James McKeown, born in South Armagh 22 Nov 1835 was my mother's grandfather. His father before him was James too - who married a Fee lady from Culloville.
As James (the third, let's say) the eldest son, became in adult life both a farmer and a stonemason, it seems likely that he was one or the other or both. Crop failure and hunger were common in the early nineteenth century. This James was young in the worst winter of all, 1848, in the middle of the Great Famine. South Armagh was poor and very badly affected. People here did not have fish as an alternative food source, as did the people of Ardboe.
The parents of the above-named James McKeown (my great great grandparents) were born at the start of the nineteenth century. They had three sons other than James. One of these as a youth (according to my grandfather's sister Mary) disappeared mysteriously. The other brothers were Michael and Paddy (soon to be referred to). Irish agriculture suffered grievously under the Union of Britain and Ireland 1801. Poorer areas such as South Armagh suffered more than most. The workhouses at Castleblayney and Newry (opened in 1843) were the closest to their home farm in Lissavery, South Armagh. It is a tribute to this patriarch and matriarch that they raised their large family to adulthood (one child died in infancy) without recourse to the workhouse - then the last refuge of the destitute and starving of Ireland. My forebears would have suffered anything to avoid the disgrace of the workhouse.
My great grandfather James McKeown (b. 1841, James II let's say) was a scholar and a true Gael. He was passionately devoted to Irish music, culture, folklore and especially to the Irish language, in which he was fluent. A friend of his, Father Donlan of Crossmaglen recognized the value of James' repertoire of folk tradition and songs and he brought a tape-recorder to James's home in Lissavery (a townland of just four houses) to record him for posterity. According to Mary McKeown, his sister, this recording is held in archives in Dublin. James married Mary Boyle of Broomfield. She had a sister Ellen who emigrated and married in the USA. Over the following decades - as her resources would allow - she sent money home to assist other McKeowns to emigrate. Thus did James, Michael, Jack and Mary McKeown (my grandfather and his siblings)- separately - arrive in the USA in the first two decades of the twentieth century.
In America Grandfather Jack's brother Michael met and married a Tipperary girl. They had no issue and later died and are interred in the Bronx. Jack himself (as will shortly be told) went to the USA but later returned to marry Mary, his sweetheart.
Mary Boyle also had a brother Hugh who was married to a Fee. This lady (Fee) died young of consumption - closely followed by her husband Hugh. There were no children. There was no one to inherit their land. About the year 1920, on a return trip from the USA where they had settled (and to where they soon returned) James's and Mary's sons James and Mick (Jack's brothers) laid claim to this property of the Boyle's. They went to Castleblaney to look up the deeds of this land. There they got drunk. On the return trip they encountered the Black and Tans who stole James's gold watch. (This anecdote was told to me by Mary Maguire (Kelly).
James, as stated, had three brothers. The youngest brother Michael died in infancy and a later boy was named Michael in his honour. He had a son Michael who died in his twenties. He also had a son who in adulthood became the father of the spinsters Mary and Alice McKeown, and of Kate who married Peter McCabe and became a teacher and taught Mary Kelly. She is the daughter of my great-aunt Mary which means she is my first cousin once removed, the same relationship I enjoy with Bridget Daly - whose story was told early in this account. Mary Kelly's children are therefore our second cousins. Their children are our second cousins once removed.
Back to the brothers of James, {II - Gael} my great grandfather. One brother Peader Mór had a son who later married Kate McKenna - (Kate was related also, as the aunt of my cousin Gene Sheridan – Sheridan was my mother's mother's maiden name). Peader and Kate lived on a hillside above Lough Ross. They had two boys, one of whom died aged fifteen months. The second boy was named Peader Mór after his father and grandfather.
When this boy was about twelve years of age his father was bed-ridden, aged and crippled with pain. It happened that one Sunday morning his mother Kate got up and went as usual to 8 a.m. mass in Crossmaglen. When she returned an amazing sight met her in the kitchen. The dresser had apparently moved by itself into the middle of the kitchen floor: all the crockery which had been neatly displayed on its shelves was stacked precariously on top of it and various other pieces of furniture in the kitchen were strewn about the floor. The old fellow was ill in bed and knew nothing about it all. No one believed the young lad could have done this. When questioned he told a peculiar story of ghostly noises and eerie goings-on. Similar happenings recurred for months (young Peader attended Clonalig school and returned home one day naked, except for the satchel slung over his shoulder: the wind blew the clothes off him, he alleged). These stories spread far and wide. In fact crowds of curious visitors began arriving - as the exasperated Kate put it - “from hell and damnation”: they came by foot, by train and even by horse and trap. Indeed Felix Grant, a local hackler (a pony and trap taxi service) made a small fortune - it's said, ferrying visitors to and from the haunted house.
Peader Mór (the father) had a sister called Catherine. (She was the mother of Maureen McCabe who married Mr Dundas and had a daughter Maureen, whom Flo and I frequently met in Rosie's house in Sheetrim: Maureen, a doctor's receptionist has since married a doctor). This Catherine, intrigued, came to visit. She began to say a rosary to protect against evil spirits when suddenly the beads were snatched from her hands. Kate - the mother of the boy - a nervous, credulous creature much giving to wringing of hands, was more convinced than ever of her view that the house was haunted. Mary (my source) recalls a later occasion when the lad was fourteen. She (Mary) was, with her parents, visiting a neighbouring farm when she wandered off in boredom. From afar she happened to observe the boy (who was, of course, the “ghost”) play another trick on his mother, and two men. They too were out walking when, all of a sudden, an abandoned cart suddenly and apparently of its own volition, upped and careered downhill past them. Only Mary had seen the “ghost” push it. Kate went into her usual routine of wailing and wringing of hands, that she should again be the object of the ghost's malicious attention. Mary returned to the house (of Kate McKeown) where her parents were ceiliing and told what she had seen. She wasn't believed because she was only a child. Black Father Donnelly (i.e. black-haired) was there and insisted he would visit the house on Monday morning and say a mass to exorcise the ghost. Kate, the local teacher, who well knew the boy's nature, was adamantly opposed to this, but go the priest did. Young Peader Mór was lying in bed, insisting he couldn't dress for school as the ghost had hidden his clothes. The priest wouldn't listen to his excuse, made him dress and go to school. Thus the ghost was no more, but the name applied to the miscreant child stayed with him for the rest of his life. He explained himself by claiming he had as a youth found a corked bottle in the local lake: when he uncorked it he had released the “ghost” which plagued him thereafter. “The Ghost” later married. He became involved at the fringe of the 1956-1962 IRA campaign. Later he emigrated to the United States of America. Occasionally he comes home and stays with the Dundas's. He has no family. His wife died in America. He is now 66 and intends coming home soon to settle in Crossmaglen. On his regular visits home he is ferried around by my first cousin, Jamesy's son John McKeown.
Before I leave this family I have a story I wish to share regarding James III, brother of Jack the Blacksmith.
In 1885 at the age of 15 months he is said to have strangled 13 chicks belonging to his parents. As an adult he married Bridget Ann Ruddy then aged 48. His mother disapproved as the prospective bride was beyond child-bearing age. He returned to USA with his wife. They had no issue. See Source File II for a photocopy of James' and Bridget's 1921 application for an emergency US passport.