The Callans and McClarys, by John Edward Callan - Callanworld

from this home site in 1890. By
that time, none of our Callans
remained in Ireland. Our distance
cousin Jim Lynch was told,
when he visited the site in 1982,
that it was locally known as the
old Callan home site and that no
one occupied the site after 1890.
Philip’s youngest son, Jack
Callan, visited his boyhood
home site in August 1919, the
home where he was born in
1880 and from whence he left
for America as a 10-year-old boy.
He is the first of our native
Coolkill Callans living in
America who is known to have
paid a visit on their former
homeland.
In a 1919 letter from
Coolkill to his brother, James, in
Rhode Island, he described his
visit with some emotion. He
shed tears when he discovered
that “the old house has fallen in
and only the walls are left standing.
The old fireplace is there,
but no trace of the loft, and grass
is growing on the floor.”
James and his sister, Kate
Callan Sullivan, visited the home
site in 1927. There is no family
record of what they found there.
Their brother, Luke Callan,
visited the home site in 1932,
and did describe what he saw in
his 1933 book, Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland Ireland After After After After After
Forty Forty Forty Forty Forty Years. Years Years Years Years (note: This book
was published by Angel Guardian
Press in the Archdiocese of
Boston in 1933.The only known
public copy is available in the
Library of Congress reading
room in Washington, D.C.) He
was distraught by what he found.
The walls of the home were no
longer there and the stones that
once constructed the house were
strewn as ruins around the home
site. He noted that the two
rounded gate pillars that marked
the entrance from the lane (road)
into the site were still there,
“between which was hung a fourbarred
gate”.
Jim Lynch visited the site in
1982, some 50 years after Luke. It
was completely clear of any
evidence that a home had occupied
the site. It was then part of a
cow pasture. Mattie Lynch from
nearby Kilnaleck, a first cousin of
Kate Callan Sullivan and familiar
with the Callan home site, escorted
Jim on this visit. He sited the
location of where the Callan house
was by pointing to 2 cows grazing
on the exact spot. He next pulled
the heavy overgrowth away from a
stone wall to expose the two round
gate piers that once guarded the
entrance to the Callan home from
the road, the piers that Luke wrote
about. The space between the
piers was now filled in with stone
to complete a continuum of an old
stone wall. Mattie stated that the
stones within the gate piers were
probably taken from the ruins of
the Callan house. Jim took one of
the stones home to America.
Although the Callan cottage
was no longer there in 1982,
Mattie Lynch took Jim Lynch
that year to a nearby structure
which was still standing and,
according to Mattie, identical to
what the Callan cottage was. This
journey is described and pictured
in the following chapter, “A
Journey to Coolkill.”
The cottage was then being
used as a storage shed for farm
materials. The size was not much
larger than a one-car garage. The
structure had three rooms, two
very small bedrooms and one
kitchen/social area. The open
hearth and much of its swing-out
cooking hardware was still in
place. The cottage then had a
sheet metal roof, but Mattie told
Jim that in the Callan days the roof
would have been made of
thatched straw. Mattie was a
thatcher in his earlier days. He
also made note that many of the
homes of the Callan days had dirt
floors. A description by Jim’s
Granduncle Jack (our Bernard’s
brother John) of grass growing on
the floor suggests that the Callan
home may have had a dirt floor.
It is hard to imagine how our
ancestors and their eight children
and the Callan families before
them lived in such conditions. It’s
no wonder that our Callans sought
a better life in America.
Directions to the Callan
home site in Coolkill are a bit
difficult to describe because there
is no building structure marking
the spot. It is in a rural area, about
½ mile east of the town of
Kilnaleck and ½ mile south of the
Crosserlough Catholic Church.
The route Jim Lynch took with
Mattie Lynch in 1982 took him
down Main St. of Kilnaleck about
½ mile to the southeast of town, to
the first road or lane where you
could make a left turn, referred to
locally as the Crosserlough Road.
This lane was, in 1982,
~ 15 ~
The Callans and McClarys
unpaved and barely wide enough
for a small car. The site is about ¼
of a mile down this lane on the
right. Look for a small creek
under the road and the site
property begins as soon as you
cross the creek. The only site
marker would be the two round
stone gate piers, adjacent to the
road and now part of a stone wall.
You need to look closely to find
them as they are most likely
covered with all manner of brush.
The home site was just inside the
piers.
In early Sept. 2001, several
of the family had planned to fly to
Ireland to place a commemorative
Callan plaque on the site. But the
terrroist attack on the World
Trade Center on Sept. 11 of that
year caused international flights to
be cancelled for a week, including
the flight the family had planned to
take. That put an end to those
plans, and so the site is still unmarked.
If you continue on the lane
for another ½ mile or so, you will
come across the Crosserlough
Church and graveyard. Our
Callans worshiped there when
living in Coolkill and some of our
early Irish Callans are buried
there.
Death Death and and Burial Burial Records
Records
In In Coolkill
Coolkill
The probable Crosserlough
Parish death records for the
widow Rose Callan of 1821 were
described earlier. Additionally,
Crosserlough Parish holds only