Home · McKenna line · Kerry & Foynes descendants

Kerry & Foynes descendants

What happened to the McKenna line after Thomas (1772–1835) settled in north Kerry — drawn from the family-history document written by Donald James McKenna (b. 1953) and from photographs of Kerry/Limerick gravestones supplied alongside it.

Best Evidence

1. Proven

   The Kilshenane grave confirms Thomas McKenna + Jane Foulkes and the intermediate Thomas McKenna + Annie Thornton generation.

2. Proven

   The Philip Joseph McKenna II interview supplies an 11-child sibling set for Philip Joseph McKenna I + Joanna Richardson.

3. Proven

   Irish civil birth registers now prove James McKenna and Margaret McKenna formerly Sheahan at Ballynash, with children John Michael, Eliza, Patt, Dan, Edward, and Mary registered between 1864 and 1875.

4. Likely

   FamilySearch, NARA 1950 Census, Chicago public records, and the 1992 grandfather book independently support the Chicago branch.

5. Open

   The Raymond / Marion / Myrtle conflict in the Philip + Joanna children list still needs primary records.

6. Open

   The exact parentage of some Listowel collateral lines remains unresolved.

Next Targets

1. OpenFind primary records for the interview-named James + Margaret children: Jim/James, John/Jack of Pittsburgh, Patrick of Chicago, Daniel of California, and May of Johannesburg.
2. OpenResolve the Philip + Joanna children list with birth/death records for Raymond, Marion, Myrtle, and the 1909 infant.
3. OpenUse valuation-revision books and civil records to tighten Ballyduhig / Kilshenane generation links.
4. OpenIdentify the exact Foynes Model Farm tenancy and landlord-paper trail through the Lord Monteagle / Mount Trenchard estate records.
5. OpenContinue separating proved direct-line evidence from collateral Listowel business-family evidence.

Evidence Log

The headline line

According to the family oral history, six generations link Thomas McKenna (1772–1835) to the author of the document:

James McKenna + Margaret Sheahan — children named by Philip II

Philip Joseph McKenna II says his "great-grandfather had seven children" and then names the set below. The passage is treated here as interview evidence for the James McKenna + Margaret Sheahan generation because it identifies Philip, born December 1862, as "P. J. McKenna, '62," matching the direct-line Philip Joseph McKenna I. A May 13 2026 verification pass is logged at raw/james-margaret-sheahan-children-verification-2026-05-13.md; the 24 May 2026 Irish civil-register breakthrough is logged at raw/mounttrenchard-irish-records-philip-parents-siblings-2026-05-24.md. The civil records verify several interview names and add Eliza and Edward as documented children not fully reflected in the seven-child oral roster.

Additional civil-record children: Eliza McKenna, born 29 June 1866 at Ballynash, is a fully documented daughter of James McKenna and Margaret formerly Sheahan but is not named in the Philip II interview roster. Edward McKenna, born 10 August 1872 at Ballynash, is also documented as their son and matches the Edward/Edmond brother later living with Thomas at Mounttrenchard in the 1901/1911 census.

1911 Book of Chicagoans bridge

The source for Philip Joseph McKenna I's American arrival is the University of Illinois digitized OCR text of The Book of Chicagoans (1911), pp. 446-447, also logged in raw/james-margaret-sheahan-children-verification-2026-05-13.md. This is the external published source behind the statement that Philip was born at Mt. Trenchard, Foynes and came to America in February 1883. The full person-page pull from the book is now at Philip J. McKenna I.

The 1911 biography does not say Lord Monteagle paid Philip's passage. It proves the emigration month and the Mount Trenchard/Foynes birthplace, and it strengthens the Monteagle-estate research target because Mount Trenchard was the Spring-Rice / Monteagle estate. Any claim that the estate paid or arranged his 1883 passage still needs a separate estate-paper, correspondence, rent-book, or passenger-record proof. Since Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Lord Monteagle, died in 1866, any 1883 estate involvement would belong to the later Monteagle estate administration, not personally to the 1st Baron.

Philip Joseph McKenna I + Joanna E. Richardson — children

The Philip Joseph McKenna II interview transcript supplies an 11-child sibling set for his parents, Philip Joseph McKenna I and Joanna E. Richardson. A May 9 2026 online pass against public FamilySearch profiles and the official NARA 1950 Census verifies many dates but leaves one conflict: FamilySearch lists 10 children, omits transcript children Raymond and Marion, and adds Myrtle McKenna (b. 1909). Working note: raw/philip-joanna-mckenna-children-online-verification-2026-05.md. Transcript extract: raw/philip-j-mckenna-ii-interview-sibling-extract-2026-05.md.

