The Kerry Chain - The Limerick Link (Ireland to Renfrew County, Upper Canada)

By Carol Bennett-McCuaig

Between the years 1823 and 1875 a large number of Irish and Palatine families from Ireland's County Kerry and County Limerick, many of them inter-related, arrived in Renfrew County, Ontario. Many of them had first lived in the counties of Lanark and Carleton to the south, before making the move to join compatriots and relatives in the newly opened townships. The comprehensive Surname Index helps the reader zero in on persons and families of interest.

These chain migrations involved both Catholics and Protestants. The Catholics took up land in a wide radius of Mount 5t Patrick, encouraged to settle by the pioneer priest there. The Protestants, many of whom were Palatines, chose new locations in the eastern part of the county.

This book, which is the result of a giant jigsaw puzzle on the author's part, involving many years of research, brings together material which will be invaluable to the family researcher. In the days before cars were available, people usually chose to marry people from within walking distance, a factor which came into play in both Ireland and Canada. With so many families listed in one volume, it is hoped that readers will find a variety of clues to help them in their own research.

While the author appears to have been the first to uncover the Kerry chain, it has never been any secret that many of the people who settled in the Mount 5t Patrick area were from West Limerick. Carol McCuaig has found that many of the surnames are repeated in both the North Kerry and West Limerick groups, who lived within a short distance of each other in Ireland.

This book will be of interest to both the family historian and those engaged in Irish immigration studies.

Contents include:

• The Kerry Chain
• Introduction
• Leaving Ireland
• The Pre-Famine years
• The Famine settlers
• The Post-Famine settlers
• Religion
• Education
• The Roman Catholic families
• The Protestant settlers
• Map: County Kerry
• Map: the townships of Renfrew County
• Map: County Limerick>
• The Limerick Link
• The Great Famine
• The Australian Connection
• The Roman Catholic Families
• The Protestant settlers
• Protestant Families
• Place names
• A note on sources
• Appendix I - Peter Robinson's Kerry families
• Appendix II - Peter Robinson's settlers from County Limerick
• Bibliography
• About the author
• Acknowledgments
• Index (click here to view Surname Index)

The Kerry Chain - The Limerick Link, after being long out-of-print, is available once again in its complete original format. This book has be republished under an exclusive publishing agreement with the author's heirs.

Details:

• 178 Pages
  
• 8-1/2 x 11"
  
• Index
  
• Softcover - perfect bound
  
• Originally published by Juniper Books, Renfrew, 2003 under ISBN 0-919137-36-9
  
• This new edition published by Global Heritage Press, Ottawa, 2022 under ISBN 978-1-77240-191-2