The Colhouns of the Irish Gentry

Why the Gentry?

The 17^th century saw many Scots resettle in Ireland, particularly in the northernmost province of Ulster.  This migration was driven by a series of events throughout that century, including:

• The privately-financed settlement of Scots in Counties Antrim and Down engineered by Hugh Montgomery and James Hamilton in 1606.
• The royally-sanctioned Ulster Plantation, which covered most of the rest of Ulster, starting in 1609.
• The conclusion of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in 1653, after which many Scottish Covenanter soldiers stationed in Ireland chose to remain.
• The conclusion of the Williamite War in the 1690s, at which time famine in Scotland and cheap rents in Ireland caused many Scots to relocate.

Among the Scottish settlers who came to Ireland were numerous Colquhouns.  Exactly how many we cannot say since we have to assume that many were tenant farmers and tradesmen who went largely unrecorded, or at least are underrepresented in surviving records.

This post focuses on the wealthier minority of Irish Colhoun families.  Although ancestrally Scottish, they would have been considered part of the Anglo-Irish elite, the so-called Protestant Ascendancy that dominated political, legal, and economic life in Ireland until the reforms of the mid-19^th century.  Being in the good graces of the Crown, they belonged to the Church of Ireland, the state-sanctioned Anglican church that held most of the ecclesiastical power and property in Ireland.  Although none of the wealthier Calhouns (whether in Scotland, Ireland, or elsewhere) ever made it to the peerage (the highest tier of British nobility), they did belong to the gentry (wealthy, land-owning commoners eligible for coats of arms, with titles ranging from “Gentleman” to “Baronet”; see here for descriptions).  

You might ask, If these guys were the minority, why focus so much attention on them?  Don’t the rich get enough resources already?  The fact is that from the 17^th to early 19^th centuries, the Calhouns of Ireland most often recorded in surviving documents were those of the Irish gentry:  they bought and sold land, acted as landlords on estate records, appeared in court proceedings, petitioned the Crown, left wills, etc.  As a result, these families tend to have relatively long paper trails.  Tenant farmers also appeared in rental records, but in general these appearances were fewer and farther between, making their families harder to trace.

The long paper trails of the Irish gentry can be genealogically useful not only to members of those families themselves, but also to the rest of us.  Using Y-DNA genetic information, we can often estimate when the most recent common patrilineal ancestor of two Calhoun men lived.  If the first of those men has a long paper trail, perhaps because he is a descendant of the gentry, and if the second man shares a common ancestor with the first during the timeframe of that trail, then the second man might reasonably assume that some of his own ancestors appear in the pedigree of the first.

These relatively long paper trails also mean that if any Irish Calhoun family might be traced back to Scotland, it would be one of the gentry.  Furthermore, there was not a lot of room for upward social mobility in Britain in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, so I have to assume that the Colhouns of the Irish gentry were descended from Colquhouns of the Scottish gentry.  (Some Irish families did initially acquire land through military service rather than by purchase, but I tend to think that most soldiers receiving larger Irish land grants were military officers––who again tended to come from wealthier families––rather than foot soldiers.)  Thanks in part to the work of Sir William N. Fraser, many of the Colquhoun families of the Scottish gentry have the benefit of a relatively solid pedigree back to Humphrey of Kilpatrick, the 13^th century founder of the family.  If we could join ourselves to the Irish gentry, and the Irish gentry to the Scottish gentry, we might be able to trace our Calhoun lineages back to the year 1240.  Wishful thinking, of course, but we have to try, don’t we?

Although there was limited upward social mobility in centuries past, there was certainly downward mobility.  Those who were financially unsuccessful, or were younger sons of younger sons that did not inherit much, could fall out of the gentry class.  Those of us with Irish Calhoun ancestry who do not have long paper trails (i.e., most of us) might be descendants of working-class Colquhouns who came to Ireland as tenants, or we might just as easily be descendants of Irish gentry families who for whatever reason eventually lost title and property.  With enough Y-DNA data, we may eventually be able to distinguish between these two scenarios, at least in certain cases.