Joanna E. Richardson McKenna — Richardson / Sullivan family named by Philip II

Philip II also gives a small but useful family-tree cluster for his mother, Joanna E. Richardson McKenna. This does not prove the Richardson line yet, but it gives exact names and places to research in Ontario/Michigan, Cork, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Escanaba.

Kilshenane burial — Thomas and Jane

The family document records the burial site of Thomas McKenna and Jane Foulkes and gives directions to find the headstone:

South on Highway N69 from Listowel, County Kerry headed for Tralee about 8 KM. Look for sign for the Kilshenane Cemetery. Turn left. Go about a .4 KM. On your left. The McKenna-Hegarty Headstone is north of the Statue of Mary.

Coordinates 52° 23′ 22″ N, 9° 31′ 24″ W.

The "McKenna-Hegarty" name on the headstone is now resolved by direct photograph (May 2026, supplied by the user) and by a fuller stone reading independently reproduced on the Kennelly-family site dalyskennelly2000.jimdofree.com (raw/kilshenane-grave-and-listowel-descendants-2025.md). And the May 2026 Griffith's Valuation pass (raw/listowel-foynes-tithe-griffith-2026-05.md) shows that the Hegarty plot at Kilshenane is not a chance burial — the McKenna, Stack, Thornton, Hegarty and Carmody families all lived on Ballyduhig or its bordering townlands within Kilshenane civil parish in 1852. Every marriage on the gravestone is a within-parish neighbour marriage. The full reading:

Thomas McKenna a leader in the 1798 rebellion Tipperary, died 5 May 1835; His wife Jane Foulkes McKenna died 7 Dec 1840; Their son Thomas McKenna died 16 Jan 1870, his wife Annie Thornton McKenna d 3 May 1895; Their Son John McKenna died Aug. 1904; Their daughter Annie McKenna Hegarty d 31 March 1931; Her daughter Mary McKenna Hegarty d 8 Aug 1904, Son Thomas McKenna Hegarty d 21 July 1918; Elizabeth Hegarty nee Carmody d 9 July 1957 aged 57; her husband Mattie Hegarty d 24 July 1973. Rt. Rev. J. M. Hegarty V.G. Aug 1958

Three substantive things follow from this. First, the docx's "Thomas McKenna m. Annie Thorton, d. 16 Jan 1870 / 3 May 1895" generation is now epigraphically attested, decisively settling the Geneanet-vs-docx discrepancy below in favour of the docx. Second, the Hegarty share of the plot is explained by an Annie McKenna m. ?? Hegarty marriage in the third generation — Thomas-d.1870's daughter Annie. Third, the stone explicitly says "1798 REBELLION TIPPERARY" rather than Wexford. The May 2026 photograph above resolves what had previously been a three-source disagreement in favour of Tipperary; Roche's 1998 Irish Times quote of the stone as "Wexford" was wrong. Full discussion on the 1798 page and the Listowel descendants page.

Documented Gen 4 children / child targets of Thomas McKenna (d. 1870) — mothers split by record

The cert anchors Bessie/Elizabeth McKenna m. John R. Troy as the primary-document confirmed sibling — she signs as "Sister" of the deceased and her own 1871 marriage cert names her father as "Thomas McKenna, Farmer, of Ballyduhig" — i.e. our Thomas-d.1870. The child list is now broader than the older "Thomas + Annie only" version. Parish records show an earlier Elizabeth Dunn / Dunne household at Ballyduhig in 1831-1837, followed by two children with Ann / Annie Thornton in 1851-1852. So, yes: we know enough to add more children of Thomas and Annie, but James belongs under Elizabeth Dunne in the record.

Two interpretive notes from the death cert (assuming the same-man reading holds). (1) John was a "Laborer", not a "Farmer" — by 1906 he had moved off the Ballyduhig farm and was lodging in Listowel town. The address of death (Church Street Listowel) is the same address as John R. Troy's 1871 marriage residence ("dyer of Church Street, Listowel"), so John was almost certainly living with sister Bessie + brother-in-law John R. Troy in his last years. (2) John never married — the stone has no wife or children listed below his name, and the death cert confirms "Bachelor". This rules out the cert-John as the same person as the John McKenna labourer who fathered Jeremiah McKenna of McKenna's Mill (Jeremiah's father per the 1871 marriage cert) — the Jeremiah-father John must be a separate, earlier-born John McKenna, which a chronology check also confirms (cert-John born ~1854, Jeremiah born ~1844, so cert-John was 10 years younger than Jeremiah — impossible father). Full reasoning at raw/john-mckenna-d-aug-1904-death-record-search.md.

