McIlvenan/ McIlvanen/McIlveenan family of Cullybackey, Co Antrim

Brian,

Linen weaving was a very common occupation in Co Antrim in the 1800s. Most labouring families wove linen. (Sometimes other materials like calico, wool or cotton). It was done at home on a portable loom such as are still used in the Outer Hebrides to make Harris Tweed. It could be collapsed and moved if not needed or if the family were moving to live elsewhere, as labourers often did. The linen was sold at local markets, in this case either Ahoghill or Ballymena. It provided cash in a society where much business was done on a barter basis.

The linen income meant that most labourers in Ulster were slightly better off than their counterparts elsewhere in Ireland, and so were not hit as badly during the famine years.

Most of the population around Cullybackey are descended from Scots who settled there in the 1600s so the family information that they had Scotch heritage will be correct. Added to that is the fact they were Presbyterian. Presbyterianism was established in Scotland in the mid 1500s and brought to Ireland by Scots settlers in the 1600s, many of whom settled in Antrim as it is the closest county to Scotland (just 11 miles away at the closest point).

You are perhaps curious as to why some went back to Scotland. Ireland lacks natural resources. No coal, oil, iron ore etc, and so apart from a modest amount of shipbuilding in Belfast and the Belfast linen mills (which mostly only employed women or teenagers as they were cheaper & nimbler), it did not really get the industrial revolution that benefited England and Scotland where mills, steelworks, ship building, coal mining and all their support industries were major employers creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Much better paid than subsistence farming or weaving. (Labourers usually did weaving in the winter months when there wasn’t much farm work needed). Added to that you had the effects of a massive population explosion in Ireland – up from 3 million in 1750 to 8 million in 1841 (no-one is really sure of the reasons why but reduced neo-natal deaths seem to be a factor) and the famine. So some push factors and some pull factors saw huge numbers of people leave Ireland. Something like 8 million people emigrated from Ireland between 1801 & 1921.

https://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/emigration-Ireland-19th-century.html

The famine wasn’t the start of migration from Ireland. People had been pouring out of it all through the 1800s. The famine just speeded it up a bit.

If you look at the Scottish censuses for the Glasgow area in the late 1800s, you will see that about every fifth person recorded there was born in Ireland. Scotland was a particularly popular place to go to work because it was easy and very cheap to get to. Several sailings every day from Belfast, plus regular sailings from Portrush, Ballycastle and Londonderry, not to mention Dublin. The shipping companies main business was cargo and the passengers were just top-up revenue. Competition was fierce and passenger fares very low. People working in Scotland could come home for weddings or the harvest, as well as holidays (Glasgow used to shut down for 2 weeks every July, known as the Glasgow Fair holiday and there would then be a huge exodus to Ireland).  You could also send children back to stay with their grandparents, thereby leaving the wife free to work. You couldn’t do all those things so easily from Australia, America or Canada.  For Presbyterians, Scotland also had the benefit of being culturally very close as well as geographically. Something that persists to this day, in religion, music eg piping, sport etc. The experience and welcome offered to a Presbyterian from Ireland was generally much better than that given to a Roman Catholic. For further information see:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zr6ycdm/revision/2

Going to Scotland or England and then moving again was quite common and known as stepped migration.

The 1851 census is just a fragment, for the parish of Craigs. Most of it was destroyed. I’d guess your family lived somewhere not covered by the fragments. They most likely attended Cullybackey Cunningham Memorial Presbyterian church which has records back to 1729 (when the church was built). There’s a copy of those early records in the Presbyterian Historical Society in Belfast. They are not on-line anywhere. If you e-mail them they may do a look up for you, if you are looking for baptisms. They have been indexed so are easy to search.

http://www.presbyterianhistoryireland.com

Cullybackey Presbyterian doesn’t have a graveyard and most folk use the Reformed Presbyterian graveyard, though there is also a former United Presbyterian church which has a graveyard. The United Presbyterian was a secession Presbyterian church established around 1830.  Akin to the Free Church of Scotland, it has no records before about 1860. They used to get their Ministers from Scotland and were known locally as the Scots Kirk.

Cullybackey Reformed Presbyterian graveyard has:

Erected by Kyle McClean, of Ballymena in loving memory of his daughter Mary Simpson McClean, who died 10th Novr 1893, His son James, died 13th Novr 1859, His daughter Isabella, died 26th June 1898, Also his wife Eliza White McClean, died 9th May 1900, Also the above named Kyle McClean, who died 11th June 1905. Also his daughter Agnes Alexander, died 12th June 1928, Also his daughter Margaret White McClean who died 16th February 1931 And his daughter Sarah McClean, died 17th May 1933 "I am the resurection and the life"

Craigs Church of Ireland has:

McClean in loving memory

And

McLean in loving memory of a dear husband and father Robert died 1st January 1987.

And

McLean Dickson

I don't see any McIlvenna graves in Cullybackey or Craigs. That said, most weavers couldn’t normally afford a gravestone and tended to be in unmarked graves.

If you search on-line you should be able to find William Shaw's book - "Culleybackey. The story of an Ulster Village". It's too big to attach here. It will probably answer any questions you have about the history of the place.