Keane (No.3) family genealogy

Of Beech Park, Ennis, County Clare

[1] Arms: Quarterly: Gu. and or, in the 1st and 4th quarters a salmon naiant ar.; in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, a tree vert. Crest: A wild cat ramp. guard. ppr. gorged with an antique Irish crown or, and charged on the shoulder with a trefoil vert. Motto: Felis demulcta mitis.

ACCORDING to Dwyer, the O'Cahans, of whom the "Keane" family of Beech Park is a branch, had in the county Clare two castles in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; one on Inis Catha (or Scattery Island), at Kilrush, occupied by a Charles O'Cahan (living in 1584), who was called a "corboe," and who filled some official position, temp. King Henry VIII.; and another at Ballykett, occupied by a James Cahane. That Charles (who, in Parrot's Registry of Irish Castles of that date, is described under the name of "Colloo," and who was slain by a follower of O'Donnell, Chief of Tirconnell, in his raid to the county Clare, A.D. 1599,) was the son of James O'Cahan, who also resided on Scattery Island in 1543; and from whom this family is descended.

A golden bell which belonged to the Abbey on Scattery Island, and which until lately was in the possession of Captain Fitzgerald, R.N., C.B., Kilkee, was transferred by that gentleman to, and was in 1881 in the possession of, the late Mr. Marcus Keane, of Beeck Park, by whom it was up to his death carefully preserved.

Commencing with James, brother of Hugh O'Cahan who is No. 119 on the "Keane" (No.2) pedigree, the following is the genealogy, as far as we can trace it:

119. James O'Cahan, of Scattery Island, Kilrush, county Clare: son of Daniel; living in 1543.

(We are unable to trace the descent down to Owen O'Cahan,[2] who, about the middle of the 17th century, settled at Ballyvoe, near Ennis, and married Judith, dau. of Sir Robert Shaw, of Galway, and had issue.—See Burke's Landed Gentry.)

Notes

[1] Keane: There were also in the county Clare members of an ancient Irish family named O'Cain ("cain:" Irish, chaste), pronounced "O'Koin," and variously anglicised Cain, Kain, Kean, Keane, and Coyne; but that family was quite distinct from the "O'Cahan" family, Princes of Limavady, in the county Derry. Some of the "O'Cahan" family also settled in the counties of Westmeath and Mayo; but in Clare they were, as distinguished from the "O'Cahan" family, known as O'Cain Tón le Gaoth.

Of the O'Cain family was Joseph Stirling Coyne, born at Birr in 1805. He was son of an officer, and received his education at Dungannon School. He was intended for the Bar, but ultimately devoted himself entirely to literature, chiefly dramatic. His first piece, The Phrenologist, was produced at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, in 1835. ... He contributed to several London papers, and, with Mark Lemon and Henry Mayhew, was one of the projectors and original contributors to Punch. Coyne was the author of The Scenery and Antiquity of Ireland, and some works of fiction. He died on the 18th July, 1868.

[2] Owen O'Cahan: Some are of opinion that the Keanes of Beech Park are connected only in the Female line with the O'Cahans of Scattery Island; and that this Owen who settled at Ballyvoe, about the middle of the 17th century, went there from the North of Ireland, at the time of the Plantation of Ulster.