Monday, March 2, 2009

O Mahony of Incheens, Killarney

Hi,

I am Dr. Finbarr O Mahony and I am researching the O Mahony family of Kerry and Cork. My 5xg grandfather was Timothy Mahony from Incheens, Killarney, C. Kerry.

Your website shows a family tree with Kain Mahony and Margaret Sullivan (married c. 1823) and a son Kain born 1824.

I can trace my family from Timothy (born c. 1795)) to a Daniel Mahony born c. 1680. This is as a result of a land transfer of Incheens land referred to in the Kenmare Estate manuscripts.

My gx4 grandfather was (Peter) Paul Mahony and his older brothers were John, (born 1821, who married a Hannora Sullivan) and they had a son Cain, and a brother Patrick who was a hatter, born 1824. I can only trace one child for Patrick, a daughter called Fanny. The youngest member of that family was Cain (born 1837 at Incheens). The Church tended to use Derrychunnigh, Glens or Incheens in the Killarney area for the birthplace.

I became involved with the O Mahony Society in the 1970s and recently became very active again, particularly through the yDNA project. Through the project I have found an exact match 12/12 in the US (Dennis Mahony) and a 24/25 match in Australia (Greg Mahony).

Now to the questions:

1. Are you related to Kain Mahony born in 1824 who could be a brother of my Timothy?
2. Have you considered joining the yDNA project on the O Mahony website?
and finally
3. Since the O Mahony the Hatters of Yonkers website seems to be dormant, do you have any contact with the webmaster.

Many thanks for you patience....but until six months ago I was a Corkonian living in Dublin but now that old certainty is gone.

Best regards,

Finbarr

5 comments:

Tom Mahony said...

Dr. O Mahony:

Thank you for the inquiry. The Mahonys of Yonkers section of my website has been up and running for several years now. Perhaps you are referring to a Mahony the Hatter website that is no longer in operation. I have no connection to that one. I sent the webmaster an e-mail but never heard anything back.

Based on the names and dates you've given I see no connection between my ancestors and yours. Nor have I ever seen Incheens as a birthplace of any our people. Our Mahonys were plasterers and slaters by trade and lived in Castleisland. Though we believe they may have originally come from Cill Airne and moved to Castleisland we've never found any address on Killarney, just the baptism records from St. Mary's church. The only curiosity I see in your data is the use of the name Cain, which though quite an uncommon name in Ireland, it was used by several O Mahonys in Ireland, mainly in Kerry and West Cork. As you can see from our family tree there were a few though with different spellings of the name. I suspect that many if not all of the Abel and Cain O Mahonys are closely related, and that the use of those two unorthodox names could be related to a pre-18th century sheep-herding O Mahony family trade. I can't think of any other reason for picking those particular biblical names, especially "Cain".

The first hatter we know of was my gg Daniel J. Mahony, but he was born in NYC and did not become a hatter until he lived in Yonkers, NY., which in his day was a major hat-making center here in the US. The hatter trade has always been one that I felt was a result of some Mahony family relation from Ireland, but I have yet to make that connection to my own ancestors.

I have not participated in the yDNA project yet but I plan to at some point soon and I will certainly include the results on my Mahonys of Yonkers website. I will keep your e-mail address and if it's okay with you I will publish your communication with me on my Mahonys of Yonkers blog.

Cheers,

Tom Mahony

Tom Mahony said...

Hi again Tom,

Thank you for the prompt reply.

Please do join the O Mahony surname yDNA project and encourage as many male Mahoney/ Mahony/ O Mahony/ O Mahoney/ Meheney/Maney/Mahanys as you can to do so. At present we have 48 members, with 39 results posted on the Society spread sheet. The system is totally confidential, is revealing some very interesting patterns within the Clan, but we need many more participants to make the results statistically significant.

Your family tree details are very helpful. I have come across one or two of your branch of the Clan in my trawl through the records in the National Library, National Archives and the general register Office as I searched for my own ancestors.

I have birth certs for Cain and Abel and have found only one or two Abels but quite a number of Cains. My own view on the use of the name Cain. Kain and Kane is that it is a corruption of the name Cian (of Cian, Sadbh, an Brian Boru fame) who is regarded as the father of the clan.

The Catholic Church did not use names in baptism that were not associated with saints or which did not have a biblical origin.....certainly up to my time. No doubt his eminence Cardinal O Mahony would be in a better position to clarify that. However, I think that Cain was substituted for the name Cian, either by an enthusiastic priest officiating at a baptism, a name given in error by someone who was fluent in Irish but at best semi literate in English.

I am sure you have seen the photograph of the headstone of Caine and Abel in Castleisland. Have you seen the excellent monument to The O Mahony An Cianach in Drimoleague Abbey? It gives a great explanation of the Brian Boru connection and the reference to Cian.

Please keep in touch and feel free to use anything that you do not consider slanderous...I have no intention of hurting or offending anyone.

Regards

Finbarr

william said...
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william said...

My gg was John Kane O'Mahony born about 1830, and married 6 feb 1859 to Mary O'Sullivan. They lived at 26 Castle Street, Tralee. I have never been able to connect him to the greater O'Mahony clan. His father was Daniel O'Mahony.

william said...
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