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McCartans of Kinelarty

For over 600 years the Mc Cartans ruled over their patrimony in  the mid-Down.  Then after the Battle of Kinsale, in 1602, their stance against colonisation became a lost cause.  After this, the fall-out from the Phelim O'Neill insurrection of 1642 further weakened their hold in Mid-Down.  In that year an army of Scots under Lord Conway invaded Kinelarty.  When they came to Loughinisland they burnt the McCartan castle and laid waist the surrounding countryside. McCartan leaders were apprehended and jailed in Carrickfergus.  Others scattered and sought shelter in the Maguinness territory of Iveagh.  With the coming of Cromwell, in 1654, many McCartans were transplanted to Connaught. 

 After James II was defeated at the Boyne in 1690, any remaining Mc Cartan Jacobites suffered further repression.  Being forced into exile. many joined the armies of France, Spain and Austria. These refugees became known as the 'The Wild Geese'.  Amongst them were John McCartan and his son Anthony from Drumaroad

Wild Geese search for roots

After the Treaty of Limerick in 1691, the dispossessed Irish on the continent found themselves part of a social system, especially in France, in which status and professional advancement depended to a great extent on the possession of a coat arms and an attested pedigree. Due to this, many descendants of those forced into exile returned to Ireland in later years to document their ancestry. At that time the relevant records were held in the Genealogical Office, located in the Birmingham tower in Dublin Castle. Then it was known as the Office of the Ulster King at Arms. This Government department was established in the sixteenth century and held a wealth of information on the ancestry of numerous families. 

In 1837 two visitors, from Lille in France, arrived at Dublin Castle hoping to certify their Irish ancestry. They were father and son, Andronicus and Felix McCartan.  Andronicus was the grandson of Anthony McCartan who at aged 16 fled from 'Ballydromerode' (Drumaroad), County Down, after the Battle of the Boyne. Young Anthony distinguished himself with a military career as captain in the French army. His family became eminent in several professions in Flanders.  Amongst them were the Dublin visitors;  both were medical doctors in Lille.

Their genealogy search in Dublin Castle

In the Office at Arms in Dublin Castle, Andronicus and Felix Mc Cartan were shown Vol XV11, page 357. This reference revealed a comprehensive account of the McCartan pedigree from the Kings of Emhain Macha down to the last chieftain of Kinelarty, who had fled, with his son Anthony, to France. Delighted with the findings, Andronicus sought permission from the Chief Herald to have his father's, his own, and his son's names registered in succession to the last McCartan chieftain.  This request was granted and they were presented with a certified copy signed by Sir William Betham (Ulster King at Arms). The original document is now stored the manuscripts department of the genealogy office in Kildare Street, Dublin.

Objections

In the years from 1879 to 1895 Father James O'Laverty, an archivist and historian, compiled a history of the diocese of Down and Connor. His five volumes are an invaluable source to local historians. Interestingly, Father O'Laverty's mother was a McCartan. This is probably why he has made so many references to the family name in his volumes. 

During his researches Father O'Laverty had occasion to examine the McCartan pedigree in the Dublin Castle. It was then he discovered the additions made over 40 years earlier by the visitors from France.  O'Laverty considered their action to be a mockery of the ancient Irish Brehon law tracts.  He made this viewpoint abundantly clear in his book thus:

'Enquiries of this nature may have an interest for English heralds but they are comparatively uninteresting from an Irish Celtic point of view, according to which every McCartan was equally noble, and from the name an individual was elected to be chief for life, but at his death his children had no more privileges than any other by his name. The lineal representative, therefore, of the last chief - he who betrayed the trust reposed in him by the clan, when he accepted from the Crown in perpetuity as landlord what the clan had conferred on him for life only as chief - has, in an Irish celtic point of view, no reason to boast of the honour of his ancestor'. 

In this statement O'Laverty's resentment was aimed at Phelim McCartan, who in 1605 sold a third of Kinelarty to Edward Cromwell, Earl of Ardglass.  Was O'Laverty harsh in this criticism?  History tells us that Phelim along with many other Irish Chieftains at this time had but two choices.  Sell one third of their patrimony to an English servitor or face confiscation. 

De Gaulle, Charles - President of France

Seventy-four years after the publication of Father James O'Laverty's history, a distinguished visitor arrived in Ireland from France. The year was 1969 when General Charles De Gaulle, long time President of France, fulfilled a lifetime ambition to visit Ireland. Whilst here he asserted his awareness of his Irish ancestry and displayed a keen interest in Irish history.  This he acquired from his grandmother, Josephine Maillot, who had previously published a biography of Daniel O'Connell, the Liberator.  During his visit De Gaulle invited many McCartans from County Down to a reception in Aras An Uachtarain where a memorable occasion was treasured by all concerned.

The Family link

De Gaulle's great-grandmother, Marie Angelique McCartan, was a daughter of Andronicus, and a sister of Felix, who visited the Genealogical Office in 1837. 

When Father James O'Laverty published the 'History of the Diocese of Down and Connor' in 1898,  Charles De Gaulle was just eight years old.  O'Laverty was not to know that the family he took to task was to produce France's most important statesman of the twentieth century.