Thomas Ginna at Ballyduhig — 1852 Griffith's Valuation

The single most concrete documentary attestation of Thomas McKenna at his home farm. Failteromhat.com's transcription of the 1852 Griffith's Valuation for Kilshenane civil parish, Co. Kerry, lists at Ballyduhig:

Ginna, Thomas — Ballyduhig — Kilshenane — Kerry

"Ginna" is the documented North Kerry parish-clerk orthography for "McKenna" (mykerryancestors.com, "History of Indexing Kerry Registers": "in North Kerry [McKenna] was often spelled differently and was known as 'Ginna'"). The same orthographic system that produces "Guinaw" / "Gnaw" / "Gna" in the Lixnaw RC baptism records produces "Ginna" in Griffith's. Thomas Ginna at Ballyduhig in 1852 — when Thomas-d.1835 had been dead 17 years — is Thomas McKenna-d.1870, m. Annie Thornton as recorded on the Kilshenane gravestone, and as named on Bessie McKenna's 1871 Listowel marriage record ("Thomas McKenna, Farmer, of Ballyduhig"). This is the first independent documentary attestation of the Ballyduhig home-farm identification beyond the Bryan Mac Mahon Irish Life and Lore audio show notes.

Failteromhat's Kilshenane data also records two further Ginna heads of household in the same civil parish in 1852 — both probably collateral McKennas:

• Edward Ginna at Rathea — possibly Edmund Patrick of the compilation (m. Ellen Stack of Lixnaw), since Rathea ED is the same ED Ballyduhig sits in.
• John Ginna at Knocknaglogh — collateral, identification not yet pinned.

Add to those the four Ginnas in adjacent Listowel civil parish (William at Church Street; John at Listowel town; John Sr. and John Jr. at Ballygowloge), and the McKenna families resident in the broader Listowel-Lixnaw area at 1852 number six heads of household across two civil parishes. The William Ginna at Church Street, Listowel in 1852 is at the same address where Bessie McKenna married John R. Troy on 24 October 1871 — William may be Bessie's grandfather or great-uncle.

The marriage-network neighbours of Ballyduhig

The same 1852 Griffith's data shows that every surname on the Kilshenane gravestone — McKenna, Stack, Thornton, Hegarty, Carmody — was a Kilshenane civil parish farming family in 1852, occupying Ballyduhig itself or its border townlands (Beheens West, Billeragh, Coolnaleen Lower, Dromclogh, Furhane, Toornageehy):

The "Hegarty plot at Kilshenane" is therefore not a chance burial. The Hegartys, McKennas, Stacks, Thorntons, and Carmodys were all the Kilshenane civil parish farming community of 1852, intermarried over three generations across a one-square-mile network of contiguous farms. The full discussion is in raw/listowel-foynes-tithe-griffith-2026-05.md.

One open caveat from the same iteration: the 1825 Tithe Applotment for Ballyduhig lists five occupiers (Thos Naghten, Pat Newile, Edmd Brown, Edmd Walsh, Mich Brosnahaw) — no McKenna under any spelling. Thomas-d.1835 (alive in 1825 and aged 53) was either a sub-tenant under one of these households (the Browns are on Roche 1998's list of McKenna descendant families; the Walshes recur in the wider network), or at a different townland in 1825, or had not yet acquired the Ballyduhig farm. The 1852 Thomas Ginna entry is therefore the first documented McKenna head-tenancy at Ballyduhig.

Visit-site photographs

The family photo set includes three unlabelled site views from the Ireland visit. They are useful as context for the on-site research trip, but they do not yet carry transcribable McKenna inscriptions.

The 1798 Wexford legend

The family oral tradition, transcribed verbatim in the document, runs:

Thomas it seems led an uprising against the English in 1798 in the County of Wexford. It turns out the Boys of Wexford had a wee bit too much to drink the night before the battle and were not up to the challenge according to the song. I don't have too many details except sometime there after Thomas married Lady Jane who was the daughter of the English Captain, oh the audacity. This story has been passed down thru the generations and was told to me by Dad. True or not, makes for a good story.

Two elements here are explicitly family legend, and the author himself hedges the account:

• "Led an uprising in 1798 in Wexford" — the 1798 Wexford Rising is historical, but Thomas McKenna's participation in it is unverified. Thomas would have been 26 at the rising, plausible age for a combatant, but no evidence has yet been produced linking a Monaghan-born Thomas McKenna to the Wexford United Irishmen.
• "Lady Jane, daughter of the English Captain" — Jane Foulkes's father Thomas Foulkes died in Shrewsbury, a market town on the English side of the Welsh border; no direct evidence (yet) of a military rank. "English Captain" may be a family-tradition gloss on an English father-in-law rather than a literal title.

