Hello Ele-
it is wonderful to meet you electronically from the other side of the world!
Here is what I know abourt Arthur McQuillan and Margaret Carr:
children that I know about so far (presumably all born in the same township in Clones, Co. Monaghan):
Mary McQuillan (1814-1891, died in Blackfriars, Glasgow
John McQuillan (1820-1883), my gr-grandfather, died in Prestwich, Lancashire, joined Royal Engineers at age 22 in Glasgow, and was discharged there at age 43 in 1863. 3 sons went into military. Surviving descendants living in UK and US.
James McQuillan (1831-1991), married and died in Calton, Glasgow. 3 sons also went into military. Surviving descendants living in Scotland.
As for Arthur McQuillan's background, the Irish records are sparse. A search of the Griffith’s Valuation of 1860 shows 32 McQuillan heads of households in County Monaghan. Narrowing the search using the Tithe Applotments of 1829 and looking only at the parish of Clones and the nearby one of Killeevan the only Arthur McQuillans were living in the townland of Derryleedigan (Jackson). In 1829 Arthur senior rented 4 acres and Arthur junior rented 5 acres. There was also a Kitty McQuillan, probably a widow, renting 9 acres, and a Kitty and Patrick renting 4 acres. Going back further in time, in 1796 there was a Arthur McCullin of Clones, Monaghan listed as a flax grower, and a John McCullin in the same parish. It is not possible to say with certainty which Arthur was my 2nd great-grandfather, but it was certainly one of these two people. I would speculate that Arthur senior was in his 50s, that Arthur junior was in his late 20s, and that he was the father of John, who was 9 years old in 1829.
There was a Patrick Kerr of Clones listed as flax grower in the 1796 report, who might have been Margaret’s father. There were 47 Carr families listed in the Griffiths Valuation of 1860 in County Monaghan. Of these, 4 were in the parish of Clones: Robert in Carn; Patrick in Lislannan; Robert in Clontibret; and Bernard in Shankill. Clontibret is in the SE part of the parish, and lies quite close to Derryleedigan, so that is one possibility for the birthplace of Margaret Carr.
In 1860 a John McQuillan rented 15 acres in Derryleedigan, suggesting that some of the family members had left, and that the land holdings had been aggregated. By the 1901 census, there were no more McQuillans in this townland.
The basic reason for their departure from Ireland must have been the simple economics of subsistence farming on very small land holdings.
The problem was subdivision. As explained in a Wikipedia article:
The Popery Act (Penal Law) of 1704 required land held (typically in tenancy) by Roman Catholics to be divided equally between all the sons, both legitimate and illegitimate, on his death. In Ireland, this practice, known as sub-division, continued by tradition until the middle of the nineteenth century. The result was that by the 1840s, many farms had become so small that the only food source that could be grown in sufficient quantity to feed a family was potatoes. This was to have disastrous effects when, in the period 1847-49 potato blight struck, making much of the potatoes grown inedible. This period came to be known as the Great Famine and cost the lives of a million people.
John McQuillan’s father rented only 4 or 5 acres of land, and was not able to pass on to his children an economically viable farm holding. John probably walked from Clones to the coast of Ireland, to one of the ports there that offered passage to Scotland. At the present time, there are ferries from Larne to Troon and from Belfast to Stranraer. He then made his way to Glasgow, where there may have been McQuillan relatives. Several people with that surname appear in the 1841 census for the Glasgow area, especially in Gorbals, a predominantly working-class area on the south bank of the river Clyde in the city of Glasgow which was traditionally home to large numbers of Catholic immigrants from Ireland.
It appears that Mary did not leave Ireland for Glasgow until c. 1848, in the midst of the Famine.
Cheers,
John