Below are brief descriptions of the distinct Colhoun families of the Irish gentry that I have been able to identify so far.  (I use the spelling “Colhoun” because all of them came from western Ulster where that spelling predominated, as opposed to eastern Ulster, where “Cahoon” and “Cohoon” were more common.)  In Scotland, the senior Colquhoun families were styled (at least by Fraser) by the principal property they owned, like “Colquhoun of Luss”, “Colquhoun of Camstradden”, “Colquhoun of Kilmardinny”, etc.  In Ireland, I have not seen this tradition used as consistently, or at least not in a hereditary fashion, so I have had to make up my own titles to describe these families.  Previous posts discussed Colquhoun of Corkagh.  I will devote future posts to each of the other families in turn, but for now, I simply want to enumerate them.

Selected properties held by the families Colquhoun of Corkagh (orange), Colhoun of Crosh (magenta), Colhoun of Taughboyne (green), Colhoun of Letterkenny (blue), Colhoun of Tironeill (yellow), and Colhoun of Labbadish (red). (Source: interactive parish map at http://www.johngrenham.com; used with permission.)

Colquhoun of Corkagh

Corkagh was an estate, located in parish Raymoghy, Co. Donegal, that was created in 1610 as part of the original Plantation of Ulster.  Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss purchased this property from his nephew, Sir Walter Stewart of Minto, in the 1610s.  The two previous posts concerning the history of this property mention that those of the family who actually lived in Ireland included just two generations from the male line:  Alexander’s grandsons James Colquhoun (later 19^th/21^st of Luss) and Alexander Colquhoun (later 1^st of Tillyquhoun) from the first generation, and James’s son Capt. James Colquhoun of Manorcunningham from the second.  This is the only family of the Irish gentry for which we know the Scottish founder with certainty [WOOHOO!].  However, it is also one where the male line quickly died out, precluding its participation in Y-DNA comparisons [D’OH!]

Shown on the map above in orange:  Corkey and Manorcunningham.

Colhoun of Crosh

This family can be traced back to about 1630 to the area around Newtownstewart, a village in parish Ardstraw, Co. Tyrone.  Around 1725, the senior member of the family, William Colhoun, acquired property in the townlands of Crosh and Croshballinree, just outside Newtownstewart, and Crosh is the place name most commonly associated with the family.  However, many family members lived elsewhere in western Tyrone and Donegal, notably Rev. Alexander Colhoun Sr. (1663-1719), one of several Church of Ireland ministers in the family.

One might be forgiven for thinking that the Colhouns of Crosh were the only Calhoun family living in Ireland in the 1700s.  This is because until recently, many if not most Calhouns with Irish origins claimed descent from this family, particularly from the above-mentioned Rev. Alexander Colhoun Sr.  It seems that virtually every Calhoun immigrant to America born within 20 years of 1700 was stated to have been a son of Rev. Alexander.  Thanks to widespread availability of more records and to Y-DNA genetic testing, we now know that in most cases this is simply not true.

Y-DNA haplogroups associated with this family are MF104747 for select members, and its parental haplogroup, FT350465, for the entire family.

Shown on the map above in magenta:  Crosh/Newtownstewart, Strahulter, Sixmilecross, and Ballyhallaghan.

Colhoun of Taughboyne

The Colhouns of Taughboyne included several lawyers and clerks as well as John Colhoun (d. 1755), the estate agent for the Earl of Abercorn in the 1740s and 1750s.  The family originated in parish Taughboyne, Co. Donegal about 1665, and the senior members owned the townland of Corncammon (aka Corncamble) in the adjacent parish of Allsaints.  However, the family was also associated with Buncrana and Carnamoyle on the Inishowen Peninsula, Strabane in Co. Tyrone, Dublin, and other places.

In Our Calhoun Family, Orval Calhoun states that the John Colhoun (d. 1755) mentioned above was a son of Rev. Alexander Colhoun Sr. of Crosh (as was every other Calhoun, it seems!)  However, the Y-DNA haplogroup associated with the Colhoun of Taughboyne family is BY153907, which originated early in the Ulster Plantation years.  The Crosh family is negative for BY153907, which indicates the Crosh and Taughboyne families were descendants of different Ulster settlers from Scotland.  Nonetheless, due to the popularity of Orval’s books, the misconception that they were a single Irish family persists to the present day. 

