The Callans and McClarys, by John Edward Callan - Callanworld

year-old Philip in the widow Rose
Callan’s family of 1821 would have
been of an appropriate age to sire
a child in 1826, at which time he
would have been 25 years old.
Another reason for choosing
the widow Rose Callan’s family as
our ancestral Callan family rests in
the first names of the family
members. Rose, Philip, James,
Ellenor and Catherine, are consistent
with first names passed on in
subsequent generations of our
Callans. This is less so with the
James Callen family. Their names
of Judith, Peter and Anne are not
found in our Callan line. It was
traditional and honorable in old
Irish families to pass on family first
names to subsequent generations.
The tracing of Irish first names is,
today, a powerful genealogical tool
for establishing ancestral links.
Another piece of evidence
points to widow Rose Callan of
1821 as being a direct ancestor.
Author Luke Callan refers (p. 106-
107) to a “granduncle” Shamus
(James) Callan who lived in
Coolkill. This argues that his
grandfather, Philip Callan, had a
brother James. The 1821 Census
shows, in fact, Philip did have a
brother, James.
Yet another factor pointing to
the widow Rose Callan of 1821 as
being our direct ancestor is that
she is recorded in the 1821
Census as occupying a home site
of 6 acres. We know from an
1855-6 survey record of Coolkill
(Griffith Valuation and map) that
our Callans in 1855-6 occupied a
6-acre home site in Coolkill. The
1855-6 map locates that Callan
home site exactly where we know
Kate Callan lived with her parents
prior to the family departing for
America in 1890. For the reasons
following, it appears certain that
the 6-acre home site cited for the
widow Rose Callan of 1821 was
the same 6-acre site we know to
have been occupied by later
Callans.
There was no map associated
with the 1821 Census. Consequently,
we can’t prove that the
location of Widow Rose’s 6-acre
home site in Coolkill in 1821 was
the same 6-acre home site we
know was occupied by our Callans
from the 1850s until 1890. However
we do know from the history
of land ownership and usage in
Ireland in the 1700s and 1800s
that land boundaries were rarely
redrawn, land was rarely sold and
that it was not unusual for tenant
families to occupy the same home
site for several generations.
The mark of success and
nobility in Ireland amongst the
English and Irish Protestants in the
1700s was the amount of land they
owned. Most of that land was
confiscated from Irish Catholics as
the spoils of the Irish Wars of
1600s and 1700s. The sale of land,
in those days, was considered by
noble peers as a sign of a family’s
financial weakness and an embarrassment
to the family of the
landowners. Additionally, because
of the poverty of the day, there
were no buyers.
Consequently, most land
owners long-termed leased their
lands to peasant Irish, like our
Callans, as home sites and farms,
often collecting much of the rent
in the form of goods (farm products
and spun flax produced at the
home site) and services (male
family members working the fields
of the landlord). If good tenants,
the landowner and his descendants
continued to lease their
land, home sites and farms to the
same family and their descendants
for generations.
Why is all of this relevant?
More than 30 years after the 1821
Census was taken, a survey of
Coolkill was conducted in 1855-6,
which recorded the head-of
household only, the size of the
property they occupied and, with a
map, the exact location of that
property in Coolkill. This survey is
known as the Griffith Valuation
and it was conducted throughout
Ireland. Its purpose was to assess a
tax for each household to help
defray the costs of Ireland’s
“workhouses.”
Workhouses were places
set up by the Irish government
to house families devastated by
the Irish potato famine of the
1840s.
The Griffith Valuation and
its map of Coolkill showed that
there were only two six-acre sites
of the 43 sites recorded in
Coolkill. One of the two six-acre
sites is listed as occupied by a
Rose Callan. The map places this
Rose Callan’s site in Coolkill in
the exact location where we know
our later Callans lived. We believe
that this six-acre site is the same
six-acre site occupied by widow
Rose Callan and her family in
1821. This linkage of a Callan
~ 13 ~
The Callans and McClarys
home site became a key determinant
in identifying the widow Rose
Callan of 1821 as our earliest
known Callan.
It appears that the widow
Rose Callan of 1821 lived at the
home site until her death in the
early 1850s. Crosserlough Parish
records show two widow Callans
(no first names given) as having
died in Coolkill during this period,
one in 1851 and the other in 1852.
One of those records is almost
certainly for our widow Rose
Callan. The other record was
probably for a Mary Callan who
was listed as a 50 year-old Coolkill
widow in the 1821 Census. Thus,
our Rose Callan of 1821 died at
age 76, a rather ripe old age for the
time. Her last years and days were
most likely spent at the Callan 6acre
home site in the care of her
daughter-in-law, the widow Rose
Boylan Callan and her 8 children.
In those days, there were no
hospitals to speak of. People
simply died at home in the care
of their families, with occasional
visits by a doctor and frequent
visits by the local priest
As noted below, Rose
Boylan Callan lost her husband,
Philip, in 1846. He left Rose
with a two-month-old daughter,
also named Rose, and a twoyear-old
son, Bernard. This
Bernard would grow up on the
Coolkill farm, and as a young
man would emigrate to America
to study to become a priest in
Baltimore and upstate New
York. There he would eventually
meet a 16-year-old girl, serving
meals at a parish rectory in
Seneca Falls, who would change
his plans forever.