The eighteenth century saw some of the earliest emigration from Ireland to the new American colonies.  Here in Ireland this century saw the greatest confiscation of land from the majority Catholics and its re-allocation to Protestants.  The penal laws remained very much in force and the future looked anything but bright for Catholics or Dissenters [Presbyterians, mainly].  There was a greater fraction of the latter which looked to the new Colonies and indeed for the next eighty years they constituted the larger part of Irish emigrants.  The Great Hunger of the mid 19th century changed all that.  However it is notable that a considerable number of the individuals listed below as passengers on the ‘Buchannon’ out of Newry for New York in October 1765 bear surnames that are indicative of their belonging to the Catholic rather than the Protestant community - Brady, McCanna, Keran, Maginis, Kearns, Mooney, McChesney.  This ship’s list was reproduced in the Belfast Newsletter of the time, clearly as advertisement to induce others to follow the example.

In America the War of Independence was soon to begin.  In fact that fatal year of 1765 saw the passing in the British Commons of the Stamp Act that imposed direct taxes on the American colonists, the principal issue of contention that would ignite the coming conflagration.  Also the Quartering Act of May of that year also required the colonists to provide barracks and supplies for British soldiers.

The ship belonged to Mr John Eccles of Newry.  The passage, which was uneventful though well-provisioned took 8 weeks and 6 days.  The captain was named Cochran.  One passenger had the same surname and indeed, a generation later one of this surname would be hanged in Newry for his part in the United Irishmen rising.

Joseph Shekelton       Edward Keran          John Hanna
John Lockhart            Ben Dyas         George McAdam
Neil Hardy                 Mick Carolin    James Blackwood
Sarah Lockhart          John Maginis        Nesbitt Deane
Hannah Stuart           James Osburn    John Williamson
John North                John Kearns    John Montgomery
John Hall                   Elhanah Deane   William Pearson
Richard Barlow            William Deane       Allen Willson
William Field               Thomas North      John Cochran
David Clark                Thomas Wier   Andrew Robinson
Thomas Clark            John McMahon  Walter Crawford
John Reynolds            Thomas Blakeney  Robert Wiley
William Reynolds   William McChesney  Adam McCulloch
Mark Brady                Patrick Mooney   Neal McCanna
William Armstrong  

Such ship’s lists as this are an invaluable resource for geneologists.   

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