Shown on the map above in green:  Corncammon, St. Johnston, Buncrana, Carnamoyle, and Strabane.

Colhoun of Letterkenny

This family, associated with the town of Letterkenny (parish Conwal) and the townland of Carrickballydooey (parish Raymoghy), both in Co. Donegal, was the subject of an entry in A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland (Sir Bernard Burke and A. C. Fox-Davies.  London: Harrison & Sons, 1912, p. 121).  The article traces the family to John Colhoun and Susanna Leslie, who lived in the early 18^th century.  It seems that with each generation after about 1750, the family produced only a single male heir, inevitably named Charles.  Unfortunately, as best I can tell, this male line of Charleses came to an end in 1972 with the death in London of Charles K. Colhoun, a literary scholar and translator.  Unfortunately, unless other members can be identified, we will have no Y-DNA information about this family.

Shown on the map above in blue:  Letterkenny and Carrickballydooey.

Colhoun of Tironeill

This family held property in parish Clonleigh, Co. Donegal, including the townland of Tironeill and the estate of Bullock House in Boyagh, as well as the townland of Lisanelly, parish Cappagh, Co. Tyrone.  They have been traced as far as a Robert Colhoun Sr. who was probably born in the mid-1700s.

I confess I’m cheating a bit here.  Y-DNA results show this family belongs to haplogroup FTA80569, which is a subgroup of BY153907.  Because BY153907 originated around the time of the Ulster Plantation, it appears likely that the Colhouns of Tironeill are a branch of the Colhouns of Taughboyne; however, the connection between the two families has not (yet) been documented.

Shown on the map above in yellow:  Tironeill/Boyagh and Lisanelly.

Colhoun of Labbadish

The townland of Labbadish is adjacent to Carrickballydooey in parish Raymoghy, Co. Donegal, so it is possible that this family is in fact a branch of the Colhouns of Letterkenny described above.  However, there is as yet no documentary or genetic proof of this, and no one from this family has participated in the Colhoun Y-DNA Project as of yet.

It is also not clear whether every Colhoun from Labbadish was part of the same family.  Early “members” include John Colhoun, Esq. of Labbadish, born about 1740; and William Colhoun, Esq. of Green Cottage in Labbadish, born about 1777.  How they and others from that area were related, if at all, is not clear.

Shown on the map above in red:  Labbadish.

Conclusion

From the records I have seen, all of the Calhouns living in Ireland in the 17^th-19^th centuries who appear to have had money, title, or land can be connected to one of the six families mentioned above.  However, the records I have seen are limited, so there could well have been others.  These families tended to marry within their own social class, and marriage contracts often involved the acquisition or exchange of land rights with spouses’ families.  The map above shows the result of this process after several generations, with land holdings of members of the same gentry family sometimes extending to different parishes and different counties.

In a previous post, I mentioned that Y-DNA data indicated that Calhoun testers of Irish ancestry from haplogroup E-Y16733 were descended from as many as seven Scottish Colquhoun settlers of Ireland.  Additional testing since that post was written (July 2023) suggests an eighth settler.  At least two of these settlers had descendants among the six gentry families above.  In addition, Calhouns from two non-E haplogroups (R1b1a2_N and J2) also have Irish ancestry.  Both of these groups likely arose through NPEs, and it is not yet known whether they arose before or after the 17^th century settlement of Ireland by Scots.  As always, Y-DNA testing of more Irish Calhouns may help to give us a clearer picture.

Are you aware of other Calhouns of the Irish gentry who cannot be connected with one of the families above?  Can you shed any light on the relationships between these families?  If so, I’d love to hear from you!

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Thanks again to John Grenham for the use of the map from his website, and once again, thanks to Paul Calhoun for critical reading of this post and helpful edits.

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© 2024 Brian Anton. All rights reserved.

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