The Story of the Wexford McCartans

 

Several McCartan families can be found in the Gorey area of County Wexford.  All of them would seem to have removed from Mayo to Wexford in the nineteenth century.   But the McCartan patrimony is Kinelarty in County Down.  How did the come to be in Mayo?  This was due to Oliver Cromwell's transplantation - to hell or Connaught.  

In 1654 the McCartan families, then occupying the townlands of Creevytennant, Corgaghcreevy and Magheraknock, near Ballynahinch, county Down, were transplanted to the barony of Carra, Claremorris and Kilmaine in county Mayo.  Although there was a high emigration rate in Mayo during the 19th century the surname has survived there, especially adjacent to the shore of Lough Conn.  A contemporary poet recorded their plight.

 

 Dorcha O’Meallan recorded this exodus in Gaelic.

Translation:

 

EXODUS TO CONNAUGHT

In the name of the father full of virtue,

in the name of the son who suffered pain,

in the name of the holy ghost in power,

Mary and her son be with us.

 

Our Sole possessions: Michael of miracles,

the virgin Mary, the twelve apostles,

Brigid, Patrick and Saint John

-         the fine rations; faith in God.

 

Sweet Colum Cille of miracles too,

and Colman Mac Aoidh poets’ patron,

will all be with us on our way.

Do not bewail our journey West.

 

Brothers mine do you not see

the ways of the world a while now?

However much we may possess

we’ll go with little into the grave.

 

Consider a parable of this:

Israel’s people, God’s own,

although they were in bonds in Egypt,

found in time a prompt release.

 

Through the mighty sea they passed,

an ample road was made for them

-         relief succour and nourishment

from the God that ever was and is.

 

Food from heaven they receive:

Great wheat, in no small measure,

honey settling like a mist,

abundant water out of rock.

 

Likewise it shall be done for you:

All good things shall first be yours.

Heaven is your inheritance.

Be not faint-hearted in your faith.

 

People of my  heart, stand steady,

don’t complain of your distress.

Moses got what he requested,

religious freedom – and from Pharoah.

 

Identical their God and ours.

One God there is and still remains.

Here or Westward God is one,

one God shall and shall be.

 

If they call you ‘Papishes’

accept it gladly for the title.

Patience, for the High King’s sake.

Deo Gratias, good the name.

 

God who art generous, O Prince of Blessings,

behold the Gael, stripped of authority.

Now as we journey Westward into Connaught

old friends we’ll leave behind us in their grief.

 

All Catholics and many Protestant Royalists above the rank of tradesmen or labourer were to remove themselves and their families into Connaught and Clare, where they were given small allotments. Any of those ordered away found East of the Shannon after May 1 1654, might be killed by whoever met them.  The move had to be made mostly in winter.  The weather was severe, and the tracks almost impassible.  Hundreds perished on the journey.

The prayer in the first stanza of O’Meallain’s poem is a version of a prayer said traditionally before undertaking a journey.  His comparison between the plight of the Irish and that of ‘Israel’s People’ is a commonplace of seventeenth century poetry.

Little is known of O’Meallain, except that he was a native of County Down and may have been a priest.  The above is his only known work.