Mayo Alive - 19
February 1998
The Martin Kennedy Family of the Mayo Abbey Parish
Martin Kennedy lives in Ponca City in Oklahoma, USA. He is of Mayo extraction and proud of the fact. Lately he has been doing research on his Mayo ancestors. He tells us that this has been done mainly so that his own son, Madison, will one day understand why his Kennedy ancestors left Ireland.
Martin has very kindly sent me on a chapter, which deals mainly with his great- grandfather, John Kennedy, as he prepared to leave Balla for America in early April,1900.
I would hope to use some of this material, in serialized form, as Martin suggests, in future publications on this site. However, the enclosed letter Martin wrote me when sending on his narrative material is worthy of being read in its own right.
In it, he deals with the reasons why he decided to research his family history in the first case and gives as good an explanation as to why he and thousands of others have felt the compulsion to do just that. I am reproducing much of it here. I think it speaks for itself.
(Eamonn Henry)
John Kennedy: Exile in America is the last chapter of a lengthy section on the family's history in Ireland. Altogether, there are five sections of the family saga. In 19063, Martin Joseph Kennedy Jr., my father, left the United States and emigrated to Mexico. In the Mexican culture he is known as Martin Jose Quenedi. The tale of the O'Cinnéide- to- Kennedy-to- Quenedi is a story of three distinct countries in less than a hundred years.
This material was originally intended as an explanation for my son, so that he could finally have a clear picture of why our family left Ireland. Like many Irish- American families, older ancestors seldom discussed their life in Ireland. Subsequently, first- generation Americans had little knowledge of our ancestors.
Who are our ancestors? This was something that all Irish people could answer, harking back many generations, for the genealogical memory was a common heritage. The ancestors were those who had gone before; the brave, the disreputable, the common and the beautiful.
The Irish diaspora is vast and our heritage is now fragmented though it is by no means lost. All of us are fully integrated into American society, living in different parts of the country, rather than one small village. Yet, every time family members gather, there is still spiritual kinship.
Family, because of its continuity, is where memory gathers. Few things survive in these cynical days to remind us of a past from which so many of our personal values flow. It is hard not to wonder, in an age where the present moment consumes and overshadows all else ,what finally does endure? What encodes and stores the genetyic material of our civilization- passing down to the next generation the best of us, what we hope will offer better values for our children and our posterity?
Family provides the most significant answer. Nothing in our daily lives offers more of the comfort of continuity, the generational connection of belonging to a clan, the powerful sense of home and the great gift of accumulated memory than does our family.
The story of the Kennedys is hardly unique and probably a cliché for people who remained in Ireland. Yet, without the ability to speak precisely of our origins, we have an enormous potential to forget our common humanity, lose recognition of each other and become disconnected souls.
Since some of this material is clearly interpretative, perhaps it belongs to the tradition of the seanachie. When the true voice of the participant of past experience is unable to relate his own history, the cost of ignorance can be very high. When an entire culture is shattered, with enormous loss of life, loss of language and generations of social values shattered for political expedience, the descendants suffer a horrible rupture that can seldom be restored. Therefore, the best substitute for piecing the missing links is the writer's imagination. The novelist's technique of restoring those lost memories is often more satisfactory than dry historical research.
I admit to an obvious bias in the narrative, particularly as revisionist historians in America explain the callous attitude of the British during the Great Hunger.
However, this bias is not new to most Catholic Irish- Americans. The cruelty of the British during the Famine is still discussed at family gatherings. My maternal grandmother, an Irish- Protestant who especially disliked Catholics, held the English in equal contempt all her life.
My grandfather had two sons. Following the Irish tradition, the first he named for his father; however, the second boy (my father) he named Martin Joseph Kennedy, Jr. In turn, my father named me Martin Joseph Kennedy III. ...
To avoid all possible confusion I have named my son Madison....
Some day I hope to return with my son to Balla. Twelve years ago my wife and I stayed between Westport and Newport for a two-week period. Although I wasn't very knowledgeable about family history, the experience had a profound effect on me. I'm rather sorry the Kennedys left County Mayo for America. Contae Mhaigh Eo is a beautiful place. I loved every minute of my stay.
My father's grandmother was Margaret (nee Roche) Kennedy. She had a brother, Patrick Roche and his grandson, Martin Roche, still lives in Balla. So my father and his siblings still have second cousins in the old village.
Most of the descendants of Martin Kennedy (1895-1947) still live in the St. Louis area.
Kennedy Family of Mayo Abbey Parish in County Mayo, Ireland