Both traditions are worth recording but should not be promoted to assertions without corroboration. A next step is to check the Rebellion Papers (NAI 620 series) for a Thomas McKenna indictment, and the muster rolls of any Foulkes / Shropshire militia or English regiment stationed in Ireland c. 1795–1805.

Thurles → Foynes — the settlement pattern

The document locates the family at Thurles, Co. Tipperary in the generation of James (m. Margaret Sheahan) — about 35 miles east of Limerick — before the move west to Foynes, Co. Limerick, on the south bank of the Shannon estuary about 22 miles west of Limerick city. Its 1869 death date for Margaret is now superseded: civil birth registrations prove Margaret formerly Sheahan was alive at Ballynash in 1875.

The Foynes address is given as:

1 or 2 miles west of Foynes on the old road is the McKenna House that was still occupied by Joan McKenna when Margo and I were there in 2008. […] This house is known as South Ballynash. The Model Farm is located just south of Ballynash South and is called South Cappra. The Model Farm was occupied and was were my Great Grandfather was born in 1862.

The Model Farm at South Cappra / South Cappa, Foynes is the family's long-term Limerick seat. Per the document, Model Farms were a post-Famine (post-1847 blight) government programme to teach improved farming practice and spread agricultural reform; many were built across Ireland in the late 1840s. Philip Joseph McKenna was born there in 1862/1863 according to the family and Chicago sources; the civil records now place his parents and younger siblings at Ballynash from 1864 to 1875 and likely at South Cappa by the parents' 1886/1888 deaths.

"South Cappa" identified as Mounttrenchard, Loghill DED — 1901 + 1911 census

Two iterations into the May 2026 follow-up the Foynes McKenna household has been located in the NAI 1901/1911 censuses (raw/foynes-mckenna-1901-1911-census-2026-05.md). The docx's vernacular "South Cappa / South Ballynash" turns out to be sub-names within or adjacent to the formal townland of Mounttrenchard, Loghill DED, Co. Limerick. The McKenna family is at house 7 (1901) / house 1 (1911), with persistent NAI URLs at 1514033 (1901) and 642725 (1911).

The 1911 enumeration:

This identification settles several open questions:

1. The James + Margaret Sheahan generation is now civil-record anchored: John Michael (b. 1864), Eliza (b. 1866), Patt (b. 1868), Dan (b. 1870), Edward (b. 1872), and Mary (b. 1875) were all registered at Ballynash as children of James McKenna / M'Kenna and Margaret formerly Sheahan. Thomas (b. ~1860) and Philip Joseph (b. 1862/1863) predate Catholic civil birth registration and still need parish baptisms.
2. The South Cappa gravestone is for the children of Thomas-1860 + Hanna-1866, NOT for Philip Joseph's children. The matched identifications: Bessie/Elizabeth (b. 1893, d. 1924); Molly is Mary/Molly (b. 1897, headstone d. 1980); James (b. 1894, d. 1967); Baby Anne is James's later wife Anne Bridgeman. Philip Joseph's own children went with him to the USA — they are commemorated on US gravestones, not the Foynes one.
3. The family arrival in Limerick is BEFORE 1860 — not the 1852-1862 window the previous Griffith's-only iteration had pinned. Thomas-1860, Philip-1862/1863, and the 1864-1875 civil-birth cluster all point to a mid-1850s move into the Foynes / Ballynash area, around the time of James and Margaret's marriage.
4. Margaret's 1869 death date is wrong for this mother: Edward and Mary were both registered after 1869 as children of Margaret formerly Sheahan. The best current death candidate is Margaret M'Kenna, age 54, wife of farmer, died at South Cappa on 29 September 1886, with James McKenna as informant.

The May 2026 leads-chase Griffith's negative finding (no McKenna in Foynes-area parishes in 1852) still holds and is not contradicted: the family arrived at Mounttrenchard between 1852 and 1860, then was firmly enumerated as a Mounttrenchard household by 1901. Correction added 25 May 2026: the original 1911 image says Hanna had completed 20 years of marriage, with 7 children born alive and 7 still living. Earlier wording that treated the "20" column as children born was wrong.

A May 8 2026 follow-up sweep (raw/three-leads-pursued-2026-05-08.md) extended the May 7 census pass to the remaining 22 Foynes-area townlands across all three candidate DEDs (Shanagolden, Loghill, Iveruss) — total 38 townlands swept. Mounttrenchard is the sole McKenna household in the Foynes administrative area in 1911. The 24 May civil-record cluster now accounts for John, Patrick, Daniel, Mary/May, and Edward in Ireland; their later emigration/death trails still need separate proof. The corrected 1911 image removes the earlier false deceased-child inference for Hanna's next-generation births.

