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~ utiles 




©arfaarti College iibrars 




FROM THE GIFT OF 

WILLIAM ENDICOTT, Jr. 

(CUM Of 1887) 

OF BOSTON 



[all rights MBIBVID.] 



Plantation 



Papers : 



CONTAINING 

A SUMMARY SKETCH 

OF 

©be @i?eaf Ulsfei? Plantation 
in the tjeai? 1@10. 



BY 

REV. GEORGE HILL. 



BELFAST: 

RBPBINTED FROM THE NORTHERN WHIG, 
1889. 



"\j .\-\4-U~\ a_.^.S 



HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY 

JUN 241920 

GIFT OF 

WILLIAM ENDICOTT, JR. 



" Now what an excellent diversion of this inconvenience 
[troublesome company] is miaistered by God's providence 
to your Majesty in this Plantation, wherein so many 
families may receive susfcentations and fortunes, and the 
discharge of them also out of England and Scotland may 
prevent many seeds of future perturbations."— LORD 
BACON. 

" My heart is so well affected unto it, that I had rather 
labour with my hands in the plantation of Ulster, than 
dance or play in that of Virginia."— Chichester. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

COUNTY OF ARMAGH, - - I 

COUNTY OF TYRONE, - - - 42 

COUNTY OF LONDONDERRY, - - 81 

COUNTY OF DONEGAL, - no 

COUNTY OF FERMANAGH, - - 149 

COUNTY OF CAV AN, - - - 179 



PLANTATION PAPERS.. 



COUNTY OF ARMAGH. 



The autumn of 1609 was a very notable one in 
t>he annals of Qlster. On the last day of July 
in that yqar the members of three Commissions 
came northward from Dublin, travelling to- 
gether, with the Lord Deputy Chichester as 
their leader and guide, and accompanied by a 
large military force intended to prevent or re- 
press any opposition on the part of the native 
populations. One Commission had been ap- 
pointed to distinguish between the temporal 
and spiritual lands, or, in other words, to de- 
termine what lands belonged to the Crown and 
what to the Church throughout the six several 
Counties of Armagh, Tyrone, Coleraine now 
Londonderry, Tyroonneil now Donegal, Fer- 
managh, and Cavan. Another Commission was 
appointed to make an accurate survey or mea- 
surement of the arable lands in each county, 
and its work was expected to be so exactly per- 
formed that the name and situation of every 
balliboe, tate, quarter, and poll would b3 pre- 
served and expressed on carefully prepared 
maps, as well as the name of every lake, river, 
brook, wood, bog, fort, and any other landmark 
throughout the said six counties. The third 
Commission was required to designate the pre- 
cincts or baronies in each county for their 
several intended occupants, whether English, 
Scottish, servitor, or native Irish undertakers, 
and also to mark off the arable land in propor- 



toions of three Bizes to rait planters. This last- 
named operation was perhaps the most difficult 
of all to execute, for the monastery lands, the 
bishopa' lands, and the Church lands generally, 
lay intermixed with the temporal lands in 
almost hopeless confusion. Considering how 
much was to be done, and the complicated 
nature of the work, it is a mystery how it could 
be accomplished in the given time ; for, be- 
sides, and in addition to it all, assizes had to 
be held in each county as they passed along. 
The prodigious labours were commenced on the 
8th of August at Armagh, and completed on 
the 30th of September at Cavan ! It is true 
there afterwards arose fierce and frequent 
quarrels and litigations of planters with each 
other, and wich dignitaries of the Church, on 
the subject of bounds and mearings, but not 
greater or more frequently in this respect than 
might have been expected, even had the Com- 
missioners taken a much longer period than 
seven weeks for their work. 

The County of Armagh, in which they first 
commenced, comprised about 328,076 acres, 
English measure. It now contains eight 
baronies, as three have been divided since the 
time of the plantation, and the names of these 
barocies at present are Armagh, Upper Fewes, 
Lower Fewes, East O'Neilan, West O'Neilan, 
Upper Orior, Lower Orior, and Tyrany. The Com - 
miosioners found that several lands in this 
county could not be claimed for the Crown, 
and consequently could not be made available 
for plantation purposes. As such lands lay 
chiefly in the two barDnies of Armagh and 
Tyrany, the Commissioners of Survey, and the 
Commissioners appointed to mark off the pro- 
portions, had only to devote themselves to the 
three other baronies of Oneilan, Orior, and the 
Fewes. The Commissioners whose duty it was 
to determine what) lands in each county were 
vested in the Crown reported in reference to 
Armagh that " All the lands of the said county 
are now in the real and actual possession of the 



Grown, exoept the demesne lands belonging to 
the Archbishop of Armagh ; and exoept the in- 
heritance of the heirs of Sir Nicholae Bagnall, 
deceased, in the barony of Orier and in the 
barony of Oneilan ; and exoept the inheritance 
of SirTirlagh MaoHenry O'Neill, lying in the 
barony of the Fewee ; and exoept the inherit- 
ance of the heirs of Sir Henry Oge O'Neill, de- 
ceased, in the barony of Tyrany ; and exoept 
the lands belonging to the Dean of the cathedral 
church of Armagh, or to the prior and vicars 
choral of the same church, or to the Abbey of 
St. Peter and St. Paul; and exoept the in- 
heritance of Marmadnke Whitechnrch and 
Patrick M'Felomy O'Hanlon." 

With respect to the several exceptions men- 
tioned in the foregoiog paseage from the Com- 
missioners' report a few explanatory remarks 
may be necessary. In the "Abstract of 
Titles," drawn up by Sir John Davys, the At- 
torney-General, who was very actively engaged 
on this Commission, he says— "And now by 
virtue of a commission taken at Armagh, 12bh 
August, 1609, to inquire of the ecclesiastical 
lands in that and other counties, and to dis- 
tinguish the same from the lands of the Crown, 
it is found that the Archbishop of Armagh is 
seised, in right of his archbishoprick, of 26 
towns, or thereabout, as of his mensal or de- 
mesne lands, and that he ought to have certain 
perpetual rents and other duties out of 160 
towns more (which are not found to be termon 
or herenach lands), lying in several territories 
of this county ; but the tenants thereof being 
now Irish are found to be inheritors thereof 
time out of mind, according to the Irish 
customs of tanistry and gavelkind ; and that 
the Lord Primate could not remove the said 
tenants at his pleasure." Sir Tirlagh Mac Henry 
O'Neill, of the Fewee, was brother-in-law of 
Hugh O'Neill, the great Earl of Tyrone ; and 
Sir Henry Oge O'Neill was the Earl's son in- 
law. Although both had held their lands from 
the Earl as chief or head of the whole Clann 



O'Neill, yet they deserted him, and got grant* 
of their lands from the Grown in their own 
name. Sir Henry Oge's loyalty to the Gov- 
ernment induced him to volunteer against 
O'Dogherty in 1608, and daring that brief con- 
flict of only three months' duration he (Sir 
Henry) and his eldest son were Blain. His lands 
lay on both sides of the Blackwater, part 
of his large estate being in the barony 
of Tyrany, County Armagh, and the other and 
larger part on the western bank in Tyrone. 
This latter portion was known as Mnnnterbirn, 
now Caledon ; and Sir Henry Ocre'B grandson 
was the Felomy Roe O'Neill of 1641. Sir Tir- 
lagh had also a large estate in the Fewes. He 
had owned also the well-known Galloglass lands, 
in the small barony of Armagh, which had been 
appropriated by the Government, and he 
wanted compensatory lands in the barony of 
Tyrany for this loss. Chichester was willing 
to make some allowance in the Bhape of more 
bounds— larger territory— if Sir Tirlagh would 
remove to the County of Cavan, but he pre- 
ferred remaining in the Fewes, although about 
to be hemmed around there by Scottish 
settlerB, rather than risk any surrender of his 
ancestral estate. 

