Listowel descendants & the Kilshenane grave
The other half of the family — Thomas + Jane's children who stayed in north Kerry. Drawn from the May 2026 user-supplied compilation (raw/kilshenane-grave-and-listowel-descendants-2025.md) which gathers material from dalyskennelly2000.jimdofree.com, Bryan Mac Mahon's listowelconnection.com, the Killererin (Galway) Heritage page, an Ancestry.co.uk record card, and a Gemini AI conversation.
Current conclusion · 13 May 2026
Short Answer
The Kilshenane grave is the strongest physical artifact for the north-Kerry branch. It confirms Thomas McKenna, Jane Ffoulkes McKenna, their son Thomas, and several later McKenna / Hegarty descendants, while also creating the major interpretive problem: the stone says Tipperary, while multiple family-memory channels say Wexford.
Best current reading
The grave proves the intermediate Thomas generation that older online trees had skipped; parish records now show Elizabeth Dunn / Dunne as his first wife and Annie Thornton as his later wife. The child roster is expanded but still not final.
Research stance
Treat the stone as primary for names and death dates, but as 1958 family memory for the 1798 county attribution.
Best Evidence
- Proven
The photograph confirms the stone text naming Thomas McKenna, Jane Ffoulkes McKenna, son Thomas, Annie Thornton, John, Annie Hegarty, and later Hegarty descendants.
- Proven
The stone confirms the skipped intermediate generation: Thomas McKenna d. 16 January 1870, later husband of Annie Thornton. Parish records add his first located wife, Elizabeth Dunn / Dunne.
- Likely
Roche, the Listowel compilation, FamilySearch, and Find a Grave collectively expand the Thomas + Jane child roster beyond Geneanet's single-son entry.
- Open
The roster still needs reconciliation because the sources do not list identical children.
- Open
The McKenna's Mill / Jeremiah father problem remains unresolved.
Next Targets
- DoneNorth-Kerry RC indexed sweep for Thomas + Jane's children completed 26 May 2026; no direct baptism naming both parents was found, but adult household clusters were found for Mary, Edmund, Thomas, Jane, Patrick, and Gerald/Garrett.
- OpenFollow the new Ballyduhig James Gnaw candidate through James + Margaret Sheahan's marriage, Foynes/Loughill registers, valuation revisions, or Monteagle estate papers.
- OpenIdentify Jeremiah McKenna's father John M'Kenna with baptism, land, or death evidence.
- OpenCompare the 1958 photographed stone with earlier graveyard surveys, local obituaries, or Hegarty papers.
Evidence Log
The Kilshenane / Kilsinan tombstone — photograph and reading
The photograph confirms the reading reproduced on dalyskennelly2000.jimdofree.com (and at variance with Richard Roche's 1998 Irish Times column, which had quoted the same stone as saying "Wexford"). The opening line of the inscription, in capitals, is unambiguously:
THOMAS McKENNA A LEADER
IN 1798 REBELLION TIPPERARY
DIED 5TH MAY 1835
Note also "FFOULKES" with a double-F on the next line — confirming the original Welsh-border spelling that the modern family preserved as "Foulkes". The full reading runs:
THOMAS McKENNA A LEADER
IN 1798 REBELLION TIPPERARY
DIED 5TH MAY 1835
HIS WIFE
JANE FFOULKES McKENNA
DIED 7TH DEC 1840
THEIR SON THOMAS McKENNA
DIED 16 JAN 1870
HIS WIFE
ANNIE THORNTON McKENNA
DIED 3RD MAY 1895
THEIR SON JOHN McKENNA
DIED AUG. 1904
THEIR DAUGHTER
ANNIE McKENNA HEGARTY
DIED 31 MARCH 1931
HER DAUGHTER MARY McKENNA HEGARTY
DIED 8 AUG 1904
SON THOMAS McKENNA HEGARTY
DIED 21 JULY 1918
ELIZABETH HEGARTY NEE CARMODY
DIED 9 JULY 1957 AGED 57
HER HUSBAND MATTIE HEGARTY
DIED 24 JULY 1973
RT. REV. J. M. HEGARTY V.G.
AUG 1958
Within the limits of a single web transcription, this stone confirms three substantive points that previously rested on family-oral memory only:
- Thomas McKenna's death date is 5 May 1835 (matches the Donald-James-McKenna 1953 family-history docx exactly) and Jane Foulkes's death date is 7 Dec 1840 (matches Geneanet and the docx).
- The intermediate generation Thomas McKenna d. 16 Jan 1870, first married to Elizabeth Dunn / Dunne and later married to Annie Thornton d. 3 May 1895 — which the Geneanet "peterterren" tree omits in favour of a single son James (1810–1890) — is now epigraphically and parish-register attested. The family-history docx's lineage is correct, and Geneanet has skipped a generation. See the Kerry & Foynes descendants reconciliation note.
- The Hegarty connection, mentioned only obliquely on the docx ("McKenna-Hegarty headstone") and tradition-only in Bryan Mac Mahon's blog ("the Hegarty grave at Kilsynan"), is now a documented marriage: Annie McKenna m. ?? Hegarty in the third generation, and the Hegarty descendants then continued on the same plot for two further generations through to Mattie Hegarty (d. 1973). The photographed footer reads "Rt. Rev. J. M. Hegarty V.G. Aug 1958", most likely the Vicar General who erected or re-cut the stone — connecting the family to the "Father Hegarty of San Diego" custodial story preserved in the diaspora.
May 2026 leads-chase — three Tipperary leads, three negatives
A focused May 2026 pass tested the three tractable Tipperary routes opened by the gravestone wording. Full report at raw/tipperary-leads-chase-2026-05.md. Headline: the 1958 photographed stone preserves family memory, but no published Tipperary 1798 corpus contains a Thomas McKenna, no Tipperary Yeomanry corps lists a Captain Foulkes, and no Foulkes line was resident in Tipperary in 1885–1911.
