McCartans and De Gaulle

From  Drumaroad to the Elysee Palace

For 600 years the Mc Cartan sept ruled the mid-Down area  from their base at Loughinisland. In 1642 Lord Conway and an army of Scots burnt their castle and laid waist the surrounding countryside. The McCartan leaders were jailed in Carrickfergus, some were banished to Connaught and others found shelter with the Mc Guinneses and took up residence in the townlands of Ballywillwill, Drumnacoyle, Clanvaraghan and Drumaroad. After James II was defeated at the Boyne in 1690 these remaining Mc Cartans were once more dispossessed. Many were forced to flee and joined the armies of France and Austria. These refugees became known as the 'The Wild Geese'.

After the Treaty of Limerick in 1691, the dispossessed Irish on the continent found themselves part of a social system, especially in France, in which status and professional advancement depended to a great extent on the possession of a coat arms and an attested pedigree. Descendants of those forced into exile returned to Ireland in later years to document their ancestry. Many did their researches in the Genealogical Office in Dublin Castle. Formerly called the Office of the Ulster King at Arms, this department was established in the sixteenth century and contained a wealth of information on the ancestry of numerous families.

In 1837 two visitors from Lille in France arrived at Dublin Castle to certify their Irish ancestry. They were father and son, Andronicus and Felix McCartan. Andronicus was the grandson of Anthony McCartan who at aged 16 fled from Ballydromerode (Drumaroad), County Down, with many others after the Battle of the Boyne. Young Anthony had a distinguished military career as a captain in the French army. His descendants played a prominent role in public life throughout Flanders. The visitors to Dublin Castle were both medical doctors in Lille.

In the Office at Arms in Dublin Castle, Andronicus and Felix Mc Cartan were shown Vol XV11, page 357. This reference revealed a comprehensive account of the Mc Cartan pedigree from the Kings of Emhain Macha down to the last chieftain of Kinelarty who had fled with his son Anthony to France. Delighted with his findings, Andronicus sought permission from the Chief Herald to have his father's, his own, and his son's names added to the family line. The request was granted and they were presented with a certified copy signed by Sir William Betham (Ulster King at Arms). The original document is now in the manuscripts department in Kildare Street, Dublin.

In the years from 1879 to 1895 Father James O'Laverty compiled a history of the diocese of Down and Connor. His five volumes are invaluable to the local historian and the genealogist looking for information in counties Down and Antrim. Father O'Laverty's mother was a McCartan. This is probably the reason for so many references to the McCartan clan in his volumes. While doing his researches Father O'Laverty also examined the McCartan pedigree in the Dublin archive. He became aware of the additions made over 40 years earlier by the visitors from France. O'Laverty greatly resented their actions i.e. the inclusion of Anthony II, Andronicus, and Felix to the pedigree. He spelled out his reasons in his volumes thus:

'Enquiries of this nature may have an interest for English heralds but they are comparatively uninteresting from an Irish celtic point of view, according to which every McCartan was equally noble, and from the name an individual was elected to be chief for life, but at his death his children had no more privileges than any other by his name. The lineal representative, therefore, of the last chief - he who betrayed the trust reposed in him by the clan, when he accepted from the Crown in perpetuity as landlord what the clan had conferred on him for life only as chief - has, in an Irish celtic point of view, no reason to boast of the honour of his ancestor'.

Seventy-four years after the publication of Father James O'Laverty's history, a distinguished visitor arrived in Ireland from France. The year was 1969 when General Charles De Gaulle, long time President of France, fulfilled a lifetime ambition to visit Ireland. He was fully aware of his Irish ancestry and had a keen interest in Irish history. His mother had been similarly inclined, having written a biography of Daniel O'Connell. De Gaulle invited many McCartans from County Down to a reception in Aras An Uachtarain and a memorable occasion it was for them.

De Gaulle's great-grandmother was Marie Angelique McCartan.  She was a daughter of Andronicus, and a sister of Felix, who visited the Genealogical Office in 1837. When the History of the diocese of Down and Connor was published in 1898 Charles De Gaulle was just eight years old. Father O'Laverty was not to know that the family he criticised was to produce France's most important statesman of the twentieth century.

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