Exhaustive Mount Trenchard census check added 26 May 2026: the official National Archives APIs were checked for Mounttrenchard / Mountrenchard / Trenchard variants across 1901, 1911, 1926, and the indexed pre-1901 fragments. The surviving online census trail for the townland is 1901, 1911, and 1926 only: 1901 has 46 people in 10 households, 1911 has 54 people in 12 households, and 1926 has 87 people in 16 households. The McKenna household is Thomas's house 7 in 1901, Thomas's house 1 in 1911, and widowed Hannah McKenna's Mountrenchard household in 1926. No pre-1901 Mounttrenchard census fragment was found. Full search notes and the saved API result sets are in raw/mounttrenchard-census-exhaustive-search-2026-05-26.md.

The practical takeaway is that Mounttrenchard had 10 census households in 1901, 12 in 1911, and 16 in 1926. OpenStreetMap currently shows eight building footprints inside the townland boundary, so any attempt to attach every historical census house to a modern footprint needs a second source such as estate rentals, valuation revision books, a large-scale Ordnance Survey map, or on-site/local identification.

25 May 2026 official Irish record package

A deeper civil and census pass now documents Thomas McKenna and Hanna / Joanna Cummane's South Cappa line from marriage through death records and into the 1926 census. Seven South Cappa civil births were found for their children: Margaret/Maggie (1892), Bessie/Elizabeth (1893), James (1894), John (1896), Mary/Molly (1897), Bridget/Bridget Celia (1899), and Jane/Jane Agnes/Agnes (1903). The 1926 census then finds widowed Hannah at Mountrenchard with Margaret, James, John, Bridget, Agnes, and Edward McKenna, brother-in-law, on a 120-acre farm.

The same pass found Thomas's 1924 death at South Cappa with son James as informant, Elizabeth/Bessie's 1924 death with brother James as informant, Hannah's 1930 death at Mount Trenchard with son John as informant, Edward's 1944 death at South Cappa with nephew James as informant, James's 1967 death, James's 1935 marriage to Anne Bridgeman, and Bridget Celia McKenna's 1935 marriage to Edward Fitzgerald. Full transcriptions and source links are in raw/mounttrenchard-south-cappa-mckenna-records-2026-05-25.md.

One tangential substantive finding from the same May 8 pass: a March 1873 baptism in the Shanagolden RC parish register (NLI 0866, vtls000634934 image 60) reading "Elizabetham ex Thoma Guinaw et Brigida Kenny" — a baptism of Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas McKenna ("Guinaw" being the documented North Kerry orthography for McKenna) and Bridget Kenny, sponsors John Kirby and Madeline Stackpoole. This is NOT James + Margaret Sheahan's family (different mother) but identifies a separate Foynes-area McKenna family resident in Shanagolden parish in 1873. By 1901 this Thomas Guinaw + Bridget Kenny family had left or died out (they are not in the 1901 / 1911 census of any Foynes-area townland). They may have been an older sibling of James senior who emigrated within Limerick parallel to James's own 1850s arrival, or a son of Thomas-d.1870 of Ballyduhig (Kerry). The relationship to our line is currently unidentified but worth pinning.

The previous 1852 Griffith's arrival-window analysis is preserved in raw/listowel-foynes-tithe-griffith-2026-05.md; it is now superseded as to the upper-end date by this census evidence.

Mount Trenchard is the Monteagle / Spring Rice estate — the McKennas as Lord Monteagle's tenants

Mount Trenchard is the demesne of Lord Monteagle of Brandon, i.e. the Spring Rice family. Mount Trenchard House was built in the late 1770s by the Anglo-Irish Rice family; the estate was expanded in 1785 by the marriage of Stephen Edward Rice to a Spring family heiress; the descendants were elevated to the peerage as Barons Monteagle of Brandon in 1839. Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle (1790–1866), was Whig MP for Limerick (1820–32), Secretary of State for War and the Colonies (1834), and Chancellor of the Exchequer (1835–39); his Mount Trenchard estate housed many tenant families across the Loghill / Mounttrenchard area.

The McKenna farm at Mounttrenchard, identified above as the family's Foynes-area home, was therefore tenanted under Lord Monteagle. Lord Monteagle's estate papers — the Monteagle Papers at NLI, 6,000 items spanning 1790–1923 across shelfmarks MS 501-605, MS 3500, MS 13,345-13,417, and MS 15,309 — include an "estate papers" section that should contain rent rolls and lease agreements for the McKenna tenancy. The detailed inventory is in NLI Manuscripts Collection List No. 122. This is now a high-value Dublin trip target alongside the previously-pinned NAI Bishop Street Rebellion Papers SOC/Tipperary card index from the May 5 leads-chase.