- Patrick C. Power, "Tipperary Courtmartials: 1798–1801" (Tipperary Historical Journal 1993) — drawn directly on Rebellion Papers 620 series. Zero McKenna, zero Foulkes. Tangential: a John Stack tried at Clonmel 1801 (acquitted); Sarah and James Leahy as Crown witnesses at Carrick-on-Suir 1800.
- Diarmuid O'Keeffe, "1798 in South Tipperary" (THJ 1990) — canonical narrative. Zero McKenna, zero Foulkes. Eleven Tipperary Yeomanry corps now mapped, none with a Foulkes officer.
- Ruan O'Donnell, "Philip Cunningham: Clonmel's insurgent leader of 1798" (THJ 1998) — biographical study of the documented Clonmel United Irish leader. Zero McKenna, zero Foulkes, but with the striking incidental finding that Cunningham was born at Moyvane, near Listowel, Co. Kerry in 1770. The Listowel/Moyvane–Clonmel–Tipperary–1798 axis is historically real even if not via Thomas McKenna; a 1772-Monaghan Thomas McKenna fighting in Tipperary in 1798 and ending up in Listowel sits in exactly the network Cunningham did.
- Foulkes residency in Tipperary — Bassett 1885 Wexford and 1889 Tipperary directories: zero. 1901/1911 Ireland censuses: zero in Tipperary. John Grenham surname-distribution snippet: "concentrated in Cork and Dublin" (Tipperary not mentioned). The Welsh-border Foulkes identification (Geneanet peterterren) remains the documentary-stronger reading.
The remaining unworked routes are now mostly on-site or paid: NAI Bishop Street SOC/Tipperary card index; TNA WO 13 Yeomanry pay lists; PRONI Yeomanry papers; IrishNewsArchive Hibernian Journal 1796–1803; and the Wexford 1798 prosopography in Daniel Gahan, The People's Rising (1995). The Lixnaw RC online-index step has now produced the Edmund McKenna + Ellen Stack baptism cluster below.
"Tipperary" — confirmed by photograph, May 2026
The wording on the stone is "1798 REBELLION TIPPERARY" — not Wexford. Three secondary sources had previously disagreed about what the stone says:
- Richard Roche, Irish Times "An Irishman's Diary", 11 Aug 1998 — quoted as "Wexford"
- Bryan Mac Mahon, listowelconnection.com — "the disaster of Vinegar Hill" (= Wexford)
- dalyskennelly2000.jimdofree.com — "Tipperary"
The photograph above resolves it: the jimdo transcription is correct; Roche was wrong (probably a misremembered or misread inscription), and Mac Mahon's "Vinegar Hill" gloss is family-oral conflation with the better-known Wexford rising. The famous ballad The Boys of Wexford is the family's identifying song — but the stone itself records a Tipperary engagement.
Three knock-on consequences:
- The 1798 search corpus must shift from Wexford to Tipperary. Daniel Gahan's The People's Rising: Wexford 1798 (1995) is the wrong county. The right corpora are the NAI Rebellion Papers Tipperary series, Thomas Bartlett The 1798 Rebellion (2003) Tipperary indexes, Vincent Comerford on south-Tipperary Whiteboyism / United-Irish organisation, and the surviving Tipperary Yeomanry / militia muster rolls. Tipperary disturbances in May–June 1798 were largely pre-empted by martial law and mass arrests rather than a pitched rising, so a "leader" there might be a small-band leader, a sworn United-Irishman officer, or someone caught in the post-rising fugitive-and-sweep phase.
- The Killererin Heritage / "Jane from south Tipperary" identification gains. Roche speculated about south-Tipperary Foulkeses; the Killererin folklore page gave Jane as "from south Tipperary"; and now the stone says Thomas's rebellion was in Tipperary. The April 2026 Foulkes-Tipperary hypothesis-test file ruled out a landed Tipperary Foulkes family on negative directory / Burke / Landed-Estates evidence — but a non-landed Tipperary Foulkes presence is still consistent with the new stone wording. (A Yeomanry-officer father need not have been a landed-gentry man; many Yeo officers were strong farmers, agents, or middlemen.) The Foulkes-Tipperary route is therefore partially re-opened: a south-Tipperary parish-by-parish RC and CofI register sweep for a Foulkes family is now justified, especially in Clonmel, Cahir, Carrick-on-Suir, and Tipperary town parishes.
- The "from Monaghan to Wexford to Kerry" travel narrative gains a Tipperary stop. If Thomas was a Tipperary insurgent in 1798 and Jane Foulkes was a south-Tipperary woman, the previously-puzzling Thurles step in the next-generation migration (James m. Margaret Sheahan settled at Thurles before moving on to Foynes) acquires a context: Tipperary was already a family location. The Thurles RC parish registers and the south-Tipperary diocesan registers (Cashel, Waterford & Lismore) become higher-priority lookups than Kerry-only or Limerick-only ones.
The photographed footer reads "Rt. Rev. J. M. Hegarty V.G. Aug 1958" — the Vicar General who erected or re-cut it. If 1958 was a re-cut from a now-lost original 1835 stone, the 1958 carver was working from family memory or an earlier transcription; the inscription is therefore second-hand evidence for what the 1835 family said about Thomas's rising rather than a contemporary 1835 engraving. This caveat aside, the stone is the closest physical artefact we have — and it says Tipperary.
The children — Roche baseline, compilation extension, and new Patrick/Jane leads
The May 2026 register-coverage check (raw/lixnaw-listowel-register-coverage-2026-05.md) re-frames the children list. Two distinct attribution layers exist:
- Roche 1998 baseline — 4 named children. Richard Roche's Irish Times column, drawing directly on Sue McKenna of Parknadoon (the matriarch of the Listowel-Parknadoon McKenna line, wife of a direct male-line descendant), names exactly four: "a family of three sons and a daughter, Thomas, Edmond, James and Mary". This is the strongest single published-attribution chain — a 1998 column drawing on living family memory two generations from the source.
