EUREKA MOMENT IN HISTORY OF GAA

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DIRECT descendants of the Down man who was one of the seven men to found the GAA have been discovered. Patrick McKay, from the Isle of Wight, and his brother Joseph are the great-grandchildren of Downpatrick’s John McKay, who was at Hayes’ Hotel, and signed the papers at the inaugural meeting of the GAA. And Patrick will be in Downpatrick and Belfast on April 17/18 as part of a special visit to learn more about his ancestors. Patrick and his brother were discovered by the historian Dónal McAnallen, who has spent 15 years researching the history of John McKay.

The discovery comes just five months since the marking of the 100-year anniversary of the death of John McKay, and represents a massive historical find, according to historian Dónal McAnallen. “It is an amazing story,” Dónal said. “Patrick (and his children and his brother Joseph) is one of the closest living links to the foundation of the GAA. “It is 15 years since I have started hunting for them, intermittently. “I am delighted to have found them. It is a real eureka moment when you realised you have found them, and to speak to them, and to find out they are willing to speak. None of that could be taken for granted.” John McKay is one of seven men to have founded the GAA in 1884.

The seven were Michael Cusack, Maurice Davin (who presided), John Wyse Power, John McKay, JK Bracken, Joseph O’Ryan and Thomas St George McCarthy. There are few who have living descendants and none as important as McKay. Dónal pointed out that Michael Cusack has no direct descendants. Maurice Davin had no children. “John McKay is probably the third most significant of the seven. “He was one of the three initial joint secretaries, and led the development of the GAA in Munster in the crucial first two years.” Dónal McAnallen, who is from Tyrone and worked in the Cardinal Ó Fiaich Library and Archive when he carried out the initial research, but is now the Library and Archives Manager for National Museums NI at Cultra, has been studying the history of John McKay for 15 years. He has learnt the Downpatrick man’s entire history, from growing up in Cargagh near Downpatrick, to working in Belfast as a journalist and then going to Cork, where he was one of seven men who set up the GAA. After finding where John McKay was buried, Dónal helped to organise an event to mark the 100th anniversary of the GAA founder’s death. Dónal explained why he still felt there was more to the story. “It was great to find the grave, and get the gravestone up, but I always felt that the story was incomplete. There was always that sliver of a possibility that there was a direct descendent.” He discovered in 2018 that two greatgrandsons had been born. To illustrate how determined he was, Dónal while in London for that centenary spent his time wandering around the areas of London where John McKay and his children and grandson lived. “I went to addresses that had been connected to McKay. The boys had been born in the early 50s. They lived with parents in an address in Fulham, Burnfoot Avenue. “I got off the train in Fulham and I was walking for two miles. Then as I was getting closer I noticed street names there, such as Clonmel Road (a Tipperary connection where the GAA was founded). Then another street over was Rostrevor Road. Then perpendicular was Munster Avenue. And wasn’t John McKay regarded as the reason why the GAA was successful in Munster.” He visited a few places while there, but he did not find the two great-grandsons. He was undeterred. “I felt there was something serendipitous about that traipsing round Fulham, the street names, and people with small leads, that were little confidence boosters that made you feel you are not searching aimlessly.”

He then took a different approach that would yield great results. “I had been searching the newspaper archives by name but then I thought what if I searched by address? “I put into British Newspaper Archives the address. The eighth result was a letter to the Fulham Chronicle in 1982, from a Mrs K Priest talking about her son, Patrick McKay, who had run the London Marathon. “So, I learned from this letter that she said she lived on the Isle of Wight. “Patrick was alive and well, and they were on the Isle of Wight. “That was why I couldn’t find them, she had remarried and moved out of Fulham.”

This led Dónal to Patrick McKay and he was excited after finding details about the man on social media. Dónal found a man called Simon who he thought was Patrick’s son, who had a planning business. He rang the business. “He rang me back and I asked him ‘Was your father Patrick Terence McKay from Fulham, born in 1950?’ “He said ‘Yes’. He listened to what I said. I forwarded him some details, including a family tree, and he sent it to his father. “That night his father and his sister had a two and-a-half-hour Teams call with me and I basically had to tell him the whole family history. “He didn’t know any of it. He thought his father was Scottish, and from Dundee. “Though he knew his mother’s side was somehow Irish. He had no idea about his grandfather, his great-grandfather, or any of that. He didn’t know about John McKay or any of it. “He had been to Ireland once in 1957 and amazingly he and his brother were pictured in front of the statue of St Patrick outside the cathedral in Kilkenny and they are both holding Camans (hurls). He had no idea of any family connection to it. “He was seven and had not been back to Ireland since.” One can only imagine what it was like to learn so much in such a short space of time. Dónal said: “He was taken aback because I had a lot of explaining to do. They must have been wondering why I was bothering them. “The big thing for me was when I was telling him about the tragedies in his story, I had a fear they might not want to know. “He didn’t know who his father was, he hadn’t seen him since he was five. “Can you imagine learning in one call, who your father was, where he was from, what had happened to him, who your grandfather was, who your great-grandfather was, where they came from. “Your great-grandfather’s success in sport and journalism, and also about the grand-uncle as a theatrical producer and his tragic end. That is a lot to take in at once. That is a lot to take in.” The next step is for Patrick McKay to come to Ireland to further realise what his greatgrandfather helped to set up. He will travel over with his son and daughter.

Next Wednesday (the 17th of April) 73-year-old Patrick will travel to Downpatrick to see where his great-grandfather came from and learn about the history of a side of his family that just a few months ago he had no idea about. He will also visit the RGU Downpatrick club. He will then travel to Belfast on the 18th of April, where he will oversee the unveiling of the blue plaque which was on the Irish News building on Donegall Street. It will be put up again on the new Irish News building off Fountain Street.

He will also attend an event where St Malachy’s College are launching a book about Malachians who fought in the First World War on 18 April. The next day they are going to go to Dublin to Croke Park. Dónal said that the discovery of Patrick McKay has uncovered more than he expected. “I found in this one fell swoop that both great grandsons that I was looking for were alive, and the one I spoke to has a son and daughter, and the son has a son and a daughter. So I found that not only is the fourth generation alive, but also that a fifth and sixth generation are alive.”

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