Thomas McKenna's marriage now identified — Joanna/Hanna Cummane, 1891

Update May 13 2026: the Thomas marriage is now resolved. The correct civil record is Thomas McKenna + Joanna Cummane, married 22 February 1891 in the Glin registration district, at the Roman Catholic chapel of Ballyhahill. The groom is Thomas McKenna, age 31, farmer, residence Cappa, and his father is James McKenna, farmer. The bride is Joanna Cummane, age 26, daughter of John Cummane, farmer. Witnesses are Dan Cummane and Maggie Cummane.

The match is clinched by Bessie McKenna's 14 May 1893 birth at South Cappa, which names her parents as Thomas McKenna, farmer, and Hanna McKenna formerly Cummane. Thomas's death is also found: 8 August 1924 at South Cappa, Foynes, age 64, married farmer. Full record notes and source links are in raw/james-margaret-sheahan-children-verification-2026-05-13.md.

Rejected candidate: Thomas Kenna + Johanna Healy, 1879

The user's May 8 2026 search of irishgenealogy.ie civil records (full discussion at raw/thomas-kenna-johanna-healy-marriage-1879.md) had located a plausible-looking Thomas Kenna + Johanna Healy marriage in Limerick city. The May 13 follow-up now rejects it for this branch: the groom's father is John Kenna, labourer, while the proved Cappa Thomas's father is James McKenna, farmer; the wife of the Mounttrenchard/South Cappa Thomas is Joanna/Hanna Cummane, not Johanna Healy.

The key exclusion details:

Married 6 August 1879 at St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Limerick city, by Daniel Fitzgerald PP. Witnesses: James Corbett and Catherine Cunneen (?). Group Registration ID 2661721, Superintendent Registrar's District of Limerick city.

Margaret Sheahan's likely birth family — Daniel Sheahan at Ballynash

Update May 24 2026: Margaret Sheahan is no longer only a Chicago-book parent name. Six Irish civil birth registrations at Ballynash, 1864-1875, name the mother as Margaret McKenna / M'Kenna formerly Sheahan. Thomas's wife is separately proved as Joanna/Hanna Cummane, keeping Margaret one generation back as the wife of James McKenna and mother of Philip Joseph McKenna I's sibling cluster.

The 1852 Griffith's data for the same Limerick parishes shows a heavy Sheahan presence — but specifically a Daniel Sheahan at Ballynash (Clare), the same Ballynash townland the family document identifies as the McKenna home ("South Ballynash"). The May 7 working hypothesis was that Margaret Sheahan was a daughter or sister of Daniel Sheahan at Ballynash (Clare), and that the McKenna family moved onto her family's home townland after James m. Margaret. Other Sheahan heads of household in the Foynes-area parishes (1852 Griffith's) are clustered in Shanagolden village, Loghill (Kilfergus, Carrowbanebeg, Lisready, Mounttrenchard), and one each in Knocknabooly (East), Croaghane, and Kilcolman.

Daniel Sheahan remains a hypothesis, not a proved father. The tractable proof targets are now the James McKenna + Margaret Sheahan marriage in the Foynes-area RC registers and Sheahan baptisms around Ballynash / Shanagolden / Loghill. Margaret's likely death record has been found at South Cappa in 1886, but it does not name her maiden surname or father.

The South Cappa headstone — the Foynes siblings

One of the photographs supplied with the family document (raw/104-0488_IMG.JPG) is a slate-book headstone memorialising a generation of siblings who lived at South Cappa:

IN LOVING MEMORY OF
ELIZABETH Mc KENNA, SOUTH CAPPA FOYNES, DIED 10 SEPT 1924
HER SISTER MOLLY, DIED 4 NOV 1980
HER BROTHER JAMES, DIED 5 MAY 1967
HIS WIFE BABY ANNE, DIED 16 FEB 1998
R.I.P.