- Compilation / online-tree extension — additional names, varying strength. An Ancestry.co.uk record card for Jane Ffoulkes gives the headline figure of 8 children, and the May-2026 user-supplied compilation (drawn in part from a Gemini AI conversation) extends Roche's 4 with Patrick (1799/1802), Edmund Patrick (1805), Elizabeth (1810), Gerald/Garrett (1816). The saved FamilySearch Patrick profile strengthens Patrick and exposes a sibling named Jane; the user supplied Jane McKenna (1820-1892) as an additional child lead. The count now needs reconciliation because Roche, Ancestry, FamilySearch, and Find a Grave do not expose identical rosters.
The working roster, with attribution strength flagged for each:
- Patrick McKenna (1799/1802–20 May 1865)
- m. Sarah M. Stack in Ireland in 1832 per the saved FamilySearch profile. Find a Grave gives birth 1802, County Kerry, death at Negaunee, Marquette Co., Michigan, burial at Negaunee Cemetery, Block 3, Lot 402, and spouse Sarah Stack McKenna (1815-1874). The Michigan line now has an 11-child Find a Grave roster: Thomas Stack, Patrick Healy, Mary, Norah, John C., Elizabeth "Katie", Rickard "Rick", Katherine, Edmond, Maurice, and Julia A. McKenna.
- Thomas McKenna (?–16 Jan 1870)
- m. first Elizabeth Dunn / Dunne, then later Annie / Ann Thornton (d. 3 May 1895) per the headstone and parish records. Children by Elizabeth Dunn / Dunne: Thomas (1831), James Gnaw (25 May 1833), and Patrick (1837). Children by Ann Thornton: Michael (1851) and Ann (1852), with Elizabeth / Bessie Troy strongly supported by the 1851 census-search form and John McKenna probably in the same Ann Thornton household through his sister relationship to Elizabeth Troy. The Foynes/Donald-James-McKenna direct-line ancestor is likely in this household, but the bridge from Ballyduhig James to South Cappa / Mount Trenchard James still needs one more record.
- Mary McKenna (c. 1804–1867)
- m. William Leahy (b. 1800, son of Tim Leahy and Mary Enright), c. 1826. Knockanure / Listowel area. Confirmed by the Kennelly genealogy at dalyskennelly2000.jimdofree.com (the operator John Joseph Kennelly is a Leahy-Kennelly descendant via Mary McKenna).
- Edmund Patrick McKenna (c. 1805–?)
- m. Ellen Stack (b. c. 1803). The 25-26 May 2026 IrishGenealogy searches now identify nine Lixnaw RC baptisms for this household at Rathea / Rahea / Rahigh / Rathyea under the spellings Guinaw, Ginnagh, Kenna, Genna, and Gnaw: Bridget (1821), Margaret (1824), Elizabeth (1826), Edmund (1828), Julia (1829), Maurice (1831), William (1833), Patrick (1836), and Bridget (1838). Daughter Bridget Ellen McKenna (b. c. 1840) emigrated to New York via Macon, Georgia, c. 1852. A separate son, Maurice Leon McKenna, emigrated 1865 and became a train engineer in New Orleans. Daughter Ellen McKenna m. Flood, d. 3 Oct 1924 in Manhattan; the official NYC death certificate names her parents as Edward McKenna and Ellen Stack, both born Ireland, but does not name grandparents.
- Elizabeth McKenna (c. 1810–1859)
- The compilation records this child as "Elizabeth McKenna / 'Guinaw'", which had previously been treated as an opaque second surname (possibly Guinane / McGuinn / Gunn / Quinn). The May 2026 follow-up resolves this: "Guinaw" is the Kerry RC parish-clerk orthography for "McKenna". The wider sweep found a possible Elizabeth Guinaw + Maurice Haily / Healy marriage in Lixnaw on 16 Feb 1822, with a child Maurice in 1826, but the chronology is weak if Elizabeth was really born c. 1810. Treat that as possible collateral until another source moves her birth earlier.
- James McKenna (1810? / 1833?)
- Listed on Geneanet as Thomas + Jane's only son. The 26 May 2026 sweep did not find an 1810-ish baptism naming Thomas + Jane. The strongest record-level candidate for the Foynes James is now James Gnaw, baptized 25 May 1833 at Ballyduhig, son of Thomas Gna + Elizabeth Dunne. That makes him a likely grandson of Thomas + Jane rather than their child, matching the generation structure of the headstone and family-history document; see James McKenna and Kerry & Foynes.
- Edmond McKenna (Roche 1998)
- Listed as a separate child by Roche; possibly the same person as Edmund Patrick (the Lixnaw-Stack husband), or possibly a 7th child.
- Gerald (Garrett) McKenna (c. 1816–?)
- The 26 May 2026 sweep proves a later Rathea adult branch: Gerald / Garrett McKenna / Gnaw / Ginnaw + Mary Thornton had children Maurice (1859), Ellen (1860), Margaret (1862), Patrick (1864), Mary (1869), and Jane (1875). Parentage is still unproved, but the name, place, and kinship network fit the claimed roster lead.
- Jane McKenna (1820–1892)
- User-supplied child addition, 13 May 2026. The 26 May 2026 sweep found James Larkin of Irrimore marrying Jane Gnaw in Lixnaw on 4 Feb 1841, followed by nine Larkin children at Rathea, 1844-1863, with McKenna/Gnaw sponsors around the family. This is a strong adult-household match, though it does not name Jane's parents.
