You can find LDS film numbers listed pertinent to your situation by going to their site http://familysearch.org and clicking on catalog, location and entering: Sligo, Ireland
In 1978, four Kane's were listed in County Sligo, including a C.H. Kane in Ballymote, groceries and hardware. From my brother July 2007, "Info from gossip in 1978 with Brigid, Maggie and Larry Ballantine in their kitchen at Keash (postoffice), Ballymote, County Sligo, "The Kanes own a hardware store (in Ballymote or Sligo?) and have become Protestants."
Larry Ballantyne told my brother, "I think ye be related to the middle-aged couple (childless) who live in the town of Sligo, are intellectuals and speak only the Gaelic."
Via a telecon with my brother Robert on Oct 9, 2004 he reported, I believe via our sister's genalogy efforts, that a Kane couple, apparently with info post 1978, have a hardware store in Ballymote and had converted to being protestant.Family Tree Maker has published statistics about the number of land owners in the Griffith’s property owner's listing by County for 1848-1864. Here is my extraction for the surnames Kane and Cain in County Sligo, Province of Connaught.
- There were no 'Cains' listed
- 24 'Kanes' were listed as property owners out of a total county count of 22, 250 property owners.
- Kane surname occurs in all 32 Counties of Ireland.
- There were 2099 'Kane' surnames listed in all of Ireland.
- Cain surname occurs in 16 of the 32 counties.
- There were 96 'Cain' surnames listed in all of Ireland.
- For some reason, Parishes are a separate Griffith's listing.
- For all of Ireland Mike Ronayne's analysis came up with 26 PARISHES in which both Kane and Cain surnames occur, 612 with one or the other surname.
- Neither name showed up in County Sligo parishes.
- Griffiths Valuation for all Ireland was taken only from 1848-1864. Since the census records were destroyed by fire it's microfilm version is the only detailed location guide for those years, based on property held by heads of households. Indices of it are available on CD giving only surname, first name, county, civil parish and townland. Only the microfilm is a proven record for owners and amounts of property since the index has many transcribing errors. I also believe there was a 'minimum valuation'.
The following was written 8 Jan 2000 by Patrick Traynor on the SHAMROCK-L@rootsweb.com list. KANE and O'Kane are the most common anglicised versions of the Irish O Cathain, from at diminutive of cath, meaning 'battle'. Kane and O'Kane are most frequent in Ulster, where O Cathain arose as a surname in the Laggan district of east Donegal, as part of the Cineal Eoghain, the large group of families descended form Eoghan, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the fifth-century monarch who founded the Ui Neill dynasty and was supposedly responsible for the kidnapping of St Patrick to Ireland. In the twelfth century these Ulster O Cathain conquered a large territory to the east of their original homeland around Coleraine and Keenaght in what is now Co. Derry, and remained powerful and important in that area down to the wars of the seventeenth century. Their last chief died in the Tower of London in 1628. Two other common surnames, McCloskey and McAcinney, are offshoots of O Cathain, stemming respectively from the twelfth-century Bloskey O' Cathain, and Aibhne O Cathain. Kane remains particularly common in the Coleraine district of Co. Derry, and the adjoining county of Antrim.Web links I have looked at which may prove interesting.
- Ballymote Parish weekly update from the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Ballymote. Pics, social events, history, general area and church information for this small parish.
- History of Connacht Province, another story of oppression, Cromwellian led genocide. Some day the world might wake up, but I'm not holding my breath.
- The following essay is by Dianna Hanson and can be found on the FIANNA County Sligo website.
NOTE: Connaught Province, County of Sligo contains the towns of Sligo, Ballymote, Collooney, Ballysodare, and Enniscrone.Sligo was the ancestral territory of a branch of the O'Connors, called O'Connor Sligo. Other Gaelic families associated with the county include O'Dowd, O'Hara, O'Hart, McDonagh, Mac Firbis, and O'Colman. The site of the town of Sligo has been of strategic importance since ancient times as all traffic on the coastal route between South and North had to ford the river here. A fortress which guarded this ford was plundered by Norse pirates as early as A.D. 807.
After the Norman invasion of Connacht in 1235, Sligo was granted to Maurice Fitzgerald who effectively founded Sligo town by building a castle there in 1245 and making it his residence. The Taaffe family was among the Norman families who settled in the county. Further settlers were brought in subsquently, including weavers from north Ireland by Lord Shelbourne in 1749.
As the native Irish and Norman population were predominantly Catholic, the Scottish usually Presbyterian, and the English, Protestant faith, the proportions of these religions among the population can, in very general terms, be used to estimate the origins of the inhabitants of the county. When religious affiliation was first determined in the census of 1861, the respective proportions of Catholic, Presbyterian, and Protestant in Sligo were 90, 8, and 1 percent.
Apart from the weaving industry and some mining operations, Sligo is basically an agricultural county. The town of Sligo was an important port in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly as the River Erne and its lake systems facilitated inland trading and transport. It was also an important port of emigration.
The peak of population was reached in 1841 at 181,000. The Great Famine of 1845-47 badly affected the county and the population had dropped by 52,000 in ten years, including some 20,000 deaths. By 1901 the population had fallen to 84,000 and is currently 56,000.
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