Now identified (May 2026 census pass): these four are the children of Thomas Mc Kenna (b. ~1860, Co. Limerick) and Hanna McKenna (b. ~1866, Co. Limerick) of Mounttrenchard, Loghill DED — i.e. Philip Joseph's nephews and nieces, not his own children. The matched identifications from the 1911 census household: Elizabeth = Bessie b. 1894 (d. 1924 age 30); Molly b. 1898 (d. 1980 age 82); James b. 1895 (d. 1967 age 72); Baby Anne is James's later wife (married after 1911, d. 1998). Philip Joseph emigrated to the USA with his own children; the South Cappa stone commemorates the brother-line that stayed in Limerick. Joan McKenna (still in residence in 2003 / 2008 per the docx) is therefore plausibly a granddaughter or grand-niece of one of the seven living children of Thomas + Hanna — most likely a descendant of John (b. 1896), Bridget (b. 1900), or Agnes (b. 1903), since Bessie / James / Molly are commemorated as deceased on the stone.

The Tarbert memorial — Jane Agnes McKenna

A second photograph (raw/104-0489_IMG.JPG, with wider context in 104-0490_IMG.JPG) is a carved-slate memorial with a figure of St Ita:

In memory of
JANE AGNES McKENNA
FOUNDRESS AND PRINCIPAL, ST. ITA'S COLLEGE TARBERT
(1904 — 1973)
DIED 26th FEBRUARY 1987

Tarbert is a north-Kerry village on the Shannon estuary directly across from Foynes — they face each other across the water. St Ita's College is a post-primary school, and the dates (1904 — 1973) on the stone appear to be Jane Agnes McKenna's founding / principalship period at the school rather than her life dates. Her death is dated 26 Feb 1987. Her exact relationship to the main paternal line is not yet established — most likely a 20th-century cousin from the Foynes/Tarbert McKenna cluster.

Discrepancy with the Geneanet tree — now mostly resolved

The geneanet-peterterren public tree names James McKenna (1810–1890) as the only recorded son of Thomas (1772–1835) and Jane Foulkes. The family-history document instead names Thomas McKenna (d. 16 Jan 1870) m. Annie Thornton as the next generation and James McKenna m. Margaret Sheahan as the grandson generation. The Kilshenane gravestone reading recovered in May 2026 settles the substantive point: Thomas-d.1870 m. Annie Thornton was indeed Thomas-1772's son — the stone records him explicitly as "their son" with the same death dates the family docx has. Geneanet has simply skipped this generation. The remaining puzzle is more local:

1. Identity collision. Geneanet's "James 1810–1890" is not a clean match for the Foynes James. The current best Irish civil death candidate for James m. Margaret Sheahan is James M'Kenna, widower, farmer, age 50, died at South Cappa on 11 June 1888, with Pat M'Kenna, son, as informant. The Roche 1998 column lists "James" among four siblings of the Kerry generation, but Roche's source (Sue McKenna) was reporting two-generation-removed family memory and may have flattened or shifted a generation. The 26 May 2026 north-Kerry RC sweep found no 1810-ish baptism naming Thomas + Jane, and instead found a much better candidate in the next generation: James Gnaw, baptized 25 May 1833 at Ballyduhig, son of Thomas Gna + Elizabeth Dunne.
2. Two different Jameses. A separate James-the-son of Thomas-1772 (b. 1810, d. 1890) and a James-the-grandson m. Margaret Sheahan would require both to leave traces — possible but now less economical. The Ballyduhig James was born to the Thomas-d.1870 household proved by the headstone and is close enough to the likely 1888 civil-death age for normal age slippage. The remaining task is to prove whether he is the South Cappa / Mount Trenchard James.

The Kilshenane stone names the Thomas-d.1870 children as John (d. Aug 1904) and Annie (d. 31 March 1931, m. ?? Hegarty). The parish records add Thomas's earlier Elizabeth Dunn household: Thomas (1831), James (1833), and Patrick (1837) at Ballyduhig, followed by Michael (1851) and Ann (1852) with Ann Thornton. James m. Margaret Sheahan is not on the stone, presumably because by his death he was settled at Mounttrenchard / Foynes and was buried there rather than back at Kilshenane. The Foynes-area RC parish registers — Shanagolden / Foynes / Robertstown (NLI 0866, baptisms from 28 Apr 1824), Loughill / Ballyhahill (NLI 0886, baptisms from 28 Oct 1855), and pre-1855 Glin / Kilfergus (NLI 0884, baptisms from 30 Oct 1851) — and the Kerry / Limerick civil-registration deaths (post-1864 at irishgenealogy.ie) would close out the rest. Loughill RC parish was carved out of Glin in 1855 (per raw/foynes-marriage-record-search-2026-05.md), so a James + Margaret marriage in the Mounttrenchard area c. 1855-58 would most likely be in either the late Glin register or the early Loughill register.