The compilation derives several post-Roche names from a Gemini AI conversation, which is a paraphrase / reconstructive summary and not a primary source. Patrick is now stronger because the saved FamilySearch profile names his parents, spouse, marriage year, and children, and Find a Grave independently links him to Sarah Stack McKenna and the Negaunee children. The 26 May 2026 sweep improves the Irish side substantially, but it mostly finds the claimed children as adults, spouses, parents, or sponsors; it does not produce direct baptisms naming Thomas McKenna + Jane Foulkes as parents.
Edmund McKenna + Ellen Stack — Lixnaw baptism cluster found
The Lixnaw RC search finally gives a real parish-register cluster for one claimed Thomas + Jane child household. Searching IrishGenealogy's Lixnaw baptisms by parent Edmund McKenna first returned eight children of Edmund and Ellen Stack; the 26 May 2026 Ginnagh follow-up added a ninth, Margaret Ginnagh, 11 Nov 1824. The same family appears under the local McKenna spellings Guinaw, Ginnagh, Kenna, Genna, and Gnaw.
| Date | Child as indexed | Address | Father as indexed | Sponsors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Jan 1821 | Bridget Guinaw | Rathea | Edmund Guinaw | Thomas Guinaw; Julia Stack |
| 11 Nov 1824 | Margaret Ginnagh | Rathyea | Edmund Ginnagh | Thomas Stack; Margaret Ahern |
| 04 Oct 1826 | Elizabeth Kenna | Rahigh | Edmund Kenna | Maurice Healy; Margaret Larkin |
| 01 Aug 1828 | Edmund Guinaw | Rathea | Edmund Guinaw | John Larkin; Ann Larkin |
| 22 Oct 1829 | Julia Genna | Rahea | Edmund Genna | Bartholomew Connor; Margaret Connor |
| 09 Oct 1831 | Maurice Kenna | Rathea | Edmund Kenna | Gerald Kenna; Bridget Kenna |
| 06 Jan 1833 | William Kenna | Rathea | Edmund Kenna | Gerald Prindible; Mary Prindible |
| 28 Jan 1836 | Patrick Kenna | Rathea | Edmund Kenna | Patrick Stack; Ellen Gnaw |
| 05 Nov 1838 | Bridget Gnaw | Rahea | Edmund Gnaw | John Prindible; Mary Broder |
The first record is especially useful because Thomas Guinaw is a baptism sponsor for Bridget Guinaw on 19 Jan 1821. The record does not state whether Thomas is the child's grandfather, uncle, or another close McKenna relative, but it places a Thomas McKenna-variant name inside the same Rathea McKenna/Stack network. Full search log and IrishGenealogy record identifiers are preserved at raw/lixnaw-rc-edmund-mckenna-ellen-stack-baptisms-2026-05-25.md. Local copy of the NLI register page: raw/nli-lixnaw-rc-jan-feb-1821-bridget-guinaw-page076.jpg.
A 26 May 2026 widened sweep across McKenna / Ginna / Gna / Gnaw / Guinaw / Kenna / Genna variants found 164 true Lixnaw RC records containing a McKenna-variant person after 77 false positives were removed: 144 baptisms and 20 marriages. This is not one household; it is the parish-level kinship field around Rathea, Ballynageragh, Braumaddra, Lyre, Knocknagloch, Glenoe, Gortacloghan, and Pallas. The complete extracted table is preserved at raw/lixnaw-rc-all-mckenna-variant-records-2026-05-26.md.
26 May 2026 north-Kerry child sweep — nearby churches and parishes
A broader IrishGenealogy sweep then searched the indexed church records for nearby RC parishes around Ballyduhig / Lixnaw / Listowel: Listowel, Lixnaw, Duagh, Killury & Ratto, Causeway, Ballybunion, Lisselton, Ballylongford, Ballyduff, Abbeydorney, Ardfert, Kilflynn, Moyvane, Tarbert, Kilnaughtin, Brosna, and Knocknagoshel. It opened 2,289 individual record pages in the broad pass, then 541 targeted adult-household candidate pages, using McKenna variants including McKenna, Mc Enna, McEnna, M'Kenna, Kenna, Genna, Gna, Gnaw, Gina, Ginna, Ginaw, Ginnaw, Guinaw, Guina, Kennaw, and Ginnagh. Full note: raw/north-kerry-rc-thomas-jane-children-sweep-2026-05-26.md.
Result: no nearby indexed baptism was found naming father Thomas McKenna/Ginna/Gnaw/etc. and mother Jane/Foulkes. The useful records are adult-household and kinship records, not direct childhood baptisms for Thomas + Jane's children.
A follow-up concentric write-up starts at Ballyduhig and moves outward through Kilshenane, Rathea/Coolnaleen, Listowel/Lixnaw, the wider north-Kerry parishes, and later emigrant records. It adds one new original document for the Jane branch: a National Archives 1851 census-search form for Anne Larkin, daughter of James Larkin and Jane, residence Rathea, Kilshenane. That PDF is saved at raw/nai-census-search-1851-rathea-anne-larkin-james-jane-007246690-01432.pdf; full synthesis at raw/thomas-mckenna-1772-children-concentric-ballyduhig-2026-05-26.md.