As to the exception of lands belonging to the 
dean, Davys explains in his "Abstract Of 
Titles " thus :— " There are but three towns 
and odd sessiagh's found to belong to the Dean, 
but there are nine towns and odd se*siaghs 
found to belong to the vicars choral, to 
which we think he has no title ; howbeit the 
jurors cannot find that the said lands at any 
time were in the possession of the said dean 
and prior, but that the said book (an old book 
shown to the jurors by the dean) mentions that 
there was paid out of the town of Dromagh 
six shillings, one mutton, and one lossett of 
butter unto the prior ; and rents to the dean 
out of the other lands." According to Chi- 
chester's opinion the Church machinery there 
was not in a hopeful condition when he had visited 



Armagh in the autumn of 1005. "And first; 
id the church there," he writes to the Council 
in London, "which was much ruined and 
fatten to decay, we found a number of priests, 
all ordained by foreign authority, and holding 
their dignities and prebends by bolls from 
Rome— not one man amongst them disposed to 
celebrate Divine service and sacraments accord- 
ing to his Majesty's laws. We found also 
that certain tithes of great value, intended for 
the support of a college of twenty-two vicars 
choral of that church, were demised in lease 
by Mr. Wood without any lawful authority." 
At least twenty townlands of the Abbey of St. 
Peter and St. Paul were granted to Sir Toby 
Gautfield; the Bagnall family held Church 
landB in the two baronies of Oneilan and Orier ; 
Whiteehurch had a grant of six townlands be- 
longing to the Abbey of St. Peter and St. 
Paul ; and O'Hanlon had a good service grant 
of twelve townlands, on condition that three 
were to be surrendered, if required, to Captain 
Atherton for the fort of Mountnorris. 

Whilst some Commissioners were thus attend- 
ing to the grave question of titles to property, 
others were engaged in measurements, and 
others in marking off the proportions. They 
commenced with the barony of Oneilan, which 
was more frequently and anxiously~BTjught after 
by undertakers than any other, from the well- 
known fertility of its soil, and also because of 
its nearer proximity to the Pale than 
any of the other baronies. This barony, 
which is now divided into East and West 
Oneilan, then contained two sections also, 
which were known respectively as Clan- 
cann and Clanbrazill. East Oneilan con- 
tains 34,408 statute acres, and West Oneilan 
59,502. The former includes part of the 
parishes of Magheralin and Shankill, with the 
whole of the parishes of Seagoe and Muntiaghs; 
its towns areLurgan and part of Portadown, and 
its principal village is Chartestown. West 
Oneilan contains the whole parishes of Drum- 



6 

cree and Tartaraghan, with part of bhe 
parishes of Newry, Armagh, Clonfeacie, 
Orange, Killyman, Kilmore, Loughgall, and 
Mullaghbrack; its t6wns and villages are Rich- 
hill, Loughgall, Derrysoollop, Maghery, Mill- 
town, and part of Portadown. 

In this fine sweep of territory the surveyors 
only found 16,500 acres, plantation measure, 
of arable land ; whilst all the vast 
remainder was set aside as unprofitable, 
or, at least, described by them as such. The 
arable land in Onellan was marked off into 13 
proportions— eight of 1,000 acres each, three of 
1,500 acres each, and two of 2,000 acres each; and 
this whole quantity was distributed, with some 
slight exceptions, among ten English under- 
takers or planters. The vast scopes of what 
were called waste or unprofitable land adjoin- 
ing or surrounding the several proportions 
were thrown in gratuitously with these propor- 
tions, and this arrangement was observed 
throughout all the other counties; so that an un- 
dertaker who got a proportion of 1,000 acres, 
or 1,500 acres, or 2,000 acres, became in this 
way the owner of three, five, or even ten times 
as much land as was conveyed in his grant. 
But these vast additions were by no means un- 
profitable ; they consisted of bogs, woods 
moorland, or fields that had been under culti- 
vation before the war, but were permitted dur- 
ing that disastrous conflict to become partially 
hidden by whins and briars. These incum- 
brances were easily removed, and the tenant 
settlers often found such patches even more re- 
munerative than their arable acres ; for the 
fields thus cleared, having had time to rest, 
yielded their golden harvests promptly, and in 
many cases abundantly. . The moorland por- 
tions always supplied ample and wholesome 
pasturage for young cattle ; the woods soon be- 
came sources of comparative wealth to their 
owners, as timber was required in all directions 
for building purposes ; and even the bogs were 



found indispensable m affording unfailing rap- 
plies of fuel in the shape of Dogwood and peat. 
The names of the English undertakers, or 
planters, in Oneilan were Richard Rolleeton, 
clerk ; Francis Sacherville, Esq. ; John Brown 
lows, Esq. ; James Matchett, clerk ; William 
Powell, Esq ; John Dillon, Esq. ; William 
Brownlowe, Esq. ; William Stanhowe, 
gentleman ; John Heron, gentleman ; and Sir 
Anthony Cope, knight. After the first twelve 
months' occupancy Sir George Garew was sent 
specially by order of the King to inspect the 
plantations in Ulster, and to report either pro- 
gress or non- progress in every individual 
undertaker's proportion. 



H. 

The following is Carew's report from O'Neilan: 
— " The Lord Saye and Seale, 3,000 acres ; has 
made over his portion to Sir Anthony Cope, 
knight, who ha9 sent over a very sufficient 
overseer named William Pearson, vrith another 
to assist, who are resident. They have begun 
a fair castle of freestone, and other hard stone, 
fourteen or fifteen workmen and nine car- 
penters employed ; great part of the freestone 
for the coynes and windows is prepared four 
or five miles beyond Armagh; two English 
carts or teams with horses and oxen attend the 
drawing of the materials ; there are twenty 
muskets and calivers, with competent furniture 
ready on all occasions ; the way for carriage 
of timber, which is five miles, is made passable, 
and so is the way to the freestone, which is 
eight miles from the place ; two of the 
principal workmen to be made freeholders, the 
rest are to have land upon reasonable terms ; 
sixteen mares and horses employed in the 
carriage of materials. John Brownlow, 1,500 
acres, and his son, William Brownlow, 1,000 
acres ; both resident and dwelling in an Irish 



a 

hpuee ; h*ve bconjAt over six carpenters, 04* 
mason, a tailor, and six workmen ; one free- 
holder and alx tenants on their land ; prepara- 
tions to build two bawns ; some muskets and 
other arms in readiness. Mr. Powell, 2,000 
acres ; has pat over his land to Mr. Ronlstone ; 
no freeholders nor artificers are drawn upon it, 
nor wprk done, save the building of two bays 
of a house. When we were in the North, one 
William Banister presented himself before as 
as an agent for Powell, and said that prepara- 
tions, were being made for building a house and 
bawn, and that divers Englishmen had 
promised to come over and inhabit his land. 
Francis Sachervill, 2,000 acres ; is resident) ; 
has brought over three masons, one carpenter, 
one smith, nine labourers, and two women ; 
four horses and a cart ; no freeholders nor other 
tenants ; has drawn stone and other materials to 
the place where he intends to build. Sachervill 
adds that he has built three houses and placed 
tenants in them, and is building a stone house, 
and has competent arms in his house. Mr. 
Stanhawe, 1,500; was here, took possession, 
and returned into England ; his son, Stephen 
Stanfaawe, is overseer in his absence ; has done 
nothing. Mr. James Matchett, 1,000 acres ; 
his eldest son, Daniel Matchett, age twenty- 
four years, agent ; resident since Michaelmas, 
1610 ; two freeholders upon the land, bat no 
tenants or labourers ; has begun a bawn, and 
intends to finish it before Allhallowtide, and 
to effect what is required by the articles ; has 
provided materials far buildings ; has nine 
horses and other beasts ready to draw the same 
to his work ; has arms for ten men. Mr. John 
Dillon, 1,500 acres ; is resident, with his wife, 
children, and family ; brought over twelve 
Englishmen, with their wives, children, and 
servants ; fifty two English cows, fifteen horses 
for work, six carpenters, three masons, seven 
labourers, and two women servants ; has felled 
oaks, small and great ; has built a strong bawn, 
with houses for lodgings and to keep provisions 



9 

in ; and is well stored with arms and munition. 
Mr. Routstone, 1,000 acres ; is resident ; has 
timber buildings after the English fashion ; 
three men of good sort resident, who 6hail be 
freeholders, whereof one has built a house of 
stone and olay ; seven poor Englishmen, with 
their wives and children, and some servants 
who are to be tenants ; they have four English 
cows and eight horses for ploughing among 
them all." 

