The Remarkable Story of Francis McKane

As I have worked collecting McCain clan lore over the years, I have noticed how many McCains have served, often in harm’s way and dramatic fashion, in the military. Given our Gallóglaigh origins, perhaps something deep in our psyche leads McCain men to seek this path. Here is the very poignant story of one of our family, Francis McKane, his remarkable story:

Francis McKane took the road of many McCains before him; he joined the military during the Depression years in Scotland. He entered the Royal Artillery and shipped out from Hong Kong in 1938, just in time to become involved in some of the hardest and most brutal fighting seen in WW II. He rose to the rank of Senior Sergeant with his own gunnery detachment. The world knows the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941, on the 8th they attacked Hong Kong and Francis McCain’s world changed forever. Francis has volunteered to act as spotter for his battery, which placed him in an obsolete biplane flying into the face of the fighting to observe the effects of his artillery. His battery was the last one to fall in the defence of Hong Kong and he went into four long years of very hard and cruel captivity. (photo right, Francis McKane 1938)


In September 1942 he and 1800 other POWs were locked in the hold of the Japanese transport the Lisbon Maru. They were the Allied prisoners that had been captured in Hong Kong nine months earlier. The Lisbon Maru was called the Hell Ship as the POWs were kept in appalling conditions of filth, disease and malnutrition. They were being transported to Japan as slave labour. On 1 October, 1942, the Lisbon Maru was spotting by the US Submarine Grouper off of Shanghai. The sub fired six torpedoes and immediately came under attack from Japanese patrol boots and aircraft and sank deep and quickly left the area. One torpedo struck the ship and exploded sending water pouring in. The US sub of course had no idea there were 1,800 Allied prisoners of war aboard, nor did they see the Japanese batten down the hatches over the holds as they abandoned ship in an attempt to drown these men. Over 850 POWs drowned. Francis McKane and a few others managed to get out using the breach made by the torpedo and through port holes. Francis McKane swam a very long way in shark infested waters, eventually making his way to a small island. There he was again taken prisoner by the Japanese. He spent the rest of the war as a slave labourer in the shipyards in Osaka, Japan, suffering tremendous cruelty and torture. The bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki came just in time to save him and the other prisoners that were by that time walking skeletons, with their numbers shrinking daily.

Even with the Japanese capitulation he had a long road to get back home, with many sad experiences; he made it back to Scotland via Canada in 1946. Francis McKane is the father of Joe McKane of Glasgow, Scotland. Joe is a physician and participated in the McCain DNA Project. This line of McCains is from east Donegal, and immigrated to Scotland in the 19th Century.



(photo, Hong Kong being attacked, 8 Dec 1941)



Barry R McCain

Two McCains in action in Ireland

A photo of Donovan McCain of Oxford, Mississippi, playing an informal session with the great Seamus O'Kane, bodhrán player and maker from Dungiven, County Derry, Ireland. Seamus is a force in the music world of Ireland, his bodhrán unsurpassed in sound, and has a playing style unique and beautiful. He was very kind to two fellow musicians from Mississippi. We had a very lovely time playing this session with him, having tea and farm brack. He is an amazing fellow as is his son. His son, named Murrough, is one of the very best flute and tin whistle players in Ireland who was part of the musical phenomenon called Óige back in the 1990s. Donovan is the one on the left, with the long blond hair, as if you needed to ask... the second photo on the lower right is of Murrough O'Kane and Donovan McCain on stage in Derry. BTW, I also played in these sessions, but alas, I was the fellow with the camera. Seamus O'Kane's web is found at: http://www.tradcentre.com/seamus/

Descendants of James McCain and Sally King

This is a photo of two descendants of James and Sally King McCain. He was my great great great great grandfather. I was told he was born at sea coming to this country and referred to himself as a man without a country. I have found descendants of seven of the ten children of their son William Delaney McCain. I am still searching for descendants of his children James, John and Charles Vernon McCain. The second photo was taken at the tombstone of James McCain Sr of Lawrence Co IN. (After driving from AR to IN in a small sport car convertible with no makeup) My James McCain was supposed to be a Rev War soldier per a book written in 1904 but if you see this tombstone says born 1776. I do not know if this is an original tombstone or if it was placed there later by someone. If he was a Rev War soldier he must of been a young one, maybe a drummer boy or they got the age wrong. Maybe he was a relative. I was told my people went from the hilly parts of TN to IN. In 1840 my William Delaney McCain was in Greene Co IN which is close to Lawrence County next door to James Sr and Jr McCain. I lost some of my research in a computer crash. Maybe someone will see this and help me find the missing decendents. S J

John Clinton McCain and his wife Ellen Mayfield McCain, the photo taken circa 1930s in Edmond, Oklahoma. John was the only child of Lorenzo Bass McCain, who died at the end of the Civil War and was the son of William Calvin McCain of AL and the grandson of Robert McCain of TN. John and his family were Oklahoma 89ers who entered from TX and homesteaded near Edmond. John Clinton McCain is the grandfather of Bruce B McCain. John looks like so many McCain men I remember from my childhood, bib overalls, hat, brogans, it was their way.