raw/nai-census-search-1851-rathea-anne-larkin-james-jane-007246690-01432.pdf| Claimed child | Records found | Status after sweep |
|---|---|---|
| Patrick | Children Thomas Gnaw (1833) and Richard Gnaw (1851), parents Patrick Gnaw + Sarah Stack, Coolnaleen / Listowel. | Real adult household; parentage still from FamilySearch / Find a Grave rather than parish proof. |
| Thomas d. 1870 | First marriage to Elizabeth Dunn (1829); Ballyduhig children Thomas (1831), James (1833), Patrick (1837). Later Ann / Annie Thornton household: Michael (1851), Ann (1852), Elizabeth / Bessie Troy by census-search form, and probably John McKenna through the Elizabeth Troy sister clue. | Proven son by headstone; parish records now split his children by mother. |
| Mary | William Leahy + Mary Gna marriage (1827); five Leahy children, 1828-1837, in Listowel / Moyvane. | Strong adult-household match. |
| Edmund / Edmond | Nine children with Ellen Stack at Rathea, 1821-1838; Thomas Guinaw sponsor in 1821. | Strong adult-household match, with a close Thomas-family witness. |
| Elizabeth | Possible Elizabeth Guinaw + Maurice Haily marriage (1822) and child Maurice (1826). | Possible/collateral only; chronology is weak if c.1810 birth is correct. |
| James | No 1810-ish Thomas + Jane baptism. Strong candidate instead: James Gnaw, baptized 25 May 1833 at Ballyduhig, son of Thomas Gna + Elizabeth Dunne. | Likely generation collision; 1833 James may be the Foynes ancestor and a grandson of Thomas + Jane. |
| Gerald / Garrett | Gerald / Garrett + Mary Thornton Rathea children, 1859-1875. | Real adult branch; parentage unproved. |
| Jane | James Larkin + Jane Gnaw marriage (1841); nine Larkin children at Rathea, 1844-1863. | Strong adult-household match; parentage unproved. |
Patrick McKenna + Sarah Stack — Michigan line now strengthened
The saved FamilySearch profile raw/familysearch-patrick-mckenna-kj5z-nzj-2026-05.md is the key marriage-source lead for Patrick: it states that Patrick McKenna married Sarah M. Stack in Ireland in 1832, and it names Patrick's parents as Thomas McKenna + Jane Foulkes. It is not a primary parish marriage record, but it is the first saved online-tree source tying the Patrick/Sarah Michigan line directly back to Thomas and Jane.
The user-pasted Find a Grave memorial raw/findagrave-patrick-mckenna-52751193-2026-05.md gives Patrick's burial at Negaunee Cemetery, Block 3, Lot 402, memorial ID 52751193, and lists Sarah Stack McKenna as spouse. It also names 11 children:
| Child on Find a Grave | Dates |
|---|---|
| Thomas Stack McKenna | 1833-1908 |
| Patrick Healy McKenna | 1835-1905 |
| Mary McKenna Brown | 1843-1888 |
| Norah McKenna | 1846-1885 |
| John C. McKenna | 1849-1907 |
| Elizabeth E. "Katie" McKenna Sullivan | 1850-1916 |
| Rickard "Rick" McKenna | 1852-1897 |
| Katherine McKenna Donahoe | 1853-1918 |
| Edmond McKenna | 1854-1879 |
| Maurice McKenna | 1858-1881 |
| Julia A. McKenna Donahoe | 1858-1887 |
Two caution flags stay open. First, FamilySearch gives Patrick's birth as 1799-1800, while Find a Grave gives 1802. Second, Find a Grave's lot note says Patrick Healy McKenna was buried 20 Jan 1896, age 60, while the family-member link gives him as 1835-1905. That is probably a memorial-link or cemetery-note conflict, not something to smooth over until the individual Patrick Healy memorial or cemetery register is checked.
Which children can be cross-checked at which parish — NLI register coverage map
The NLI's Catholic Parish Registers digitisation (registers.nli.ie) gives the surviving start dates for each north-Kerry RC parish. Patrick is uncertain here: FamilySearch gives 1799-1800, while Find a Grave gives 1802. A late-1802 Listowel baptism is theoretically possible if that birthplace/parish are right; a 1799-1800 baptism would pre-date the surviving north-Kerry registers. The bulk of the rest are reachable at Listowel, Lixnaw, or Causeway:
| Parish | NLI ID | Earliest baptisms | Earliest marriages | Microfilm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Killury / Causeway | 0663 | 10 Dec 1782 – Jul 1786 stub; 04 Nov 1806 onwards | 13 Feb 1809 | 04278/04 |
| Listowel | 0678 | 03 Aug 1802 | 08 Jan 1837 (gap) | 04281/01–10 |
| Lixnaw | 0672 | 04 Aug 1810 | 15 Jan 1810 | 04281/11 + 04282/01 |
| Duagh | 0668 | 01 Jan 1819 | 24 Jan 1832 | 04282/06 |
| Ardfert | 0648 | 08 Feb 1835 | — | (later film) |
| Athea, Co. Limerick | 0861 | 16 Apr 1830 | 01 Nov 1827 | (later film) |
The available paths therefore are: Mary (1804) and Edmund (1805) at Listowel; Elizabeth, James, Gerald (1810–1816) at Listowel, Lixnaw, or Causeway; Jane (1820) at Listowel, Lixnaw, Causeway, or Duagh; Edmund Patrick's children with Ellen Stack (1840s) at Lixnaw; and Patrick only if the 1802 date and a Listowel-area baptism are right. If his FamilySearch 1799-1800 range is closer, he is recoverable only from sources earlier than the registers: Tithe Applotment, post-1820 family-memory mentions in death-registration, US-side immigration documents, or a parish register outside the current north-Kerry coverage map.
Irish Life and Lore audio CD191602-129 — Jack & Sue McKenna oral history
Maurice O'Keeffe's Irish Life and Lore recording CD191602-129 (Jack McKenna b. 1918 and Sue McKenna of Parknadoon) is a previously-uncited primary oral-history source from the same Sue McKenna informant Roche used in 1998. The local MP3 and machine transcript are now saved at raw/jack-sue-mckenna-listowel.mp3 and raw/jack-sue-mckenna-listowel-transcript-2026-05-26.md. The product-page show notes describe its content as covering John J. McKenna (Jack's father) and tracing the family back to "Thomas McKenna who went from Monaghan to Wexford in 1798 to fight in the Rebellion", plus John J's emigration to Reno NV in 1909, return, Irish Volunteer involvement, gun-harboring during the 1916 Rising, land disputes with Lord Listowel, court-martial in Cork, imprisonment in Belfast, and chairmanship of Kerry Co. Council.