The foregoing is perhaps the most favourable 
report of progress in planting which Carew was 
able to make during his peregrinations in 
Ulster in the autumn of 1611. 1. Richard 
Rollesoon, who got a proportion of 1,000 acres 
called Teemore, was a parson, and came from 
Staffordshire. He represented himself as 
having an income of £100 a year, and " goods" 
which might be valued at £500. So far as his 
place of settlement was concerned, his lines 
may be said to have fallen pleasantly enough, 
for his manor of Teamore was near Loughgall. 
Perhaps, however, his profession may have dis- 
qualified him for the special work of a planter, 
as he very soon got into financial difficulties, 
and placed himself in the hands of an English- 
man from Stoke- Pogis, named Francis Annes- 
ley, who relieved him of his manor in a rather 
unceremonious style. Annesley came originally 
as a servant in the household of Chichester, and, 
having saved his earnings, was able to lend ca»h 
advantageously. He got a mortgage for £420 
against the poor parson's " proportion," and, 
by foreclosing summarily, shut off the latter 
from any further Bhare or care as an owner of 
land. 2. Francis Sachervill came from 
Rossbye, in Leicestershire, representing him- 
self as worth £300 a year. He got two propor 
tiona of 1,000 acres each, called Mullalelish and 
Leggacurry, and resided in the latter until the 
time of his death, which happened in 1649. 
Before that date he had sold all his lands, the 
proportion called Mullalelish passing soon after- 
wards into the hands of Sir William Alexander, 



10 

of Mensbrie, a Scottish speculator in planta- 
tions. Sir John Soot, of Sootstarvet, a rather 
caustic critic on some of his contemporaries, 
makes the following entry in reference to the 
Knight of Menstrie: — "He gob great things from 
his Majesty, as especially a liberty to create a 
hundred Scotsmen knights, baronets, from 
every one of whom he got £200 sterling ; he 
also got a liberty to coin base money, far under 
the value of the weight of copper, which 
brought great prejudice to the kingdom— at 
which time he built his great lodgings [castle] 
at Stirling, and pub on the gate thereof Per 
mare, per terras, which a merry man changed 
to Per metres, per turners, meaning that he 
had attained to his great estate by poesy and 
that gift of base money. The King also hon • 
oured him with the bible of the Earldom of 
Stirling. " 3. John Brownlowe came from 
Nottingham, and obtained 1,500 acres named 
Dowcoran, which was created a manor of the 
same name. So long as he lived he faithfully 
carried out the conditions on which he received 
his lands. He built his castle and bawn on a 
townland of bis properby named De*ry or bhe 
Oak Wood, and called ib Brownlowe-Derry. Ab 
his deabh his son William succeeded. 4. James 
Matchebt was a parson, and came from Tre- 
miDgharo, in bhe County of Norfolk. He got 
the proportion of Kernahan, which he was 
unable to retain, and which he sold bo Sir 
Oliver Sb. John, who had gob lands at Tander- 
agee. Matchett was slain during the first 
breaking oub of the insurrection of 1641. 5 
Williim Powell i* described in his grant as " of 
Gastleparke, wibhio bhe honour of Tubbery, 
in bhe County of Sbafford." This un- 
dertaker, who gob a proportion of 2,000 acres, 
was one of several brothers who had all situa- 
tions in various departments of bhe Kiog's 
service. His proportion of Balliworran lay on 
bobh sides of bhe Upper Bann,and occupied bhe 
southern ezbremes of bobh bhe subdivisions 
known as Clanbrassill and Clanoann, in 



11 

(VNoIIan. Ha toon told his lands to Michael 
O'Bynns or Obbyn», of Balliworran, alias 
Portadown. 6. John Dillon was also a native 
of the County of Stafford, and got a middle- 
sized proportion of 1,500 acres, called Mulla- 
bane, which was created a manor of the same 
name. He appears to have been among the 
most energetio and successful undertakers in 
the district. His residence, which he named 
Casdedillon, stood about a mile and a half 
northward from Armagh, and in the centre of 
his own manor. 7. William Brownlowe, the 
son of John Brownlowe already noticed, owned 
a small proportion of 1,000 acres named Bally- 
namoney, created into a manor of the tame 
name. Oo the death of his father, William 
Brownlowe became the owner of the two pro- 
portions of Dowcorran and Ballyoamoney, 
which lay side by side, and were at first under- 
taken by both respectively. William, the son, 
died in 1660, leaving his carefully managed 
property to his daughter, Letitia Brownlowe, 
alias Clinton, during her life, and afterwards 
to his nephew, Arthur Chamberlain. 8. Wil- 
liam Stanhowe came from Norwich, and got a 
middle proportion called Kannagolah created a 
manor, also so named. He had asked for lands 
"in O'Neilan only,' 1 a* several other under- 
takers had done, and lived in bis new home 
until the time of his death in 1635. He was 
succeeded by his son Henry, who was known 
as of Clontilawe, County of Armagh. The pro- 
portion of Kannagolah lay in the old Irish ter- 
ritory of Clancann, stretching nearly its whole 
length from north to south. A portion of 
Kannagolah ^joined the south-western shore 
of Lough Neagh, the Upper Bann separating 
it on the east, from Bally warren or Portadowa. 
9. John Heron's native place in England is not 
recorded. He gob two proportions of 1,^00 
acres each, named respectively Aghivillan and 
Broughes, created into a manor retaining 
the same names. He died in 1616, and was 
succeeded by his brother, Sir Edward Heron. 



12 

10. Sir Anthony Oope purchased hit taro pro- 
portions of Dirriobreeny and Dromully, from 
Lord Sttye and Seale or Sole, the first patentee. 
Cope was born in Cope Castle, afterwards 
Holland House, and belonged to a well-known 
English stock. His lands i a eluded Loughgall, 
alias Tullyard. He died in 1630, and his son 
Henry, who succeeded him, died when a boy, 
and was succeeded by a younger brother, 
Anthony, who died in 1642. 

Among the natives of high rank who were 
removed from O'Neilan to make way for these 
Englishmen was Arthur or Art, a son of the 
first Baron O'Neill, of Dangannon. To dis- 
tinguish him from other O'Neills bearing the 
tame Christiaa name, he was known generally 
as Art MacBaron. He was known also as a 
man who had devoted himself to the 
peaceful pursuits of life, in the midst of 
almost incessant tumult and war. Onsilan 
does not, as might be supposed, derive its name 
from the O'Neills, but from a chieftain of the 
Clann Colla, named Niallan, who lived before 
the O'Neills had become supreme in Ulster. 
When they became the ruling power, however, 
Oaeilan wa9 found to be one of the most attrac- 
tive districts in their Principality ; and some 
or indeed several il embers of the leading family 
in their generations made it their favourite 
place of abode. Oneilan was always regarded 
as set apart to be the home of the eldest son or 
brother of The O'Neill, as the case might ba ; 
the supreme chieftain, or head of the family, 
however, who generally dwelt at Dungannon, 
reserving to himself the right of sojourning 
during a part of the year by the shores of 
the charming Loughgall. This lough was 
formerly much more extensive that, at present, 
and c trained an artificial island, on which 
was built a lake-dwelling, used generally as a 
summer residence, and always as a sort of 
refuge in times of peril. As Art or Arthur 
O'Neill was the eldest son of the Baron, he had 
always occupied Oneilan as a matter of course, 



13 

although his younger half-brother, the greet 
Earl of Tyrone, from the time he became the 
representative of the family, often claimed his 
right of temporary reaidenoe there. In faeo t 
Hugh O'Neill frequently resided ia Oneilan in 
preference to Dnngannon, enjoying, perhaps, 
more oon genial society in the former, and 
greater opportunities for rest at intervals from 
the turmoil which sadly characterised Ulster 
life in his day. In an old map of this province, 
about the year 1560, Oaeilan is mentioned as 
44 Art Mao Baron his Countree," and the lake 
dwelling is described as "Lough Galle, Art 
Mac Baron his chief e house and houlde." This 
position was always gazed at with longing eyes 
by the English of the Pale, who rejoiced when 
any pretext offered them an opportunity of 
breaking from their enclosures for a raid over 
ite green fields and among its comfortable 
homesteads. 

