The Callans and McClarys, by John Edward Callan - Callanworld

our Callans to live in Ireland.
When they left for America in
1890, they, in essence, blew out
the candles for the last time at
our Callan ancestral home in
Coolkill. It appears that the
Callan home was never occupied
again. This was a home that the
four generations of our Callans
just described lived in, sequentially,
for almost 100 years in
Coolkill.
The exact location of the
home site of the Callans in
Coolkill is known, but the
Callan cottage itself no longer
exists. Kate’s brother, John
(Jack) Callan, revisited his
boyhood home in 1919 and
found the roof collapsed within
the four walls. Kate, herself,
visited the site in 1927, but
there is no family record on
what she observed. Her
brother, author Luke Callan,
visited the site in 1932.
Luke recalled, in a book
recounting the trip which he
wrote in 1933, that he found
that the walls had collapsed to
stone rubble. Jim Lynch, a
decendant of Kate who visited
the site in 1982, reported that
all evidence that a home had
ever existed there had been
removed. The only vestige was
two rounded stone gate piers,
barely noticeable now as part of
a stone wall. The posts, at the
time of our Callans, anchored
the proverbial Irish garden gate
that served as the entrance to the
Callan cottage’s front yard from
the lane.
Our Our Callans Callans in in County
County
Monaghan Monaghan (pre-1800)
(pre-1800)
According to author Luke
Callan in his 1933 book, our
earliest Callans originally lived in
County Monaghan. Finding a
record of their existence there is
futile. There were no official civil
or church records of Irish
Catholics kept prior to the
1820s. The British occupiers of
the times apparently did not
consider Irish Catholic peasants
worthy of being officially recorded.
Catholic Church records
in those days were nonexistent.
The Catholic Church was
banned from existence in the
1600s, after the defeat of the
Irish Catholics by the British in
The Irish Wars. It was not until
the late 1700s that a partial ban
on the Catholic Church was
lifted. It took decades for the
Catholic Church to reestablish
itself with churches, priests and
infrastructure. The keeping of
records on their flock was not a
high priority. The old Catholic
churches were either destroyed
by the British or converted to
places of worship for Anglican
Protestants.
The basis for County
Monaghan being the place of
origin of our earliest Callans
comes from two sources. The
first is a reference in a 1933
book, Ireland- After Forty Years,
which was authored by Luke
Callan. Luke states in the book
(p. 20) that his grandfather
Callan, who we know from other
records to be Philip Callan, was
“native” to County Monaghan.
Unfortunately, Luke provided
no additional details on where in
Monaghan his grandfather Philip
Callan was born.
The second source involves
two Callan brothers, Peter and
James, recently of the town of
Kilnaleck, near the Townland of
Coolkill.
When Terry Burke of
Ohio, a descendant of our
Coolkill Callans, visited Coolkill
in 1995, he came across Peter in
Kilnaleck. Peter Callan told
Terry that he believed that our
Callans were related to his
Callans and, according to the
oral history in Peter’s family,
they originally came from
County Monaghan, possibly
from the town of
Carrickmacross. Peter’s brother,
James, now living in Toronto,
Canada, tells basically the same
story, adding that, at one time,
his early Callan family also lived
in the Townland of Coolkill.
Both Peter and James did not
know the specifics as to how our
Callans related to their Callan
line. But shortly, we will suggest
how they may have been related
to our Callans
There are other factors that
would support that our Callans
originally came from County
Monaghan. The Irish literature
on the origins and history of
surnames in Ireland shows that
the Callan surname was common
to County Monaghan and
not to County Cavan. Additionally,
our Callan’s travel from
Monaghan to Cavan, would not
~ 11 ~
The Callans and McClarys
have been a long trek.
Monaghan and Cavan share a
common border. (see County
map)
The distance between the
town of Carrickmacross in
Monaghan and the Townland of
Coolkill in Cavan is about 25
miles.
Why did they leave
Monaghan for Coolkill? Probably
for the same reasons Irish
have been moving for centuries
to this day, better jobs and
quality of life. Other members of
the Monaghan Callan clan may
have preceded our Callan family
to Coolkill and, once established,
beckoned our Callans to
join them.
Prospects for documenting
that our Callans originated from
County Monaghan are dim.
Official records of Irish families,
particularly of poor Irish Catholics
like our Callans, were not
taken in Ireland prior to the 19 th
century. With few exceptions,
the creation of official civil
records on the common Irish
people did not commence until
after the 1820s. Our Callans
were in Coolkill by that time.
Ironically, the best records found
today of common Irish families
of the 1600s and 1700s are those
which were created by the British
on Irish convicts and their
families who the British deported
to Australia and New
Zealand.
Catholic Church records in
Ireland prior to the 1820s are
sparse as well. The British, after
defeating the Irish in 1690,