Specific locations named in the show notes: Monaghan, Wexford, Bantry (Co. Cork — possibly a separate McKenna line, possibly a transit point), Ballyduhig (the home farm townland — same as the 1871 Listowel marriage record's "Thomas McKenna, Farmer, of Ballyduhig"), Listowel, Dublin, Cork, Belfast.
This is the fourth independent family-memory channel to give the rebellion location as Wexford rather than Tipperary — joining (i) the Donald-James-McKenna 1953 family-history docx, (ii) Roche's 1998 Irish Times column drawing on Sue McKenna directly, and (iii) Bryan Mac Mahon's Listowel Connection blog post mentioning "the disaster of Vinegar Hill". The photographed Kilshenane stone wording "TIPPERARY" is now the only channel in the entire corpus that says Tipperary; four separate family-memory channels independently say Wexford. Why Rev J. M. Hegarty cut "Tipperary" rather than "Wexford" in 1958 is now a substantive question — see the 1798 page.
The audio is now the primary local checkpoint for this branch. The transcript is a useful finding aid, but exact quotations should be checked against the recording because proper names, placenames, and newspaper readings are vulnerable in machine transcription.
Roche 1998 descendant geography — three new locations
Roche's 1998 column also gives the Listowel descendants' onward geography:
"From them have descended the McKennas, Leahys, O'Connors, Bartons, Browns and Danaghers located in Listowel, Athea, Dublin, Lixnaw, Tarbert, Limerick, Piltown, Wagga-Wagga (Australia), London and the United States."
Three of these are not yet on the wiki and become first-pass research targets:
- Athea, Co. Limerick — small village 17 km east of Listowel, just over the Kerry-Limerick border. Athea RC parish baptisms start 16 April 1830 and marriages 1 November 1827 (NLI parish 0861). A second-generation Athea McKenna baptism cohort is plausible; check Athea baptisms 1830–1860 for parents named Patrick / Edmund / Thomas / James / Mary McKenna.
- Piltown, Co. Kilkenny — significant. The same Piltown that Roche's column elsewhere associated with the Foulkes family hypothesis (the Cromwellian-Tipperary identification, since weakened in the April 2026 hypothesis-test). Whether the McKenna-Piltown descendants returned to a known Foulkes locale or simply happened to migrate to Piltown is not resolvable from Roche's text. Foulkscourt (the named Piltown estate) was Hely property from 1697, but a non-gentry Foulkes residency in the parish has not been ruled out.
- Wagga-Wagga, NSW, Australia — a McKenna descendant in the Riverina. Wagga-Wagga and Parramatta NSW are both Irish-emigrant destinations; the Castle Hill / "Vinegar Hill" 1804 rising at Parramatta led by Philip Cunningham of Moyvane (who has a striking incidental connection to the Listowel-Tipperary-1798 axis — see the May 2026 leads chase) is in the same NSW corridor. NSW BDM and Trove searches for a Wagga-Wagga McKenna with a Listowel/Kerry origin are tractable next-pass lookups.
Tarbert is also explicitly named — corroborating St Ita's College foundress Jane Agnes McKenna (d. 1987) as a Listowel-cluster descendant rather than an unrelated Tarbert McKenna.
Listowel collateral lines — known marriages of grandchildren
Elizabeth "Bessie" McKenna m. John R. Troy (1871) — five priest sons
The most prominent Listowel cousin line. Elizabeth McKenna (b. ~1851), granddaughter of Thomas + Jane (her father is given as "Thomas McKenna, Farmer, of Ballyduhig" — meaning the Thomas-d.1870 of the gravestone, or another Thomas in the same Ballyduhig farm), married John R. Troy, dyer of Church Street, Listowel, on 24 October 1871 in the Listowel RC chapel. They had at least thirteen children:
- Five sons who became priests in the United States, three of them rising to monsignor.
- Father Charles "Charlie" Troy of Ballyfermot — the best-known on the Irish side. Played Gaelic football for Kerry before entering the seminary; tried (per Mac Mahon, eyewitness) to make peace during the Listowel Civil War battle. Later Monsignor K.C.H.S.
- Rev. Thomas F. Troy, served in Chicago (St. Colmcille's parish).
- Father Robert Troy — user family-memory correction, May 2026: a priest descendant of John R. Troy + Bessie McKenna. He is the "Father Robert Troy" remembered in John M. McKenna I's autobiography as the McKenna cousin priest who married John I's parents; exact intervening generation still to be pinned.
- Mary Jane Troy, became a Mercy nun in Illinois (Sister Mary Brendan).
Bessie McKenna herself: Mac Mahon's "marvellous personality" who interrupted a musical evening at the Troy home with a barrel-organ player; lived to be a Listowel personality known to Mac Mahon's own generation.
The Troy family lived at 22 Church Street, Listowel (now O'Halloran's per Mac Mahon).
The Kennelly–Leahy chain (Mary McKenna's line)
The dalyskennelly2000.jimdofree.com site is operated by John Joseph Kennelly, a direct-male-line Kennelly descendant who is also a McKenna-via-Leahy descendant. The chain on the site:
The Bridie-Kennelly Kennelly side traces Matthew Kennelly (1875–1952) ← Patrick (1842–1892) ← Matthew "Matt" (1798–1883) ← Patrick (1780–1868). This is a paternal-Kennelly line that intersects the McKenna line only at Bridie's marriage to Jack Leahy in the 20th century — but it is the strongest single piece of evidence for the Mary-McKenna m. William-Leahy 1826 marriage, since it survives in living family memory of John Joseph Kennelly.
