Owen Lavelle and Margaret Kane of Binghamstown, in Belmullet (Kilmore Erris)

Hello, I am planning a Lavelle Reunion for my first cousins in September 2023. We are flying into Dublin and will be exploring our roots before sightseeing and touring the Island.  I would love any help in preparing a Heritage trip to the Mullet!!!  

I am searching for info on:

-Owen Lavelle b. abt 1815 • Belmullet, Cross (Boyd), County Mayo, Ireland and his wife: Margaret Kane (Keane) (Cain) b. about 1805 • County Mayo? Ireland

-Ellen Geraghty (Garrity) B. abt 1840 • possibly County Mayo, Ireland
DEATH 12 APRIL 1899 • Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States of America Wife of Peter Lavelle b. abt1835-40 • Cross, County Mayo, Ireland / DEATH 2 APRIL 1921 • Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States of America
 
I have been doing my research and from what I have gathered (from family and documents) Owen Lavelle was born in Cross (Boyd), Belmullet, Mayo, Ireland sometime around the year 1810. We have little knowledge of his life, but know that he married Margaret Kane.

I am looking for any information about Margaret Kane as we know nothing. Three of their children, Margaret, Peter and Mary, were born in Cross, Co. Mayo and baptized at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Binghamstown, County Mayo (I have the records) . However, I am uncertain if there were more children. I am also interested in finding any remaining ancestors and have the results of a 23andMe DNA test, and just received and Ancestry.com DNA test which I will have the results in the next month or so.  23 and me reports 4th cousins in Ireland and the UK. (As an aside there are a few in Australia as well.)

As far as primary documents go, In 1834 the Tythes for Kilmore, the official government tax record, indicated that Owen was paying taxes on the land where he lived, Cross (Boyd) next to the village or a part of Cross where he was born. In Griffith's Valuation for 1855, Owen Lavelle is still listed in Cross (Boyd) but in 1856-57, the only folks listed for Cross (Boyd) in Kilmore are Dennis Bingham, Owen Lavelle and Luke Lyons. They were most likely "granted" this land by the Crown or were leasing it from one of their relatives who had the grant. Given the known history of the British Bingham, Lyons and Richards families, particularly the Bingham "Exterminator", it is fairly easy to extrapolate what happened to Owen's hold in Cross and why his family was gone by the 1870s. The Third Earl of Lucan was known as the "Exterminator" because of the ruthless number of evictions he enforced on his estates, burning homes/shacks and sending people away with merely the clothes on their backs. The Exterminator died in 1888, so it is very likely that he evicted the Lavelles, precipitating their move to the USA. According to the various US Census, Owen's son, Peter, arrived in 1870 and was naturalized in 1874. Peter and Ellen Lavelle lived in Leetonia Ohio with 6 of their 11 children, the youngest two then living had been born in Leetonia (several others would be born later in Pennsylvania.) There is no evidence that Owen joined them in the states. It may be possible that those who were evicted and remained, went to the city's workhouse for shelter. A document search of Belmullet did reveal a 1901 death record of a man called Owen Lavelle (aged 80), a widower who died as a resident of the Belmullet Workhouse. The dates fit, so it could be our Owen...? I do have an Ancestry tree on ancestry.com