In thu Ulster paradise Art Mao Baron 
brought up a numerou j family of eons and 
daughters. Two of his elder children were the 
gallant but ill fated Brian MacArt* and Ellis 
or Alice, the heroic wife ot Con O'Neill, of 
Gastlereagh, near Belfast ; and two of his 
younger children were the celebrated Owen Roe 
Mac Art, and a sister who married Philip 
O'Reilly, the chief or head of his tribe, «h) 
dwelt in Loughouter Castle, County of Cavan. 
Brian Mao Art was styled by native 
chroniclers the "Bright Star of his Tribe," 
and was feared and watched more closely by 
Government agents and officials during the war 
with the Northern Earls than any other leader 
in Ulster — not even excepting the Earl of 
Tyrone himself. When the Northern chiefs 
of septs in several districts began to grow 
weary of the dreadful straggle, and to show 
symptoms of surrender, Brian Mac Art wioh 
his flying column f» birred them up in all direc 
tiona— in the Ards, in Leoale, at Dromore, 
in Kilwarlin — and soon convinced them that it 
would be safer for them to stand firm than to 



14 

flinch. The Government oame to bhe conclusion 
that at the old Earl's death, or perhaps sooner, 
Brian Mao Art would become The O'Neill, as a 
matter of course ; bat soon after the straggle 
ended. He was done treacherously to death, 
and so vanished all feara of hia succession. His 
name still survives — stat nominis umbra — in 
Mac Art's Fort, and in the locality now known 
as Bally maoarrett. 



in. 



The organisers of plantation in Ulster wisely 
concluded that it would be prudent, politically 
speaking, to give small grants of land to 
several persons among the native nobility and 
gentry who had remained quiescent durtbg all 
the planting arrangement, and especially to 
such as had made no hostile movements at the 
time of Sir Cahir O'Dogherty's insurrection in 
1608. It added, no doubt, greatly to the work 
of the Commissioners to mark off so many small 
shreds of land in those precincts or baronies 
allotted to such native gentry as had obtained 
them ; but even a greater difficulty was ex- 
pected in having these grantees removed from 
their own cherished homes into barren districts, 
where they would have none of the comforts of 
life, and no means of providing them. The 
Council in London, without knowing or oaring 
much about the matter, depended on Chiches- 
ter's powers of solving all such little questions 
affecting the natives. They issued their man- 
date, therefore, confidently, although, in some 
respects, cautiously, as follows :—" The Lord 
Deputy to take order for the removing of the 
natives presently, with as little trouble as may 
be, for making an easy way for the plantation. 
And, if he see cause, he may transplant them 
from one county to another, which, being a 
matter of the greatest moment, will require 
the greatest and most serious consideration." 



15 

The original condition was that these natives 
gevting small patches should be removed to 
barren districts, bat within their native conn- 
ties. In the foregoing " instruction," however, 
which was doubtless suggested or asked for by 
Chichester himself, he is permitted to trans- 
plant them into other counties, should such be 
found necessary in the interests of the planta- 
tion. 

Chichester had some difficulty in bringing 
himself to face this question of removing the 
native gentry, notwithstanding his natural 
obtuseness, and, although he had an army in 
readiness " to withstand and suppress them if 
they will not otherwise be brought to 
reason." He was greatly disquieted also at 
this crisis by a communication received from 
Sir Toby Caulfield, who had been commissioned 
to hunt after and destroy as many woodkerne as 
possible in the Fewes Woods, and who had 
utterly failed in his mission because of the 
general sympathy of the people with the hap- 
less woodkerne, driven from their estates, and 
obliged by stern necessity to follow in the 
footsteps of Robin Hood. Caulfield writeB to 
Chichester as follows :— " There is no hope of 
the people Binoe the news of the plantation, that 
it will shortly be many of their caees to be wood- 
kerne out of necessity, no other means being 
left them to keep a being in this world than to 
live as long as they can by scrambling. They 
also hope that, the summer beiog spent before 
the Commissioners come down, bo great cruelty 
will not be offered as to remove them from their 
houses upon the edge of the winter, and in the. 
very season when they are to sup- 
ply themselves in making their harvest). 
They hold discourse among themselves, 
that if this course had been taken with 
tbem in war time it had had some colour 
of justice ; but they having been pardoned and 
tbeir lands given them [in 1603], and having 
lived tinder law ever since, and being ready to 
submit themselves to mercy for whatever 



16 

of&noe bhey can be charged with since their 
pardoning, they conclude it to be the greatest 
cruelty that was ever inflicted on any people. 
I take leave to assure you there is not) a more 
discontented people in Christendom." When 
Cbiohester, however, had screwed his courage 
at last up to the necessary pitch, on receiving 
instructions from England, he snatched his pen 
and wrote to Salisbury, as if anxious to claim 
a religious sanction for his conduct, thus — 
" Now, upon receipt of his Majesty's directions, 
and those from yourself and the Council, I in- 
tend, by Cod's permission, to be at the Cavan 
on St, James's Day, the 25th instant, there to 
begin that great work on the day of that 
blossed Saint in heaven and great Monarch on 
earth [James I ], to which I pray Cod to give 
gooi and prosperous success, for we shall find 
many stubborn and stiff-necked people to 
oppose themselves against and to hinder the 
free passage thereof, the word of removing and 
transplanting being to the natives as welcome 
as the sentence of death. Most of the Com- 
missioners named in the King's letter have 
prayed to be excused from personal attendance 
in the journey, as well by reason of age and 
impotence of body as of the difficulty of the 
ways, the foulness of the weather, and the ill 
lodging they shall find in Ulster." This letter, 
which commences so heroically, closes by in ■ 
forming Salisbury that the writer has " in 
readiness some dogs and mewed hawks which 
shall come to you as soon as they are fib to be 
carried so far ; the soar hawks are for the most 
part so rotten that I think it the better course 
to send you such as are tried and mewed hence- 
forth, though they be fewer. They are poor 
presents for so rich a benefactor." 

When such waB naturally the profound feel- 
ing of excitement and fear, even amongst thore 
who bad got small but wholly inadequate 
patches to offer even some faint hopes of being 
able barely to live, it was thought good policy 
on the part of the removers to handle Art Mao 



17 

Baron somewhat gently, so that he might be 
persuaded to remove quietly, and thus become 
a peace-loving model for the imitation of all his 
humbler kinsmen and neighbours and tenants 
in Oneilan. Chichester was brought) to admit 
that such natives of rank as bad escaped the 
gallows or transportation to Sweden or to 
Virginia in America, required some small means 
of support, but he pretended to decline taking 
any part in locating such natives, or being 
made in any degree responsible for their 
future loyalty to the Throne. In this caee, 
however, he was ostensibly relieved, for the 
Council in London took upon themselves the 
task of deciding that the aged chieftain wa? to 
be removed to the adjoining barony of Oric r, and 
there to have a life interest in 2,000 acres. 
Art Mac Baron was too old and feeble to 
offer even a word of remonstrance, and 
the only request he made was that the lands 
might be granted to his wife and himself, so 
that should he die before her she might not be 
left utterly destitute. With this very modest 
request Chichester magnanimously recom- 
mended the Council to comply, for O'Neill's wife 
was as old as himself, and both were literally 
tottering on the brink of the grave. The de- 
puty, however, sustained the simple petition 
before the Council only on the grounds that 
granting it would induce O'Neill to remove 
from Loughgall more resignedly, his example 
thus operating, as Chichester expressed it, •' as 
a great furtherance towards the removal of the 
rest of the natives." This small concession ap- 
pears to have had the much desired effect, for 
in the month of December, 1609, he informs 
Salisbury by letter that "Art Mas Baron's ex- 
ample in accepting his portion, and his remov- 
ing from his long continued habitation by 
promise, at May next, has prevailed with the 
multitude according to my expectation, so that 
I think we will sooner remove most of the 
natives than bring others with goods and stocks 
to sit down in their places." 