Barry R McCain

The Golden Wedding Anniversary photo of John Melbourne McCain and Ida Belle Dooley, taken on 13 October 1924 at their home in Pine Bluff, Jefferson County, Arkansas. Antrim McCains were early settlers in Arkansas and Texas. This photo sent in by Otis Evatt McCain, grandson of John Melbourne McCain.

Nollaig Shona Daoibh...

The Clan McCain Blog would like to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and best wishes for anno domini 2008

Clan McCain Research December 2007

The research into the origins of the McCain Clan of north Antrim continues to make progress. The research is now centred on a group of paternally related families in mid Argyll. It is a matter of waiting for certain DNA test to be completed and then to see if the results support the existing paradigm. This month yet another important DNA match came in that does strongly suggest that the McCains of north Antrim are the same as the mid Argyll McCain family that lived in Kilmichael Glassary. There is a surprising amount of primary sources on the events in this part of Argyll in the 1500s. This is because of the prominence of the chief land owner of the district, the Earl of Argyll, i.e. the chief of the Campbell Clan. Photo above is of a medieval stone carving of Gaelic Gallóglaigh warriors and is how our men folk dressed from 1200s right up until the late 1500s.

Children of John...

The name Clann Mhic Eain means children (or descendants) of the son of John. Eain is a curious form of the more common Gaelic name Eóin that appears in Argyll and parts of northern Ulster circa mid 1400s onward. Eain is also spelled Eáin in modern Irish Gaelic. Gaelic manuscripts prior to the 1600s were written in literary Irish, both in Ireland and Scotland, and in those the name appears as Mac Eóin. By the 1600s a spelling that reflects the Eain form of Eoin appeared. The literary Mac Mhuirich family of Ile spelled the name Mac Eaain and Mac Ea'ain writting in the mid 1600s. Many modern writers render the name as Mac Iain, but the etymology of that form is really not valid. This family uses several anglicised forms of their name, McCain is most common, but McKane, McKain, McKean, and McKeen are also used.

There are several families known as Clann Mhic Eain in the Gaelic world. Some are well known and quite famous such as the families of this name from Glencoe and Ardnamurchan, Scotland. The family I write about however is from County Antrim, Ireland and has roots in mid Argyll, in Kilmichael Glassary. They are obscure in that they have no widely known clan history, but on the other hand are well known in that the family has many famous members, past and present. Their members include the McCains of Mississippi, the McCains of New Brunswick, Ontario, and Nova Scotia, Canada. There is a small army of these McCains in Texas, there from the days of the Republic. Past McCains include admirals, generals, frontiersmen, the early leaders of the Ulster Migration and today the group includes a senator from Arizona, much accomplished barons of business from Canada, musicians and writers of note, etc. all in all they continue to be movers and shakers.

As mentioned their origins are a little obscure, but this is to change in that their history has been researched in the last five years using Y chromosome DNA testing and primary source records in Argyll and Antrim. Enough has been discovered so that a small history book is being written on them, not only to tell their story, but to shed light on the history of their part of Ulster and Argyll. Their history is complex and exist outside the cut and paste standard story of Ulster. Much of Ulster's history has been stereotyped to the point of comical idiocy. The Establish Media trots out well rehearsed Stage Ulstermen to act out these parts. Certain events are used to construct a cartoon like history in which ancient and complex relationships are reduced to one or two events and polices rooted in the 17th Century. The history of real Ulster, of real Aryll, is a wonderful tapestry, rich, beautiful, the players have been on this stage for many thousands of years, the people and place are epic. There is a web site that has bit of the Clann Mhic Eain story and some photos McCains past and present:

http://ulstermckanes.ulsterheritage.com/

This will be my very rambling account of my long odyssey to locate the obscure origins of the McCain family of north Antrim. It has only taken me circa 35 years to do it. It took a lot of digging through primary source materials in several languages, Gaelic, Latin, Ullans, etc., and using Y chromosome DNA testing, but the journey has been a lovely adventure. I have no complaints.

Mise le meas mór,

Barra