Origins of the surname Kinch

[XISCify]

The mythology in my family is that the Kinches made their home on the England/Scotland border because they were bellicose (no mention of where they came there from), then moved to Wicklow in the plantations of the 1600s. Some very old relatives have said they were told a kinch is a noose.

My grandfather told me stories of the men walking down the street "and if an Irishman got in their way they'd knock him over the fence. If he complained, they'd knock him back over onto the street".

They came to the US in the 1800s after an uprising during which my ggg grandmother lay in a field with her children for 3 days hiding from the Irish.

[RedMystic]

Thanks XISCify.

That is a fascinating story. It will be interesting to dig around to see if there's any verification of an 1800s uprising.

What do you suppose the old people meant when they said "a Kinch is a noose". Does that mean it's another word for a noose or being one leads to early & perhaps a violent end?

[XISCify]

A quick google search turns up definitions of "kinch" as a word for a noose or loop in a rope, and also as slang for "an unfair advantage". (online dictionaries and etymology sites, an excerpt from a book called "Death of a Joyce Scholar"). Whether it's a coincidental homophone or maybe separate lines of Kinches got their names in different ways, my older relatives were quite fond of this bit of trivia.

I don't know how accurate family legend is, but given my ancestor's boasts of how they treated the Catholics, and that they didn't see themselves as Irish even after being there for 200 years, it seems believable that they would have reason to flee...
I also don't know how big an "uprising" we're talking. It could have just been 1 angry mob, or ongoing Catholic/Protestant hostilities