18 

In this expression of opinion as to the probable 
dearth of applicants for the confiscated lands 
in Ulster, Chichester was entirely mistaken. 
Great numbers, anxious to become undertakers, 
or, in other words, to have shares in the land 
spoil, had to be Bent empty-handed away. No 
fewer than four "consorts" or companies, 
headed respectively by Sir Francis Anderson, 
Sir William Moneon, Sir Maurice Barcley, and 
Lord Saye and Sole, came promptly forward as 
applicants for lands "in Oneilan only." There 
was no lack of urgent Buppliants (euch as they 
were) for homes in Ulster, both of the landlord 
and tenant classes. An old and honest chron- 
icler, the Rev. Andrew Stewart, Presbyterian 
minister of Donaghadee, tells us in his well- 
known manuscript, of the seething multitudes 
that came across the Irish Sea and the North 
Channel to our shoreB. " From Scotland," 
says he, " came many, and from England not a 
few ; yet all of them, generally the scum of 
both nations, who for debt, and breaking and 
fleeing from justice, or seeking shelter [from 
charges of manslaughter in their clan-fights], 
came hither, hoping to be without fear of man's 
justice in a land where there was nothing, or 
but little aB yet, of the fear of God. And in 
a few years there flocked such a multitude of 
people from Scotland that these northern 
counties of Down, Antrim, Londonderry, &c. 
including five other counties of Ulster], 
were in a good measure planted." Some 
years after the first rush of settlers, in 
1609-10, there came another flight, of whose 
movements wehavea brief but interesting notice 
by the well-known tourist or traveller Sir 
William Brereton, who visited and described 
several places throughout the British Isles. 
In the course of his peregrinations, Brereton 
found himself at the town of Irvine, in Ayr- 
shire, where he was the crueet, for a time, of a 
Scottish minister named Blair. The latter in- 
formed Brereton of a great exodus that had 
taken place from Scotland. "Above ten 



id 

thousand persons," said he, " have, 
within two years last past, left this 
country wherein they lived, which was betwixt 
Aberdeen and Inverness, and are gone for Ire- 
land ; they have come by one hundred in a com- 
pany through this town, and three hundred have 
gone hence together, shipped for Ireland at one 
tide. None of them can give a reason why 
they leave this country ; only some of them who 
make a better use of God's hand upon them 
have acknowledged to mine host in these words 
that) it was a just judgment of God to spew 
them out of the land for their unthankf ulness. 
One of them I met withal and discoursed with 
at large, who could give no good reason, but 
pretended the landlords increasing their rents ; 
but their swarming in Ireland is so much taken 
no bice of and disliked as that the Lord Deputy 
has sent out a warrant to stay the landing of 
these Scotch that come without a certifica- 
tion." 

In this passage Brereton refers, as already 
stated, to a somewhat later movement than that 
of 1610, and his statement is interesting as 
giving us glimpses of a very poor but much 
more worthy class of colonists than those who 
came in that year, with a rush, aR if the mother 
country had flung them forth in anger. And 
such was indeed the fact, for the original lot, 
with rare exceptions, had evidently parted with 
their " auld respected mither" very much for 
her 1 respectability and peace. Such, also, 
was the testimony respecting them of 
Josias Welsh, the grandson X>f John 
Knox, who was placed for a time as Presby- 
terian minister at Templepatrick, and who 
mentions that in a period of about seven 
months, during his ministry, " God had taken 
by the heart hundreds that never knew Him 
before." When people of the class thus de- 
scribed by Stewart and Welsh found that they 
had really escaped from their troubles in Scot- 
land, and alighted in Ulster on much better 
lands than they had ever known before — when 



20 

they fold, moreover, that they were thoroughly 
protected in their new homes, and even patted 
by Government officials all around — it would 
reasonably oosur to them that Providence 
had a hand in their deliveranoe, and that, 
. as they now really " felt the way 
of the transgressor hard, " it would be 
better to cease from leading the lives of law- 
less outcasts, and become thrifty and law-abid- 
ing colonists. And they did so ; as our faith- 
ful chronicler Stewart tells us in his own quaint 
style, thus :— " Yet most of the people, as I 
said before, made up of a body, and it is strange, 
of different names, nations, dialects, temper, 
breeding ; and, in a word, all void of godliness, 
/ who seemed rather to flee from God in this en- 
terprise than to follow their own mercy ; yet 
God followed them when they fled from Him — 
albeit at first it must be remembered that they 
cared little for any Church. 11 But it must be 
remembered also that their lands, which had 
rested during the war, soon yielded these new- 
comers such golden harvests that on reaping 
the first season's crops they had enough and to 
spare; so that when their poor kinsmen who dwelt 
between Aberdeen and Inverness found that 
they could send food from Ulster on cheaper 
terms than it could be raised in Scotland, they 
forthwith sold out and came hither also. 



IV. 

Although Chichester had not the time or per- 
haps the disposition to criticise the rank and 
file in the movement too closely, he anxiously 
scanned the undertakers, as he occasionally 
found opportunities of doing.. He had already 
so much toil, and worry, and even terror at 
time?, in carrying forward the work so far, that 
he felt naturally very deeply interested in the 
parties on whom it would be mainly dependent 
in the future. His first impressions of the 



planters were not favourable, as he explained, 
when writing to Salisbury in November, 1010. 
" Those from England," said he, " are for the 
most part plain country gentlemen, who may 
promise much, but give Bmall assurance or 
nope of performing what appertains to a work 
of Buoh moment. If they have money they 
keep it close, for hitherto they have disbursed 
but little ; and, if I may judge by outward ap- 
pearance, the least trouble or alteration of the 
times here will scare most of them away. It 1b 
said by themselves that, of the parties at first 
to be undertakers, some have exchanged their 
proportions, and others sold them outright. In 
one precinct [O'Neilan] of those that have ap- 
peared two are churchmen [parsons], and one a 
youth of some eighteen or nineteen years." 
" The Soottishmen," he continues, " come with 
greater port, and better accompanied and at- 
tended, hut it may be with less money in their 
purses ; for some of the principal of them, upon 
their first entrance into their precincts, were 
forthwith in hand with the natives to supply 
their [the Scottish planters] wants ; and in re- 
compense thereof promise to get license from 
his Majesty that they [the natives] may remain 
upon their lands as tenants unto them, which 
is so pleasing to that people [the Irish of 
Ulster] that they will strain themselves to the 
uttermost to gratify them, for they are content 
to become tenants to any man rather than be 
removed from the place of their birth and edu- 
cation." 

The Deputy was thus specially jealous of 
anything approaching to fraternisation between 
the new-comers and the natives, for in thiB he 
saw the eventual repudiation of his own policy 
of permitting no Irish to remain on the propor- 
tions or scopes of arable lands granted to the 
undertakers. And that policy had eventually 
to be altogether repudiated in the interests of 
the undertakers or landlords themselves, the 
repudiation commencing so early as 1690, when 
estates were regranted with the proviso that 



their owners could each leb a third parb of his 
lands to native tenants, and take on native 
labour ad libitum. Even in his own time, and 
with his own eyeB, Chichester saw the evil re- 
Bult of his policy to the general wreck oansed 
throughout Ulster at the very first attempt to 
carry out his plantation programme. The 
whole property of the Irish — from the chief 
down to his humblest tenant — consisted in 
cattle, so that, when the lands throughout 
Ulster were lost to its inhabitants, their cattle 
became of little or no value, and had to be 
handed over— nominally sold—to the new ten- 
ants now crowding into their houses and fields. 
Some of the native gentry who had been 
granted Bmall patches of freehold struggled for 
a time to retain possession of very much 
reduced herds ; but the natives generally, in* 
eluding nearly all who had become grantees, 
were obliged before removing to sacrifice their 
property to a deplorable extent. Even this 
great misfortune, however, becomes a special 
ground of suspicion and complaint against 
them by Chichester in his anxiety to make his 
victims responsible for the results of his own 
evil policy. In a letter to his patron, Salis- 
bury, he writes as follows :— " They sell away 
both corn and cattle, and when they are de- 
manded why they do so, their answer is that 
they know not what to do with them, nor to 
what plaoe to carry them, the portion of land 
assigned to each of them [.I.e., to the few who 
had got little portions] being too small to 
receive and feed them. They seek by all 
means to arm themselves, and have un- 
doubtedly some pieces in stone, and more 
pikes, and thereof can make more daily ; 
but powder and lead are scarce with them. 
I will do my best to prevent their revolt, but 
greatly doubt it, for they are infinitely dis- 
contented. " Of all the planters who came to 
Ulster only three or four brought with them a 
very trifling amount of stock, both they and 
their tenant-settlers well knowing that the 



natives had lota of cattle, and that they could 
more easily supply themselves in Ulster than 
anywhere else. Several of the natives getting 
tiny grants refused to accept them, stating as 
a valid reason for their refusal that they would 
prefer " being tenants at will to the servitors, 
who had sufficient scopes to receive thorn, than 
freeholders from the Grown of such Bmall 
parcels, for which they should be compelled to 
serve in juries, and spend double the yearly 
value thereof at assizes and sessions." 