Open questions for this branch

• Where were Thomas (d. 1870) and James (m. Margaret Sheahan) born — Kerry, Tipperary, or somewhere in transit? Update: Thomas-d.1870 is now documented at Ballyduhig, Kilshenane parish in 1852, so a Kerry birthplace (in or near Ballyduhig, in the years 1810–1820) is the most likely reading. The Lixnaw or Listowel RC baptism registers should contain his entry — see the May 2026 register-coverage map.
• When and why the Thurles (Tipperary) stop between Kerry and Foynes? Was Margaret Sheahan a Tipperary woman? Update: the civil birth records now put Margaret formerly Sheahan at Ballynash from 1864 through 1875, and the heavy Sheahan presence in Foynes-area Limerick parishes in 1852 — especially Daniel Sheahan at Ballynash (Clare) — suggests Margaret was a Limerick/Foynes-area woman, not necessarily a Tipperary woman. The Thurles stop may have been a James-McKenna-only sojourn rather than the full family.
• What brought James to the Foynes Model Farm? Update: the McKennas were not in Foynes-area parishes in 1852 Griffith's; arrival is now pinned to the 1852–1862 window. Recruitment as a state Model-Farmer post-Famine remains the leading hypothesis.
• How are Elizabeth (d. 1924), Molly, James (d. 1967), and Baby Anne of the South Cappa headstone related to Philip Joseph (b. 1862)? Update: they are children of Thomas McKenna + Joanna/Hanna Cummane, making Elizabeth/Bessie, Molly, and James nieces/nephew of Philip Joseph I. Baby Anne is James's wife. The next question is which stay-at-home child or grandchild connects to Joan McKenna at Ballynash/South Cappa in 2003 and 2008.
• Who is Joan McKenna — at the Ballynash Lower house in 2003 / 2008 per the document — and is she a descendant of the stay-at-home branch?
• Who is Jane Agnes McKenna (d. 1987) of Tarbert in the family tree? Update: Roche 1998 lists Tarbert as a McKenna descendant location, placing her within the documented Listowel-cluster diaspora rather than as an unrelated Tarbert family.
• Confirm Daniel Sheahan at Ballynash (Clare) 1852 = Margaret Sheahan's father. Tractable lookup: the Loghill / Shanagolden RC marriage register for James McKenna m. Margaret Sheahan c. 1855-60 and Daniel Sheahan's family in the same RC parish baptism register. The likely 1886 Margaret death has been found but does not state her father.
• The 11th Co. Kerry McKenna entry in the NAI Tithe Applotment Books — only 10 of 11 results retrieved in the May 2026 pass. The missing one may be Thomas-d.1835 himself if he was a head occupier somewhere in 1823–37.
• Lixnaw civil parish 1852 Griffith's Valuation — failteromhat doesn't have it; askaboutireland.ie returned 403. Available on Findmypast / Ancestry / RootsIreland (paid), or in the printed Griffith's volume on archive.org.

Primary sources: raw/family-history-donald-mckenna-1953.md (verbatim transcription of "Family History 1.docx" by Donald James McKenna, b. 1953); raw/kerry-gravestones-photos.md (descriptions of six Ireland-visit photographs including the two gravestones above); raw/listowel-foynes-tithe-griffith-2026-05.md (May 2026 Tithe Applotment + Griffith's Valuation lookups for both the Kerry and Limerick sides — Thomas Ginna at Ballyduhig 1852; six McKenna heads of household in Listowel + Kilshenane parishes; Foynes arrival window 1852–1862; Daniel Sheahan at Ballynash as Margaret Sheahan's likely birth-family lead); raw/ballyduhig-thomas-ginna-griffith-plot-10a-2026-05-25.md (AskAboutIreland page image transcription identifying Thomas Ginna / McKenna as Ballyduhig plot 10a); raw/north-kerry-rc-thomas-jane-children-sweep-2026-05-26.md (26 May 2026 nearby-parish RC sweep that finds no direct Thomas + Jane baptism but identifies the Ballyduhig Thomas + Elizabeth Dunn / Ann Thornton child cluster, including James Gnaw 1833); raw/james-margaret-sheahan-children-verification-2026-05-13.md (May 13 2026 verification pass on the Philip II seven-child list, including the Thomas McKenna + Joanna Cummane marriage, Bessie birth, Thomas death, and Philip Joseph I Book of Chicagoans bridge); raw/mounttrenchard-irish-records-philip-parents-siblings-2026-05-24.md (24 May 2026 Irish civil-register proof for James McKenna + Margaret formerly Sheahan at Ballynash and South Cappa); raw/mounttrenchard-south-cappa-mckenna-records-2026-05-25.md (25 May 2026 South Cappa / Mounttrenchard civil and census proof for Thomas McKenna + Hanna / Joanna Cummane's household).