There is really no substitute for a careful stepping back through the generations.
What are the names of the children of Owen Mulcare?
What are the names of the children of his brother James?
Looking at these names may give you a clue as to which people may have been their parents or grandparents.
The Irish did have a naming pattern. They did not follow it as slavishly as some Scottish folk but you can still see it in many families.
A traditional naming pattern was often used by Irish parents until the later 19th century:
First son usually named for the father's father.
Second son usually named for the mother's father.
Third son usually named for the father.
Fourth son usually named for the father's eldest brother.
etc etc
I use these sites
Family Search
https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/https://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/(the reason I use this is to search for the oldest inhabitants of the family name I am following, showing up in the census and then track their BDMs in the hope of getting a link to 'my' names
https://registers.nli.ie/To search in Ireland you need to know religion and the townland they came from.
1 I always make a list of all the spelling variations of the name and search for them
2 If I come across any list of names from Ireland I search in it even if they may not look promising eg lists of dog licences etc
If your family migrated to the US then one of the first tasks I would do is to find the ship/date/where it left from and arrived. Look carefully at those who came as they may be from the same region/town.
What are the dates for James?