We now return to the Commissioners, from 
whom we parted compamy as they passed from 
Oneilan to the Barony of the Fewes. They 
were shut out of the two baronies of Armagh 
of Tyrany, which contained very extensive 
church lands and lands belonging to the heirs 
of Sir Henry Oge O'Neill In passing into the 
barony of the Fewes they found that vast 
sweeps of it were wooded, and that a large 
section of its lands belonged to Sir Tirlagh 
MacHenry O'Neill. This immense barony was 
anciently known as Fiodha, or the " Wooded," 
a word which we now endeavour to represent 
by our term Fewes. The old Irish territory so 
called is comprised in the two modern baronies, 
and we may form a general idea of its extent 
by looking at it as a long upland stripe reach- 
ing from the neighbourhood of Richhill to the 
p oath- western extremity of the County of 
Down. In the upper division of the Fewes are 
the parishes of Bally my re and Newton - 
hamilton, with part of the parishes of Creggan 
and Lisnadill. Its only towns are Newton- 
hamilton and Crossmaglen. The lower division 
of the Fewes contains part of the parishes 
of Kilclooney, Lisnadill, Loughgilly, and 
Mullabrack. Its only town is Markethill, and 
its principal villages are Belleek and Hamil- 
ton's Bawn. The two divisions taken together 
contain upwards of 77,000 English acres. 
In the portion belonging to the Crown the 
Commissioners could only find 6,000 arable 
acres, which were marked off into five propor- 



24 

felons, and afterwards distributed by lob 
amongst five Scottish undertakers. 
The names of these five gentlemen were Sir 

J James Dowglasse, knt.; Henry Acheson, gent.; 

" Sir James Craig, knt.; William Lawder, gent.; 

and Olande Hamilton, gent. After they had 
been twelve months in possession of their re- 
spective proportions, Sir George Garew reported 
of them as follows :— " Sir James Dowglasse, 
knight, 2,000 acres ; George Lawder is his 
deputy ; has done nothing. Claude Hamil- 
ton, 1,000 aores ; is building a stone bawne 
with round flankers, twenty-four yards square, 
and a wall eight foot h'gh ; has raiaed Btone to 
finish the bawne, and to make a stone house, 
and has drawn trees to the building ; is now 
building three houses, one forty- eight feet long ; 
five families, sixteen men and women of British 
[Scottish] birth, are upon the land, whereof six 
are maeons ; eighty cows and fourteen horses 
and mares in stock. William Lawder, 1,000 
acres ; Alexander Lawder, resident agent ; 
certain houses built and repaired wherein ten 
families and three servants, to the number of 
eighteen are residing ; eighteen horses and 
mares and sixty cows ; stone raised and timber 
felled. James Craige, 1,000 acres, resident, 
has begun to build a mill ; sown and reaped 
oats and barley ; built some tenements wherein 
are placed some families of British. Henry 
Achesoo, 1,000 acres, ha? raised stone and felled 
timber ; has eight or nine people, who have 
thirty cows and fifteen horses and mares, with 
some arms. Since our return to Dublin [from 
Ulster] one John Fullerton has arrived, who 
presented himeelf before ub as agent for Sir 
James Dowglasse, who informed us that he 
brought fifteen families with him to plant upon 
the hind, with artificers and workmen. A 
pretty castle upon the pass of the Moyrye, 
built in the time of the late Earl of Devon- 
shire's [Lord Mountjoy's] Government here, at 
the Queen's charge ; where Captain Anthony 
Smith is constable, and has a ward of twelve 



25 

men j has drawn some families of British to 
dwell upon the lands thereunto adjoining, 
which to a good Telief to passengers between 
Dnndalke and the Newrye." 

The first and largest undertaker on the fore- 
going list was Sir James Dowglasse, one of the 
King's servants, whose native place was Spott, 
in Haddingtonshire, and who went to England 
with James I. on his aooession to the English 
Throne in 1603. Dowglasse became popular in 
the Royal household, and soon got several sub' 
Btantial pickings in addition to his wages as a 
servant. He got. by Royal grant, the fines 
levied from many Roman Catholic gentlemen 
for " recusancy," or, in other words, for re* 
fusing to attend the services of the English 
Church. This grant of extensive lands in the 
Fewes was conferred on Dowglasse simply that 
he might be able to realise a round sum by the 
sale of it, for few, if any, of the King's servants 
who had obtained grants in Ulster ever cared 
to leave their comfortable quarters in the Royal 
palaces of England. Accordingly Dowglasse 
sold his estate in the Fewes, known as Clan- 
carney, to Sir Archibald Acheson, in May, 
1611, very soon after he had taken 
out his patent. 2. Henry Acheson came from 
Edinburgh, and got the proportion called Cool e- 
malish, which was created a manor of the 
same name. This planter was soon obliged, 
from failing health, to return to Scotland, and 
he never appears to have revisited Ulster again. 
He bequeathed his lands in the Fewes to his 
brother, Sir Archibald, whose lands of Clan- 
carney adjoined Coolmalish. These brothers 
were involved in frequent litigation with the 
Primate and Dean of Armagh, who claimed 
portions of their property as belonging to the 
Church. The Achesons, however, were gener- 
ally successful in these lawsuits, although in 
one they were the plaintiffs and in another the 
defendants. 3. Sir James* Craig was a servant 
in the Royal household, coming also 
from Scotland with the King in 



26 

but it is not known to what district north of 
the Tweed be originally belonged. He was 
clerk of the wardrobe, and had probably com- 
menced his career as a tailor. He was dis- 
tinguished, however, by several marks of the 
Royal favonr, including the dignity of knight- 
hood, coupled with this grant of lands In the 
Fewes. His proportion was known as the 
manor of Magheryeotrim. He very eoon sold 
this estate, almost as a matter of course, for 
he was an attendant in the palace on all grand 
occasions. The purchaser of his proportion was 
• John Hamilton, a neighbouring planter. 4. 
William Lawder came from Belhaven, in Scot- 
land, his grant of lands in the Fewes being 
known as Kilruddan. Lawder sold his property 
to John Hamilton, December 4, 1614. 5. Claude 
Hamilton came from a place called Grichnes, 
and was one of the first undertakers 
for lands in Ulster to get out his patent ; his 
proportion was known as the manor of Edene- 
veagh. During the time he held it he had 
much litigation with Robert Maxwell, Dean of 
Armagh, respecting several portions of his pro- 
perty claimed as Church land. He sold out, 
however, to John Hamilton, who got a Crown 

grant, in 1617, of the several proportions he 
ad purchased in the Fewes, and from whom 
the place now known as Hamiltonebawn was 
originally named. It was afterwards celebrated 
in one of Dean Swift's most popular poems. 

The planters in the Fewes were greatly 
harassed by woodkerne, who frequented the 
extensive woods in tbao barony, and in the ad- 
joining barony of O'Neilan. Cattle- lifting was 
the principal offence charged against these 
marauders, and io was sternly punished. The 
following among other records remain from the 
spring assizes held at Armagh in the month of 
March, 16131614 :— " Brian O'Mullan and 
William Allen stole a cow worth £4, the pro- 
perty of Richard Hanley ; guilty ; to be exe- 
cuted. Hugh O'Creggan, of Creena, stole a 
grey mare worth £6 6s 8d, at Drumullen ; 



27 

guilty ; to be executed. Lachlln O'Hanlon, of 
arrioklaghan, stole three cows, value 20a 
each, on the lObh of December, 1614 ; guilty ; 
to be executed. Art M'Gilichree and Killese 
M'Kerney stole a black gelding worth £4, 
belonging to Patrick Gran ton, of Drumfergus ; 
guilty ; to be executed These culprits were 
hanged immediately after sentence had been 
pronounced, the custom, at least in UlBter, 
then being to put halters on their necks in the 
dock, and lead them away through the most 
public streets to the place of exeoution. 



