The Callans and McClarys, by John Edward Callan - Callanworld

is also related to our 1821 Callan
family. They lived within “shouting
distance” to one another.
Maybe they also came from
Monaghan.
It seems more likely that
James Callen family was the
source of Anne Callan, mother
of Father Lynch. They lived in
Coolkill like our Callans and
author Luke and his brother,
Jack, wrote about their Callan
family and relatives only in the
context of Coolkill.
Another relationship that
points to James Callen of 1821
being related to widow Rose
Callan’s family of 1821 revolves
around James Callen’s son Peter
and Luke Callan’s writings on a
Peter Callan family in Coolkill.
Peter Peter Peter Peter Peter Callan. Callan. Callan. Callan. Callan. Author Luke
Callan visited a Callan family
farm in Coolkill when he was
there in 1932. Luke recalled in
his 1933 book that he and
members of his family worked
on this farm in the 1880s, which
was then headed by a Peter
Callan. He found himself, in
1932, a stranger amongst his
Callan “cousins” whom he had
not met before. He wrote (p. 94-
95) that, because of a “very close
relationship” of his Callans to the
Peter Callans, his Callan family
was given the nod over other
Coolkill workers to work on
Peter Callan’s farm. Luke
considered his Callans the
“lesser Callans” relative to the
Peter Callan family of old. All of
this suggests that our Callans
were blood related to a Peter
Callan. The question is how.
Luke did not elaborate on how
our Callans related to the Peter
Callan family.
It seems that our Callan’s
“very close relationship” to the
Peter Callans goes back to the
1821 James Callen and his son,
Peter. The 1821 Census shows
only one Peter Callan living in
Coolkill and he is the 17 year old
son of James and Judith Callen.
Thirty-five years later, the 1855-6
Griffith Valuation of Coolkill
shows 2 Peter Callans still living
there, a Peter Callan on 21 acres
and, a Peter Callan “(jun)” on 11
acres. Luke’s locational description
of the Peter Callan farm he
visited in 1932 matches the
Griffith map location of Peter
Callan’s 21-acre farm of 1855-6.
Peter (jun) was likely the son of
the other Peter.
It is difficult to discern from
Luke’s writings which Peter
Callan he is referring to, the
father or the son. The father, in
1885, sort of the mid-point when
Luke would have worked the
Peter Callan farm, would have
been 81 years old, an unusually
late age for Irish males at the
time. For this reason, it is probable
that the Peter Callan whom
Luke worked for was the son,
the Peter (jun) of the 1855-6
survey. In 1885, he would have
been in his late 50s or early 60s
when Luke worked the farm at
age 10.
The point in all of this is
that our Callan line has a blood
relationship with the Peter
Callans of Coolkill. That relationship
appears to go back to
the family of James and Judith
Callen of 1821. It appears that
the nexus is that James Callen of
1821 was a brother of the deceased
husband of widow Rose
Callan of 1821.
There is another point of
evidence that argues that the
Peter Callans of early Coolkill
were related to our Callans.
There is, currently, a Peter
Callan living in the town of
Kilnaleck, which is adjacent to
Coolkill. In 1995, Peter told
Terry Burke, a descendant of
our Coolkill Callans, that his
Callans are related to our
Coolkill Callans, but didn’t know
the specifics. His brother, James
Callan, now living in Toronto,
Canada, contacted Jim Lynch by
e-mail in 1999 asserting a relationship
to our Callans. According
to them, the relationship goes
“way back”. They say that their
Callans originally came to
Coolkill from the town of
Carrickmacross, County
Monaghan. If that is true, then
this current Callan family in
Kilnaleck derives from the Peter
Callan family of old and the
1821 James Callen family of
Coolkill. If so, they and their
families represent distant Callan
relatives still living in the Coolkill
area.
Perhaps the 1821 James
Callen preceded our Callans to
Coolkill, established a farm there
and invited his brother’s family
still in Monaghan, our Callans, to
join him and work the farm in
Coolkill. The James Callen farm
passed to his oldest son, Peter,
~ 21 ~
The Callans and McClarys
and then on to his son, Peter.
This was the Peter Callan farm
that Luke remembered. That
they owned or leased a farm,
which required hired labor,
would explain why Luke would
describe his Callan family as “the
lesser Callans” relative to the
Peter Callan family. They were
the greater Callans because our
“lesser Callans” worked for
them.
There is no known evidence
that our Callans in
Coolkill ever worked their own
farm other then using their 6acre
home site to raise foodstuffs
for family consumption and the
occasional trip to the market
place to sell home grown products.
It would be interesting to
learn more from Peter and
James Callan of Kilnaleck about
their current families there and
also to probe them more about
their ancestral Callan line.
The The Boylan Boylan family
family
in in Ireland
Ireland
Our Boylan ancestral name
derives from Rose Boylan who,
in the 1830s, married Philip
Callan. We do not know as
much about Rose Boylan’s
family as we do about the
Callans, but there are some
clues in the 1821 Census of
Coolkill and also some significant
indicators of her family ties
in author Luke Callan’s book.
In 1821, our Rose Boylan
would have been a young lady,
likely still living with her parents.