The East Galway Hunt were due to meet near Brackloon Castle in Clonfert in January of 1903 but cancelled when they learned of the death of Miss Mary Callanan of Skycur. Her family had resided at Skycur (or Skecoor) in the nearby parish of Kiltormer for several centuries and were regarded as a very respectable family of ancient origin locally. Few may have known how ancient and how long established the Callanans actually were in this most easterly region of east Galway.
Two senior members of this family; John and Richard Callanan, both physicians, are commemorated in a memorial stone dating from 1612 which still survives at Clonfert Cathedral, only one mile from Brackloon. Both men would have been well known to those who lived here before us. When Brackloon Castle was built by the O’Maddens sometime about the early 1500s, the O’Callanans had already been established for centuries only six miles away in the parish of Fahy. There the senior family of the name held their ancestral lands in the townland of Grange and succeeding generations served as hereditary physicians to the O’Maddens, an esteemed position in the Gaelic territory.
The family were closely connected also to the small nearby Franciscan friary at Meelick on the River Shannon, to which they provided both patrons and friars. There, in the friary church, Florence Callanan and his wife Joanne Shiel, had a stone tablet erected in 1645 to mark their future burial place. (The Shiels of Ballyshiel also held the position of hereditary physicians to the MacCoghlans across the River Shannon in what is now County Offaly.)
The story of the Callanans of East Galway is an interesting one. In the early years of the 1600s ownership of their ancestral lands at Grange was disputed between Donal O’Madden of Longford Castle, the last of the O’Madden chieftains and Richard O’Callanan but O’Callanan remained in possession. Grange was confiscated by the Cromwellians in the 1650s, and Florence, son of Richard Callanan, was relocated to lands at Skycur in the parish of Kiltormer, a distance of only some eight miles. There they would maintain their position as one of the oldest surviving landed families in the region until the early 1900s.
Map of the Barony of Longford, East Galway, c. 1650. Approximate extent of late medieval O'Madden territory in yellow and Callanan lands in green
With the death of King Charles II in 1685 and the prospect of his brother, a Roman Catholic, coming to power as King James II, the Meelick friars began to rebuild and in that same year another Florence Callanan of Skycur, was taking an active part in sourcing timber for re-roofing the friary church. The outbreak of war in Ireland four years later between the supporters of the deposed King James II and those of the Protestant King William III interrupted the re-building works. Many of the leading members of the Catholic gentry of County Galway were represented in the officer ranks of the Jacobite army. Alexander, Florence Callanan and Michael Callanan all served in the King’s County regiment of Colonel Heward Oxburgh. After the war Captain Florence Callanan of Skycur remained in Ireland and at his death in 1744 the Meelick friars described him as a ‘spiritual father’ to their friary.
Over succeeding centuries various members of the family converted to Protestantism, some followed a career in law, others as wine merchants in Dublin and resided at various locations in the vicinity about Eyrecourt or Skycur. While never losing their position of social respectability locally, occasional members of the family fell foul of the law. In 1781 Dominick Callanan of Skycur escaped from Galway Jail, where he had been confined for ‘various felonies and other crimes.’ Having threatened to injure Walter Lawrence of Bellevue, another local landowner, the High Sheriff of the county and numerous landowners offered a significant bounty to anyone who would apprehend him; eighty years later, two young members of the family became embroiled in a homicide case in 1861 arising from a heated exchange of words which saw both receive sentences for manslaughter.
More famously, a junior member of the family; Edward Callanan of Eyrecourt was the subject of a poem in the Irish language by the Gaelic poet Raftery for his duel with Patrick Donelan of Ballyeighter. The duel, fought with pistols in October of 1821, arose between the two former friends when Donelan took offence at a remark made by Callanan with regard to Donelan’s behaviour at a dinner given in Callanan’s residence. It was claimed that the dispute arose over the use of a ‘neck handkerchief which Callanan lent to Donelan while away from home.’ A later account asserted that the offence was felt by Callanan at Donelan’s attentions to a lady to whom the latter offered the borrowed kerchief.
Both parties met one Saturday between the villages of Kiltormer and Lawrencetown. Contemporary newspaper accounts give two different versions. One reported that, on the first discharge of pistols, Callanan was killed instantly when Donelan’s ball entered his heart. Another account stated three shots were fired, with Callanan hit on the first and mortally wounded by the second. Duelling was not uncommon among gentlemen at that time and this was not the last duel fought locally. However, it was a practice frowned upon by the authorities and the subsequent inquest returned a verdict of wilful murder against Donelan.
The family gave the name ‘Newpark’ to their residence at Skycur and, despite their various ups and downs, the family maintained their position there into the early decades of the twentieth century. Peter Callanan of Skycur and his wife Matilda Flanagan had three sons and three daughters. Peter died about 1860 and didn’t live to see two of his young sons jailed for manslaughter in 1861. Only his two surviving elderly daughters, Rose and Mary, both Catholics and commonly known as ‘the Misses Callanan of Skycur’ were living at the family home in 1901. It was on the death of Mary after a long illness two years later that the hunt cancelled their Clonfert meet. Rose, in her seventies, was the last remaining member of the family resident at Skycur in 1911 and with her death in July 1920 the Callanans finally departed Skycur. The executor of Rose’s will transferred ownership of the property to a Ballinasloe merchant with whom Rose, in her final years, had previous financial dealings and a number of years later he sold the lands on again. With that the Callanan residence and lands passed to others and the principal family of the surname severed their continuous residence in this region of East Galway for the first time since time immemorial.
For further details on the history of the Callanans of East Galway see; http://burkeseastgalway.com/callanan/
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