Ron,
Genealogy on Rathlin is complicated by the fact that there were at least 3 major massacres of the population and, in some versions, nearly everyone on the island was killed which meant that those living there later must theoretically have all relocated to the island. (Tradition has it that many came from Scotland and others from mainland Antrim). I can’t say whether your McCoy family came from Scotland for protection. It’s certainly possible though as I say Turner seems to think the Rathlin group are different to those in Tyrone. But he’s only a very highly respected professor at Queens University. What does he know?
I have put a few extracts below to give a sense of the connections between Rathlin and Scotland and a flavour of the obvious constant movement and links across the centuries. There was massive interaction with Scotland and your ancestors might well have been a part of that. Hopefully some of this will be of interest to Bob as well.
I have attached the 1669 Hearth Roll for Rathlin (again taken from Turner), in case they are of interest.
Turner “Family names in the Glens of Antrim” (pp 139 - 141) says:
“Black is locally regarded as being one of the oldest names on Rathlin and our seventeenth century sources record it there in that English form. This is after at least three massacres on the island in 1557, 1575 & 1642 which are supposed to have cleared its population. The McCurdys and Blacks appear in tradition as sole survivors of the massacres, but this may be affected by later rationalization based on the fact that these were the most numerous and firmly established families for as long as we have record. George Hill mentions a family tradition that the only person left alive after the 1575 massacre by the forces of the Earl of Essex, was a woman named McCurdy. He also records the tradition that after the Campbell massacre of 1642, a young woman who survived was carried off to Islay, but returning in old age discovered that her son had survived and was farming on the island. O’Laverty repeats this and adds that it was said that a man named Black survived by hiding on a sea rock near Bull Point and living on seaweed and shellfish.
But traditionally the connection of the Blacks with the island goes back beyond the sixteenth century. Although the name has long been anglicised, there is evidence that it does derive from Mac Giolla Dhuidh. One of Rathlin’s many stories of Scots invasion, which may or may not be modern but which is represented as happening before the arrival of Robert Bruce in 1306[1], tells of the defeat of the invaders by the Rathlin men under the leadership of Turlough MacIlieve, whose name in English is given as Charles Black. O’Laverty has recorded that the Rathlin Blacks of his time said their name was “Maelduv” which looks like a contraction of the Gaelic form. So the old Rathlin Blacks therefore seem to be identified with the family of Mac Giolla Dhuidh found in various parts of the west and south Highlands. This family may have had a connection with the clan Lamont, although it’s precise nature is not known. They may have been broken or landless people forced at an early period to make their way in places as far apart as Perthshire and Rathlin and other parts of the Antrim coast.”
Turner (pp 150/151):
“McCurdy is a well known Rathlin name and, with Black, is traditionally regarded as one of the oldest. It has long been the most common name in the island and remains strong to this day despite the great decline in population since 1800. For instance, in 1766, according to the reports present to the House of Lords that year by the clergy of the Established church, there were 35 McCurdy families in the island. The Blacks were second with 14 families. From Griffiths Valuation of 1861, after the Great Famine, I estimate that there were then about 12 McCurdy families, with the McQuaigs (now spelled McCouaig or McCuaig) second with seven. On the survey date in 1963 there were 16 McCurdy electors in Rathlin and the second name was McQuilken with 13 electors. The McCouaigs and McQuilkens are not numerous on the island now but the McCurdys hold their own.”
Turner p 151:
“Although identified with Rathlin for centuries, there was also an appreciable number of McCurdys settled along the mainland coast of north Antrim in the seventeenth century. With ten representatives they are tenth on the Hearth Money Roll for the survey area. Two are on Rathlin but five are in Culfeightrin and many others are to be found westward towards Portrush, and the name is still much more numerous in the Route than it is in the Glens, including Rathlin. In 1641/42 the murder of a young McCurdy boy, with other men, women and children, by the O’Cahans of Dunseverick was part of a dramatic and tragic story in the Depositions, told by Neil Mor McNeill, who incidentally demonstrated the close Scottish connections of north Antrim by casually mentioning that in his pursuit of the murderers of his Lowland Scots neighbours, the Spences, he had carried his Lochaber axe, a weapon almost exclusively identified with Highland Scotland.”
Turner p 169:
“Names formed from Christian or personal names are subject to the same process. An anglicised form has become standardized in the case of the Andersons from Rathlin. These are different from the “sons of Andrew” who are common in the Scottish lowlands and many of whom arrived in Ireland in the seventeenth century. The Rathlin Andersons are of the Argyll family of MacIllandrais, Mac Giolla Andreis, the devotees of St Andrew, whom in both Islay & Kintyre have also so anglicised their name.”
Of the island of Rathlin, Nils Homer observed in 1942:
“….the population used to be fishermen and sailors (and) a considerable intermarriage with Mainland Irish & Scots may be expected. Thus of the nineteen person listed as Irish speakers, three have mentioned Scottish parents or grandparents, three have supposed their ancestors came from Scotland, while the rest know of no other than their Irish. As for those who believe their ancestors were Scots, it must be remembered that there is a common theory in the island that every single family of those living there now are descended from Scots settlers who came to the island after the complete massacres in the sixteenth and seventeenth century.”
(Source Antrim & Argyll – Some aspects of the connection edited by William Roulston. Pp 99/100).
You mention that your ancestors “came from so far North in Ireland that they were Scottish”. Yes that’s a description anyone in this part of Ireland would recognise, even today. Ulster was very heavily settled by Scots, so much so they outnumbered the native population. (Today Presbyterianism is still the dominant denomination in Antrim, far outnumbering the Churhc of Ireland and the Roman Catholic church). Here’s a couple of quotes that might give a flavour of how Scottish this area was in the 1700s and 1800s:
Speaking of his youth in Aghadowey in the 1830s, page 25 of Autobiography of Thomas Witherow 1824 – 1890, pub 1990 by the Ballynacree Historical Society:
“Aghadowey had originally been settled by a Scotch migration and I found that my new neighbours spoke as pure Scotch as a man might hear in any part of Ayrshire.”
Talking of the district around Killaig and Ballycahan in the 1820s, Dr Bruce the local Minister said: “Over a space of 15 to 20 miles from east to west and about the same from north to south, Scottish surnames, a broad Scottish dialect, and an almost universally diffused Presbyterianism indicated the title of the people to call themselves “Scotch.” Episcopalian protestants ie Church of Ireland were few and a Roman Catholic was almost as rare as a black swan.”
P13 of “A Kennedy Chronicle - Alexander Kennedy of Ballycahan”, by Hugh Alexander Hezlettt.
[1] Robert the Bruce is supposed to have taken refuge in a cave on Rathlin after getting a biffing from Edward I. It’s supposedly where he was inspired by a spider to resume the battle. There’s now a blue plaque on the island to commemorate the fact that he lived there in 1306. (It’s probably fair to say that at least 2 caves in Scotland also lay claim to having been where he laid low. Who knows?).
