Welcome to Clan McCain (Clann Mhic Eain)
including McCain, McKane, McKeen, McKean, McKain,.........

The McKanes are a small Irish clan and are a bit of an enigma.  We know who they are, but large bits of their history are still a mystery.  There are several reasons for this.  In the north of Ireland there are two Gaelic names anglicised as McKane and several non-related families have anglicised their surname as McKane and their respective histories are sometimes confused with one another.  There is also the chaos of Ulster history.  So, for these reasons, the McKanes have largely been missed by the historians’ sieve.  It has been left to the McKane descendants in the Diaspora to extract their own history, which they are now doing with success. By using primary source research and Y-chromosome DNA testing the real history of this McKane clan is being revealed.

The anglicised forms of the name include McCain, McCane, McKane, McKain, McKean, and McKeen.  Confirming the Gaelic form of the name has been difficult.  While this may seem surprising, as noted previously there are at least two Gaelic names anglicised as McKane in Ulster.  These names are Mac Catháin and Mac Eáin.   Recent DNA research and a study of primary sources show us that north Antrim east of the Bann River is the point of origin the Ulster McKanes or where they lived prior to the mid 1600s.  In this part of north Antrim, the name Mac Eáin was commonly anglicised as McKean/McKane. 

The McKanes are a classic Gaelic patronymic clan. The Patriarch of the clan was named Eáin. In the Gaelic dialect in use in Argyle, the southern Isles, and parts of Ulster from the 15th Century onward, Eáin was a popular form of Eóin. Eáin is a loan word to Gaelic from the Latin Joannes via Aramaic and Hebrew y'hohanan, meaning 'Jehovah has favoured.'

An analysis of the DNA suggests this Patriarch lived circa 1350 to 1450 AD.  DNA tests have also revealed that the Ulster McKanes are related to several Gaelic families from mid-Argyle associated with the historical Gallóglaigh kindreds.  The Gallóglaigh were a hereditary professional military caste that played a major role in the history of Ireland circa 1225 AD to 1600 AD.

McKanes that we believe are this family appear in the primary sources from the mid-1400s onward.  They are mentioned in north Antrim by the 1500s.  From the mid-1600s onward we find Catholic, Anglican, and Presbyterian members of the clan. They were part of the older Gaelic class yet many converted to the Presbyterian faith and took a leadership role in this community and yet others remained Catholic or Anglican.

From 1660s onward we know the McKanes were living in certain locations in Ulster; they were most numerous on the east side of the Bann valley, from Ballymoney north to the sea around Dunluce and then east of the Bush River around Dunseverick.  Another group was located in Clondermot Parish, County Derry, and in east Donegal in the Finn Valley and around Baile Suingean. 

In 1718, groups of these McKanes began to immigrate to the New World and they continued to throughout the 1700s, 1800s and 1900s. One family from this clan, the Ballymoney McKeans, were the progenitors of the 1718 Ulster Migration to the Colonies.   The Ulster McKane families are now located throughout the United States, and are particularly numerous in the South. In Canada they are numerous in New Brunswick, Ontario, and Nova Scotia. Several families migrated to Scotland and live outside Glasgow and a few remain in Ireland in Coleraine, Dublin, east Donegal, and northwest Tyrone.

The McKanes are an energetic and successful clan and have distinguished themselves in many fields.  They have produced frontiersmen, writers, historians, church leaders, musicians, sport champions, attorneys, doctors, entrepreneurs, business magnates, admirals, generals, and statesmen, and their saga continues.

Barry McCain © 2007