The Choctaw County McCains

Leslie Gordon McCain with his son, myself, Barry Reid McCain. My Dad has that 'McCain' look to him. He is a WW II veteran and served in the Pacific theatre and worked for many years for the United Gas Pipe Line company. We are all native Mississippians, but my Dad's job took us to northern Lousiana, so I actually grew up in there, but spent a lot of time on my grandfathers' farms in Mississippi.





Here a photo of Leslie Gordon McCain's father, Leslie Harris McCain, with his mother, sister and niece picking cotton circa 1905/1910. They lived just east of Carrollton MS in what is now Montgomery, County. I call this family the Choctaw County McCains, because when they settled in Mississippi in the 1830s they lived first in Choctaw County. Choctaw County was divided in the late 1800s with new counties being created and this group had families in Carroll, Webster, and Montgomery Counties. The Choctaw McCains are cousins to the Teoc McCains, both families came into Mississippi as the Choctaw Indian lands were opened to settlement.

McCains and Gaelic Society

One of the harder things to communicate about the McCains is their place within Gaelic society, of how they looked, their physical culture, etc. This is because of Hollywood and it reliance upon Victorian concepts of Gaels, and Victorian development of the stage Irishman or stage Highlander. Hollywood and the media in general picked up these themes to the extent that much of the modern concepts of what is Irish or Scottish or Gaelic, comes not from anything remotely real, but dates to some very silly Victorian era concepts.






















While I do not have the time today write a decent article on this subject, I did want to post the illustration to the left as I thought it communicated so well the Gaelic World that the McCains did live in, the real Gaelic world.

The illustration is done by Angus McBride, noted illustrator of history books, especially those dealing in military history. I like the illustration as in it you see several times of Gaels that you would have normally seen together including the Gallóglaigh class of the McCains.

My son sent me the illustration and I am not sure which Angus McBride book it is from, but it looks to be a gathering of Gaels landing at Dunluce Castle in north Antrim. You can spot the Gallóglaigh in the foreground with the long saffron coloured leine that comes down to his lower calf. You can see the Irish lord, probably a Mac Dónaill, with his red cape looking down on the off-loading of perhaps Spainish wine. Irish and Argyll Gaels are also in the illustration, an obvious Highlander with his belted plaid, then some Irish Gaelis in saffron shirts (i.e. the leine) that are shorted and not a 'fashionable' as is the Gallóglaigh one. The dress of the Gallóglaigh is very much like that of the Irish lord, as his status in Gaelic society was high. If you click on the illustration it will bring up a larger version.

If you would like to know what a McCain would have looked like, he would be dressed in the long saffron coloured leine down at the water's edge, with the brown plaid around his shoulders. That very easily could have been 'an Mac Eáin' or the head of the McCain family in Antrim circa mid 1500s.


Barry R McCain (c) 2008

Congratulations Mac!

John McCain won the Texas Republican primary on Tuesday, 4 March, and clinched the number of delegates needed to win his party's presidential nomination. Good to see the old Teoc McCain family doing so well and frankly, I think we shall need Senator McCain’s experience and wisdom in the coming years.





Also a nod of thanks to Governor Huckabee for running a good and honourable campaign that kept important issues before our citizens, one hope we will see him in a prominent position in the McCain Whitehouse.


Barry R McCain
Oxford Mississippi