McCartans of Leitrim
My grandfather was born Matthew McCartan or McCarten (different spelling in church and civil birth records)in Mohill, Cloone in County Leitrim in 1871. In any case my GGrandfather, John, signed the birth record with an "X" and was probably illiterate; the name became McCarthy upon his immigration to the US in 1887.But to the point, there is evidence that McCartans - McCartins, McCartens, Cartens, Cartans - have lived in Leitrim for at least four centuries.John O’Hart in Irish Pedigrees in a section on the “Principal Families of Ulster” in Volume I notes that MacCartan is among the several clans of County Leitrim in pre-Elizabethan times ( p.827).A Census of Ireland cerca 1659 (edited by Seamus Pender), which was conducted by Dr. William Petty at the time of Cromwell, lists five Cartens living in the Barony of Mohill in “Leytrim (sic)."The population of Leitrim at that time was tabulated at 4275 of which 319 were of English origin.Although the listing specifically used the term “persons”, it might well be thought that the paucity of numbers given for the population of Leitrim in general, and the five Cartens in particular, would surely have to indicate families rather than persons.Yet, in the introduction to the 1659 Census by Seamus Pender, who was the editor of the work, there are extensive quotes from a paper by W.H. Hardinge in 1864 before the Royal Irish Academy announcing the discovery of this 1659 census, there is a profound statement to be found on page viii: “The year 1653 represents the time of complete subjugation of the country, after twelve troublous years of bloodshed, famine and pestilence … So reduced was the population in Connaught, that I believe it to have been all but annihilated.”And ironically this statement was made within a generation of the Great Hunger (An Gorda Mor).
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Re: McCartans of Leitrim
patrick kavanagh 6/23/07