Alexander O’Kane

Can you be a bit more specific please? When were these 2 Alexanders born and when did they die (approximately). Do you know the name of the townland they lived in? O’Kane is a very common name in the area and it helps to have as much detail as possible, if we are to assist you.

The younger lived from 1808-Aug01, 1880 and married Mary Ann Lee circa 1853. They lived in Ballyvennaght. Some descendants live in Ballycastle, others in the US. We know very little about the elder Alexander and woukd hope to learn more. I also hope to learn how a Catholic family came to hold a farm in Antrim. They may have acquired it circa 1861. Alexander’s son John Kane took the farm after Alexander’s death in 1888. It is still in the family.

Palatine Pete,

I think the townland your ancestor lived in is probably referred to as Ballyvennaght in Griffiths and other sources, though it’s also known as Watertop. I see Alexander Kane there in 1861 in Griffiths Valuation, on plot 21 which was a 117 acre farm. There were no Kane/O’Kane farms there in the 1803 agricultural census, nor in the tithes in 1831 so they evidently arrived after that.

Culfeightrin RC’s baptism records start in 1825, and marriages in 1834 (with some gaps). Have you checked them for your ancestors marriage and children’s baptisms?  The records are on-line free on the National Library site:

https://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx

I see a John Kane farming in the townland in 1901:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Antrim/Glenmakeeran/Ballyvennaght/921596/

John O’Kane had married Mary Jane Orr in 1871, and the marriage certificate records that his father was Alexander O’Kane:

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_re…

I see a death for Alexander O’Kane on 1.8.1888 aged 80. His daughter Catherine was the informant:

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1888/06170/4763487.pdf

Probate abstracts from the PRONI wills site relating to this family:

Letters of Administration of the personal estate of Alexander Kane late of Ballyvanaught County Antrim Retired Farmer who died 21 August 1888 at same place were granted at Belfast to John Kane of Ballyvanaught Farmer a Child.

Kane John of Watertop county Antrim farmer died 6 May 1926 Probate Belfast 24 June to Hugh McCarry and Daniel McCarry farmers. Effects £76.

Kane, James of Ballyvennaght Ballyvoy Ballycastle county Antrim farmer died 15 December 1959 Administration Belfast 1 September to Annie Kane the widow. Effects £2886 4s. 7d.

I am not quite sure what you mean by “I also hope to learn how a Catholic family came to hold a farm in Antrim.” Though the majority of the population of Antrim has been Protestant since the 1600s, there have always been a sizeable number of Catholics living there, and many of them were farmers. So there are no great surprises in finding a Catholic farming in the Glens of Antrim.

Possibly you are alluding to the Penal Laws which at one time prohibited Catholics from having long leases and imposed many other restrictions on their lives. They had all been repealed (in so far as land ownership was concerned) by the late 1700s.  But they were never enforced all that vigorously or effectively anyway. Certainly not in Co. Antrim.

The land in the north east of Antrim (where your ancestors lived) was given to the Macdonalds of Islay some time in the 14th century. They set up their base at Dunluce Castle but after part of it fell into the sea in the early 1600s they moved to Glenarm Castle (where they still live today). They brought many of their Scottish tenants with them from Islay, Jura, Kintyre and Gigha. Many of those were Roman Catholic. The O’Kanes of course being native Irish would also have been Roman Catholic. So plenty of Catholic tenants in that part of Antrim. Randall McDonnell, the first Earl of Antrim, owned a quarter of the county in the 1600s. And he was Roman Catholic. His successors happily owned a quarter of the county when it was against the law for a Catholic to do so, and happily granted 3 lives leases (ie long leases) etc to Catholic tenants when that too was against the law. In short, life went on as normal. The McDonnell family did switch to become protestants for a short time in the 1700s but reverted to Catholicism, and are still RC today.

The McDonnell estate records are in PRONI and record rents paid by the tenants twice every year (in May & November). (Records are in series D2977). They start around 1820, so you can check those to see when your family arrived in Ballyveight/Ballyvennaght.

Elwyn, thank you for this information, and especially for the explanation of the differences between the letter of the law and the practice of the law in the late 1700s. I will research the records you cited.

The records are helpful. In the PRONI property listings for the area, many properties are held by occupiers, with John Casement listed as the immediate lessor, and “in fee L.A.P.” noted. Does this indicate that Casement had owned much of the land and was selling it to the tennants under the 1903 Land Purchase Acts?

Yes, LAP meant a Land Act Purchase. (So bought with a Government mortgage).

Records for the marriage of Alexander's granddaughter Maryann McGarry to John Magill in 1897 show a residence as Tullyvarenen or Tullyveanen (handwritten). Death records for her father James in 1904 show the same town. Can you tell me the correct spelling and a location for this town, somewhere near Ballycastle?

Some of the names in use in the Glens of Antrim are non-standard, often being parts of townlands rather than townlands themselves. For example, I see Watertop as the place of death of the death immediately before James’ in 1904. That’s part of Ballyvennaght townland. Also in Ballyvennaght is Turrybreenan which is how it is spelled on Griffiths Valuation. (Tullyvreenan on the marriage & death certificates). I think that’s where your family lived. Griffiths shows James McGarry farming plot 14 in Ballyvennaght, and Turrybreenan is shown there too on the map.

Here’s that family in the 1901 census:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Antrim/Glenmakeeran/Ballyvennaght/921610/

Today that’s on the Ballyvennaght Rd, east of Ballycastle.

Thanks. I have visited there twice. I had seen the Watertop reference before, but never Turrybreenan.