The Commissioners passed from the Fewes info 
the barony of Orier, now written Orior, 
and entered the first of those plantation pre- 
cincts set apart for servitors and natives. In 
every one of the five counties intended for plan- 
tation by English and Scottish undertakers, 
some barony considered more rugged and un- 
attractive than the others was allotted to such 
native gentry as had obtained small grants by 
their compliance or connivance with the Govern- 
ment. The barony of Orior wa8 found to be 
more suitable for this purpose than any of the 
other divisions of the County Armagh, although 
it contained several sweeps of fertile and pleas- 
ant lands. These superior districts, however, 
were scrupulously preserved for a certain num- 
ber of servitors or military officers, who were 
admitted to be undertakers as a reward for 
their services in the war against the Northern 
Earls. _ The servitors in each county were thus 
placed in close proximity to the native grantees, 
with the object) of keeping the latter in strict 
surveillance— an object which it was supposed 
military men could more efficiently accomplish 
than civilians. The servitors had the privilege 
— refused for a time to the undertakers— of 
letting their lands to such Irish tenants as had 



been turned out of their own farms, and had 
got no small holdings from the Government) ; 
and for this privilege the servitors were ex- 
peoted to be specially careful to prevent the 
natives from molesting the English and Scot- 
tish settlers in the other baronies. It would 
appear, however, that some jealousies had arisen 
between the servitors and the Scottish planters in 
the Fewes, and it was reported at headquarters 
that the former were not sufficiently careful to 
restrain the natives from occasional intrusion 
on the Scottish preserves. When this report 
reached London, the great King was wroth, 
aid instantly ordered that, if any servitors were 
justly chargeable with negligence in this im- 
portant matter, they must be sternly dealt 
with. The King's determination was conveyed 
to Chichester in the following terms : — " And, 
because it has been rumoured that some of the 
servitors there are willing enough to see the 
undertakers thus discouraged, that they may 
relinquish their plantation imperfect and quit 
the country, if you should find any of them to 
offend in this manner,you are to discharge them 
of all their commands and entertainment [pay], 
and hold them incapable ot any future prefer- 
ment. And because the servitors have the 
special privilege that they may have the natives 
to inherit their lands, they ought the more care- 
folly to keep them from being offensive to the 
undertakers by thefts and robberies. And, . 
therefore, if any of the natives shall be appre- 
hended and convicted of euch capital offence, 
justice must be severely executed upon them 
without any pardon." 

Orior had been the territory of the O'Hanlons 
from a very early date, for they were a frag- 
ment of the Clann Colla, a great tribe 
which held the supreme place in 
Ulster before the O'Neills were known 
as a ruling power. At the time of the 
plantation their chief was Eochaidh or 
Oghie O'Hanlon, then very old and infirm. His 
son took an active part in the rising headed by 



Bit Oahir O'Dogherty la 1008, bat the old 
chieftain always remained on the .side of the 
Government. He woe adjudged, however, to 
be directly compromised by the fact of hit 
having given hie son shelter in his castle at 
Bally more or Tandragee, for only one night, 
daring the revolt. Although the old man 
might have thus been dismissed, according to 
law, to die hi a prison or even on a scaffold, yet 
Chichester magnanimously proposed to grant 
him a pension of £80 a year in lien of his barony 
of Orior ! And a grant for this amount was 
actually drawn out and offered to the man who 
had been hereditary standard •bearer in Ulster , 
and who, as such, had repeatedly carried his 
banner in the van of the English forces during 
thtfir conflicts with Irish enemies. In one such 
conflict, near the Pass of Moyry, he had all but 
lost his life from a ghastly wound received in 
this thankless service. But he did not live to 
draw even one instalment of his pension, for 
his life was literally crushed out with grief, 
his grey hair was brought down in sorrow to 
the grave on hearing that his son's wife, who 
was a sister of Sir Cabir O'Dogherty, had 
perished in^he woods after having given birth 
to a child. His son, with several associates, 
stood out after the defeat and death of 
O'Dogherty, despite of Chichester's most stren- 
ous efforts to suppress them. Large sums were 
offered by the Government) for their heads, but 
these young men, mere youths and scions, in 
several instances, of the native Ulster nobility, 
each with his desperate little following of 
svordmen, were able for the space of three 
years to keep the plantations in a state of 
jeopardy and terror. At times, when supposed 
to haunt in some particular forest, they would 
issue from another to levy their black mail 3 
and when the settlers in the Fewes expected an 
assault . from the dense woods there, the blow 
was dealt upon those in O'Neilan from the 
woods of Clanbrazill or Clancann in that dis- 
trict. These hapless outlaws had been rendered 



30 . 

desperate by the cruel and unwise policy whioh 
would neither pardon them, nor permit them 
to leave the country, excepting such only as 
would bring in the heads of certain persona 
among their kinsmen or associates ! As few or 
none, oowever, were found to submit on such 
atrocious terms, and as the very settlers at last 
petitioned Chichester to "pardon the wood- 
kerne or permit them to go beyond sea," 
he was compelled to give way so far 
as to permit them to go to Sweden, 
and enlist in the service of Gustavus Adol- 
phue, the Protestant lion of the North— a 
service, however, whioh they bated, and from 
which they deserted at every possible oppor- 
tunity to enter the armies of his opponents, the 
Spaniards. It is recorded in a State paper that 
the military escorts appointed to conduct these 
young Ulstermen to their several places of em- 
barkation were charged not to pass, if possible, 
near any of their former homes, from a fear 
that they should be rendered even more reck- 
less and desperate when gazing on their native 
fields and homesteads, then in the hands of 
strangers. Of course this state of affairs in 
Ulster created a tremendous hubbub in England, 
but Chichester was able to explain every point 
smoothly and satisfactorily. Respecting the 
situation in Armagh, " The reason," &aid he, 
in reply to an urgent and angry letter from the 
King, "why more stealths have been com- 
mitted upon the undertakers in that county 
than the rest is that the woody countries of 
Clancan, Brasilough [Clanbrazili|, Killultagh, 
Kilwarnan [Kilwarlin], the Brentie, the lower 
part of Orier and Oneilan, which have ever 
bred kernes, do border upon them [the under- 
takers] ; besides which Oghie Oge O'Hanlon's 
rebellion left there many a mischievous knave 
unpardoned, whom I have now at the instance 
of the undertakers taken in, and given them his 
Majesty's pardon, and I pray God it may make 
them honest." In this case he wanted to lay 
the blame on the woods, but his own wicked 



31 

policy did more to " breed kernes" than all the 
woods in Ulster. 

This commotion was in full swing when the 
Commissioners commenced their measurements 
and markings- off in Orier. The barony is now 
divided tato Upper and Lower Orier. - The npper 
division contains about 45,397 statute acres, 
and comprises the whole of the parish of Jones- 
borough, with part of the parishes of Forkhill, 
Killevy, Louohgilly, and Belleek. Its only 
town is part of Newry, and its principal villages 
are Forkhill, Jonesborough, and Belleek. In 
this division of the barony the surface is rough 
and mountainous, and here are Slieve Oullen 
and the Newry Mountains, With all their spurs 
and slopes. Lower Orier contains 32,535 acres, 
and comprises the whole of the parish of Bally 
more, with part of the parishes of Forkhill 
Kilcloony. Killevy, Kilmore, and Loughgilly 
Its towns are Tanderagee and part of Poyntz 

S«s, and its principal villages are Acton and 
ountnorris. The surface of Lower Orier is 
undulating and beautiful, with a fertile soil. 
In this plantation precinct, including both the 
divisions aforesaid, the Commissioners found 
15,500 arable acres, which were marked off into 
twelve proportions— two great, three middle, 
•and seven small. These twelve proportions 
were afterwards distributed among certain 
servitors, whose names were Sir Gerald Moore, 
Knight ; Sir Oliver St. John, Knight ; Lord 
Audley, Sir Thomas Williams, Knight ; John 
Bourchier, Esq. ; Francis Cooke, Esq.; Charles 
Poyntz, Esq.; Marmaduke Whltechuroh, Esq.; 
and Captain Henry Adderton. 