The Manhattan Flood / New Orleans McKenna line (Edmund's line)
A query forwarded onto the same jimdo page from a US descendant:
Just curious if anyone can assist me in finding the parentage of my great great grandmother Ellen Stack who married Edmund McKenna, the son of Patrick [sic; should read "Thomas"] McKenna and Jane Foulkes. I know of Ellen Stack as my great great grandmother as she and Edmund McKenna are named as parents on the death certificate of my great grandmother Ellen McKenna Flood in Manhattan in 1924. […] Maurice is a name used frequently in descendants and a Maurice Leon McKenna, brother to my Great grandmother Ellen. He came to America in 1865 and settled in New Orleans as a train engineer.
The Manhattan 1924 death certificate of Ellen McKenna Flood and the New Orleans / Louisiana railroad payroll of Maurice Leon McKenna (1865+) are two discrete, achievable lookups on the US side that would lock down the Edmund-and-Ellen-Stack line.
Other named descendant surnames
Per Mac Mahon (and Roche 1998) the wider Listowel descendant surnames include Leahy, O'Connor, Barton, Brown, Danaher, Houlihan, Stack, Troy, Hegarty, Carmody, Thornton, Brosnan. Specific named living descendants in the compilation include Sue McKenna of Parknadoon, Listowel (Roche's 1998 informant; her husband Jack McKenna was "a direct descendant of the brave United Irishman") and Antoinette Dunphy née Leahy of Piltown, Co. Kilkenny (also Roche 1998; great-granddaughter of GAA co-founder Maurice Davin, 1842–1927). The Parknadoon McKennas should be reachable: Parknadoon is a small Listowel townland.
The McKenna's Mill / Listowel hardware family — confirmed Thomas-1772 descendants
The compilation describes a separate Listowel McKenna business line: Jeremiah McKenna m. Johanna Horgan (17 October 1871, Listowel RC parish) started McKenna's Mill (hardware and timber) at 3 Market Street, Listowel; property purchased 1875; Jeremiah died of tuberculosis 1880. The civil marriage copy at raw/jeremiah-mckenna-and-johanna-marriage-certificate.pdf gives Jeremiah as age 27, gardener, residence Ennismore, father John M'Kenna, labourer; Johanna is age 25, father Michael Horgan. Their son John J. McKenna (b. 1875, d. 1950s) emigrated to Reno NV in 1909 (per the audio; Mary Cogan's 2011 blog says 1907), returned the same year, m. Grace McMahon, was Chairman of Kerry County Council, was court-martialled in Cork and imprisoned in Belfast for concealing arms during the War of Independence. Their son Jack McKenna (b. 1918) took it over and married Sue McKenna of Parknadoon — Roche's 1998 informant.
The May 8 2026 retrieval of the Irish Life and Lore audio show notes (recording CD191602-129, saved at raw/Jack McKenna (b. 1918) and Sue McKenna | Irish Life & Lore.html; local MP3 and transcript at raw/jack-sue-mckenna-listowel.mp3 and raw/jack-sue-mckenna-listowel-transcript-2026-05-26.md) confirms the connection explicitly: "John Joseph McKenna was a descendant of Thomas McKenna who went from Monaghan to Wexford in 1798 to fight in the Rebellion." So the McKenna's Mill line IS a Thomas-1772 descendant family — the previously-conjectured connection is now explicitly attested in living family memory. Full discussion (with photo of John J. and Jack McKenna) on the dedicated John Joseph McKenna page.
The remaining open identification is Jeremiah's father, John M'Kenna, labourer of Innismore. The May 8 2026 retrieval of the John McKenna death record (raw/john-mckenna-sister-elizabeth-troy.pdf, Listowel district register page 263 entry no. 436, 28 August 1906) RULES OUT the John-of-Kilshenane as the same man either way. That John was born ~1854 (age 52 at his 28 Aug 1906 death of apoplexy at Church Street, Listowel) — 10 years younger than Jeremiah (b. ~1844, age 27 at his 1871 marriage) — and never married (cert. condition "Bachelor"; informant Elizabeth Troy his sister, present at death). Jeremiah's father must therefore be a separate John McKenna labourer, born c. 1815–1825, of Innismore. Working candidates: a sibling of Thomas-d.1870 (i.e. another son of Thomas-1772 + Jane Foulkes, named John, one of the docx 8 children not yet specifically mapped); or a separate Listowel-area McKenna line altogether. The same 1871 register page also carries Bessie McKenna's 24 October 1871 marriage to John R. Troy, naming Bessie's father as Thomas M'Kenna, farmer, and her residence as Ballyduhig. Note: the 1906 cert dates John's death two years AFTER the gravestone's "Aug. 1904" wording — the 2-year discrepancy is now resolved in favour of the cert: a May 8 2026 sweep of all 19 John-McKenna deaths registered in Ireland in 1904 turned up no adult John McKenna in Kerry (the only Kerry hit is an infant in Dingle). The 1958 Hegarty re-cut got the year wrong by 2 years. Full discussion + the 1904 sweep table in Kerry & Foynes descendants — Documented Gen 4 children.
Open questions and follow-up leads
- Photograph the Kilshenane stone. Single most important on-site action; would settle "Tipperary" vs "Wexford" definitively.
- Ballyduhig James Gnaw, baptized 25 May 1833. This is now the strongest parish-register candidate for James m. Margaret Sheahan of South Cappa / Mount Trenchard. Close it with James + Margaret's marriage, a Foynes / Loughill baptism naming his origin, Valuation Office revision books for Ballyduhig plot 10, or Monteagle estate papers.
- Sue McKenna of Parknadoon, Listowel. Roche's 1998 informant. Parknadoon is a small townland; she or her descendants should be reachable. She holds a separate-branch family memory.
- Listowel Connection blog / Mary Cogan. The blog has been the single most productive Irish-side source. A direct enquiry to the Listowel Connection editor would surface any further Mac Mahon material on the McKenna / Foulkes / Troy network.
