Earlier birth certificates might help re occupation - I wonder did he travel around.

[aghadowey]

UPDATE: I've actually found on GRO a JOHN MOONEY 1845 Liverpool, ANN ELIZA MOONEY 1838 bolton union, WINIFRED MOONEY 1842 Liverpool, all with the mothers maiden name of Warburton

Found earlier-

Looking at the children in 1861 they were born Lancashire, Birkenhead and Sheffield.
GRO indexes has Mooney births with mother Warburton
Ann Eliza 1838 Bolton
Winifred 1842 Liverpool
John 1845 Liverpool
Eli 1850 Wirral

[aghadowey]

... As you said josey there's records on rootsireland which I registered for but I think the registered father's name was different. I'm hoping his records were not those destroyed in the Irish records fire 1922

Civil registration for births, deaths & Catholic marriages began in 1864 (from 1845 for non-Catholic marriages). All of these records survive.
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/civil-search.jsp

Church records are another matter and many from before mid-1800s do not survive. Many of those records that do survive are not online. It was Church of Ireland registers deposited in Dublin that were lost in 1920s. If the Mooneys were Catholic then check to see what comes under County Monaghan (records are by R.C. parishes and I think there are about 20 for Monaghan)-
http://registers.nli.ie/

[Maiden Stone]

If he was a railway labourer he may have been in a lodging- house or a shanty- town, or even a lodging-house in a shanty-town at time of 1871 census. His name and details may have been supplied by a lodging-house keeper along with a dozen or more other lodgers. This information may have been inaccurate or incomplete. For one thing he may have said he was younger than he was. He may have been travelling between jobs and been missed off census. Some of my Irish labourer ancestors used to walk from Lancashire to Yorkshire and back between jobs. He may have been back in Ireland in 1871 visiting family. Perhaps travelling to and from the port on a railway he'd helped to build?
You mention a possible marriage in 1837 but wonder why there were no children until 1849. There probably were children. It may be there are no records, or just that you haven't found them. If the family were moving around children could have been born (and died) anywhere in Ireland or Britain. Those children may all have died as infants. Consider what was happening at the time in Ireland and the dreadful conditions for poor working classes in Britain.

On a lighter note!

Don't know if Bernard Mooney was a common Irish name or they could be related. 

It's common enough to be in a line of a song: "It's Bernard Mooney she loves still". I used to sing it often at primary school; it was the accompaniment to a playground game.