- Manhattan 1924 death certificate of Ellen McKenna Flood — now saved from NYC Historical Vital Records as
raw/evidence/nyc-hvr-ellen-mckenna-flood-1924-death-certificate-check-2026-06-16.html. It names father Edward McKenna and mother Ellen Stack, both born Ireland; useful descendant-branch support, not elder-Thomas/Jane proof. - Maurice Leon McKenna, train engineer, New Orleans, 1865+ — Louisiana state census 1870 / 1880, US Federal Census, and the Illinois Central / Louisville & Nashville Railroad payroll records of the 1860s–80s.
- Negaunee, Marquette Co., Michigan, c. 1862 — Patrick McKenna and Sarah Stack arrived c. 1862. Marquette County local-history society and the Iron Range / Upper Peninsula immigrant rolls. The Michigan line is still numerous and contactable.
- 1871 Listowel civil-register page — now read. It gives Bessie McKenna of Ballyduhig as daughter of Thomas M'Kenna, farmer, and Jeremiah M'Kenna as son of John M'Kenna, labourer. Next step is to pull the matching church-register entries and compare witnesses/sponsors.
- Jeremiah's father John M'Kenna — Kilshenane John McKenna (cert d. 28 Aug 1906) is ruled out by chronology + bachelor status. Identify the right John through Jeremiah's baptism c. 1844 in the Listowel RC parish register, the death record of a separate John McKenna labourer of Innismore (born c. 1815-1825), and valuation-revision books for Ennismore.
- "Father Hegarty of San Diego diocese" — Catholic-archdiocesan archives in San Diego, plus Mercy Sisters / Sister Mary Brendan Brosnan California correspondence (mentioned in the compilation).
- Corridan Family blog — corridanconnection.blogspot.ie — flagged in the compilation as carrying Stack / Foulkes McKenna material. Direct read of the 2014–2015 archives suggested.
- Tipperary 1798 / United-Irish prisoner lists — the May 5 leads-chase (
raw/tipperary-leads-chase-2026-05.md) returned three convergent negatives in the published Tipperary corpora. The remaining unread texts on the Tipperary side are the NAI Bishop Street SOC/Tipperary card index (on-site only) and IrishNewsArchive Hibernian Journal 1796–1803 commission notices. With the 1958 stone now reframed as a single-channel outlier against four converging Wexford channels (see the 1798 page), Daniel Gahan's The People's Rising: Wexford 1798 (1995) is back to being a high-priority read alongside the Tipperary indexes. Irish Life and Lore audio CD191602-129 — purchase the MP3 of the Maurice O'Keeffe interview with Jack & Sue McKenna and transcribe relevant genealogical passages.Done 26 May 2026: local MP3 and transcript saved atraw/jack-sue-mckenna-listowel.mp3andraw/jack-sue-mckenna-listowel-transcript-2026-05-26.md.- Athea, Co. Limerick RC parish baptisms 1830–1860 — Roche 1998 names Athea as a McKenna descendant location; second-generation baptisms with parents Patrick / Edmund / Thomas / James / Mary McKenna would identify which Listowel sibling moved east.
- Wagga-Wagga, NSW Australian descendant — Roche names a Wagga-Wagga descendant. NSW BDM, Trove, and Sydney shipping records 1830–1880 for a McKenna with a Listowel/Kerry origin.
- Piltown, Co. Kilkenny RC parish — Roche names McKenna descendants there. Whether this is coincidence or a return to Jane Foulkes's putative Piltown locale is unresolved.
Primary sources: raw/kilshenane-grave-and-listowel-descendants-2025.md — May 2026 user-supplied compilation drawing on dalyskennelly2000.jimdofree.com (gravestone reading, Kennelly chain, Stack-Foulkes message), listowelconnection.com (Mac Mahon Troy-family blog post), killererin.galwaycommunityheritage.org (elopement folklore), ancestry.co.uk (Jane Ffoulkes record card, 8 children), and a Gemini AI conversation (children, descendants, business line — paraphrase, treat as leads). The original user-pasted file is preserved at raw/Thomas McKenna - Jane Foulkes - More info.md. raw/lixnaw-listowel-register-coverage-2026-05.md — May 2026 follow-up establishing the NLI register coverage map for north-Kerry RC parishes; the Kerry-orthography Guinaw=McKenna correction; the Roche 4-name baseline children list vs. the Gemini-paraphrase 8-name extension; the Irish Life and Lore CD191602-129 oral-history primary source; and the Roche descendant geography (Athea, Piltown, Wagga-Wagga, Tarbert). raw/lixnaw-rc-edmund-mckenna-ellen-stack-baptisms-2026-05-25.md — 25 May 2026 IrishGenealogy/NLI search finding the first eight Lixnaw baptisms of Edmund McKenna / Guinaw / Kenna / Genna / Gnaw and Ellen Stack at Rathea / Rahea / Rahigh, 1821–1838. raw/lixnaw-rc-all-mckenna-variant-records-2026-05-26.md — 26 May 2026 widened IrishGenealogy sweep finding 164 true Lixnaw McKenna-variant baptism and marriage records after variant-query false positives were removed. raw/north-kerry-rc-thomas-jane-children-sweep-2026-05-26.md — 26 May 2026 nearby-parish sweep for Thomas + Jane's reported children; finds no direct Thomas + Jane baptism but identifies adult household clusters, the ninth Edmund/Ellen Stack child Margaret Ginnagh, and the Ballyduhig James Gnaw 1833 candidate. raw/thomas-mckenna-1772-children-concentric-ballyduhig-2026-05-26.md — concentric Ballyduhig-outward synthesis, adding the Rathea Anne Larkin NAI census-search form at raw/nai-census-search-1851-rathea-anne-larkin-james-jane-007246690-01432.pdf. Patrick/Michigan-line additions: raw/familysearch-patrick-mckenna-kj5z-nzj-2026-05.md and raw/findagrave-patrick-mckenna-52751193-2026-05.md.