When these servitors were in possession of 
their several proportions for a year, Sir George 
Carew made the following report : — " Lord 
Audley, 2,000 acres, in reversion of Arte 
MaoBarron, and 500 acres in possession as ser- 
vitor ; the 500 acres set out, but no preparation 
for building. Sir Oliver St. John, Knight, 
1,500 acres, as servitor ; is making preparations 
for building. Sir Gerrott Moore, Knight, 



» 

1,000 acres, as servitor ; has left the meet part 
to Captain Anthony Smith, who has promised 
to perform the oonditions required. Sir John 
Boarohler, Knight, and Captain Franois Ceoke, 
1,000 acres apieoe, as servitors ; Sir John Bour- 
chier Is providing materials for building, 
lieutenant Charles Poyntz, 200 acres, as ser- 
vitor ; has provided timber and materials for 
the buildings. Arte feaeBarron, of that country, 
has removed with tenants to lands allotted in 
Oryer. Oarbery M'Gann, ehief of his name, 
has sold his portion in Oryer, and is removed to 
Clandeboy, where he has lancfe of Oonn O'Neale. 
The fort of Mountnorris is a good fort, well 
rampierd, with bulwarks, and a palisade, and a 
. fair deep ditch ; within this fort Captain 
Anderton has built a fair eagework house, and 
others to keep victual and munition in ; some 
inhabitants of English and Irish, who have 
settled themselves, have built good houses after 
the manner of the Pale, which U a great relief 
and oomfort for passengers between the Newry 
and Armagh ; .it is a place of special import 
upon all occasions of service, and fit to be 
maintained. The servitors being charged by 
us with backwardness in having done so little, 
answered for the most part that they had not 
taken out their patents until the end of Candle- 
mas term last, and that by reason the British 
[Scottish] do yet retain natives who' ought to 
be their [the servitors] tenants, they are dis- 
abled to put things forward as otherwise they 
would, but thev will go roundly in hand with 
their works this next spring, as they have 
promised us." 



VI. 

The first on the foregoing list of servitors, 
named variously Gerrot, Garrett, and Gerald 
Moore, was son of Sir Edward Moore, of Melll- 
f ont, near Drogbeda, who had come from Kent 



3S 

daring the war against the Northern Earls, 
and had been very successful as a soldier of 
fortune. His son Gerald or Gerrot added very 
much to the accumulations his father had left. 
He had specially asked that his proportion as 
servitor might be allotted to him in the barony 
of Orier, and his lands, known as Knockduff, 
appear to have been carefully selected, con- 
taining enough but not too much wood and 
bog. In Pynnar's survey this proportion was 
known as Ballymonehan, and afterwards as 
Drumbanagher. 2. Sir Oliver St. John was 
the second son of Nicholas Sb. John, a 
Wiltshire gentleman. He served in Flanders 
for a time, and was sent to this country 
in 1601, where he soon rose to much 
distinction, and eventually became Lord 
Deputy, although he greatly disapproved 
of the plantation scheme. He recommended 
that no Englieh or Scotch should be brought to 
Ulster, but that the lands ought rather to be 
let from the Grown to the native inhabitants, 
thus securing their loyalty and prosperity in 
8<BCida Meculorwn. His land in Orier included 
the castle and demesne of old Sir Oghie O'Han- 
Ion, but St. John added other proportions to 
his estate as they were offered for sale in the 
district. His grant here conveyed the lands 
known as the Manor of Ballymore, alias Tan- 
deragee. His representative at the present 
day is the Duke of Manchester. 3. Lord 
Audley's name was George Tuohet, afterwards 
Earl of Castlehaven, but he was not a success 
either as a planter or a politician. Being 
father- in law of Davys, the Attorney General, 
Audley was able to secure several grants In 
Ulster, and he appears to have been given 500 
acres in Orier as a sort of sop to compensate for 
the short delay he might have to endure before 
getting possession of Arte MacBaron'e 2,000 
acres. He had not long to wait. The 500 
acres, and indeed tbe 2,000 also, eventually 
formed part of the Tanderagee property, 4. 
Sir Thomas Williams was classed among 



3 * 

" servitors not In pay, bat willing to under- 
take." It is not known whence he came, bat 
beoaaae of hie long services in Ireland the 
Council in London recommended him warmly 
to Chichester. He soon sold hie proportion, 
called Mullaghglasee, to Captain Anthony 
Smith. The fifth name on the list wae that of 
John Bourohier, eon of Sir George Bourchier, 
who had been Master of the Ordnance in Ire- 
land before the appointment of Sir Oliver Sto. 
John. Captain John Bonrohier was classed 
among such "servitors as were willing to 
undertake with some helps and encourage- 
ments." His proportion of Tawnavalting was 
afterwards known as Claire, and became the 
property of his younger brother, Henry, who 
succeeded to the Earldom of Bath. 6. Francis 
Cooke came from Norwich. His proportion, 
known as the Manor of Balliclare, lay in Orier- 
yetragh, or Upper Orier, adjoining that of Sir 
Oliver St. John. Cooke also sold his lands to 
the latter, and settled afterwards in Tyrone. 
7. Charles Poyntz was the younger son of Sir 
Charles Poyntz, of Ironacton, in Gloucester- 
shire. He became an active and influential 
planter, adding considerably to his Manor of 
Brennoge, and eventually getting a re -grant of 
his lands as the Manor of Acton, the name by 
which the estate is still known. He married 
Christian Whibechurch, sister to a lawyer who 
held a proportion adjoining Acton. His son, 
Sir Toby Poynts, left two daughters, Sarah 
and Christian. Sarah married Charles Stewart, 
of Ballintoy, in the County of Antrim, and 
Christian became the wife of Roger Hall, of 
Narrow Water. The estate, which was equally 
divided between these ladies, included 
a small fragment of 200 acres which 
Pynnar calls Curiator — a mistake for 
Orlerelghtra, Upper Orier. 8. Marmaduke 
Whitechureh was a successful attorney, whose 
small grant of Ballymacdermot was soon 
augmented, and in addition to his property in 
Oder he had grants of lands in other districts. 



9. tteary Adderton, or Atherton, obtained this 
grant in virtue of his position as keeper or con 
stable of the Fort of taountnorris. These ser- 
vitors, as Carew states, complained against the 
undertakers for delaying the natives on their 
several proportions, contrary to the conditions, 
and thus preventing them from coming as ten- 
ants to their, the servitors', lands. The servi- 
tors had the same complaints to make in every 
other county, for without the assistance of the 
natives they conld not move iu making any 
improvements, whilst the undertakers would 
not permit the natives to be removed from them 
until the first season's crops could be got 
planted. To meet this difficulty the Commis- 
sioner* issued a warrant to delay the removal of 
the Irian for a time,eo as not to inconvenience the 
undertakers " If the undertakers," as stated 
in the warrant, "are not prepared to manure 
and till the land against next year, so that if 
the Irish tenants be presently removed a gene- 
ral dearth is like to follow in those parte, to the 
prejudice of the plantation — the Irish who now 
possess the land may hold the same till May 
next, paying rent for that time [from Novem- 
ber, 1610, until May, 1611], to the undertakers, 
who on their side are to pay the Irish for the 
corn and fallows when they shall leave their 
possessions unto them " 

In the grant of 500 acres to Lord Audley it 
is stated that "he is promised 2,000 acres in 
this precinct of Orier at the death of Arte 
MacBaron O'Neill, and his wife, bobh'of whom 
are now [1609] very old and infirm." This old 
couple were alive in 1611, but they both died 
soon afterwards, and their removal from their 
own cherished home at Loaghgall very likely 
hastened their departure from what had become, 
to them, a very troublesome world. In grant- 
ing their lands in reversion, Chichester had de- 
termined that none of their children, nor 
children's children, should inherit. Against one 
of these children— Alice O'Neill— he must 
have had a rather decided grudge. She had 



married, as baa been eaid, Conn O'Neill, of 
Castlereagh, an unmanageable sort of man, 
who had a facility for getting into dangerous 
scrapes. Among other freaks he joined the 
Northern Earls in the war against the Govern- 
ment, but surrendered soon afterwards and got 
reinstated as a reward for his prompt submis- 
sion. He was not content, however, to get his 
head quietly oat of the noose, but mast cele- 
brate his restoration by festivities becoming 
an Irish lord. So, as a preliminary, wine 
was ordered from Spain, and on its 
arrival at the then little landing-place at the 
month of the Lagan, he ordered its removal to 
Greycastle [Castlereagh] The servants sent 
on this mission returned crestfallen, confounded 
—and without the wine. They stated that 
certain persons at the port held the wine until 
they could get paid some overcharge ; and 
when they [the servants] attempted to take it 
by force they were driven off and very greatly 
abused. The Lord of Southern Clannaboy and 
the Arde was furious, and in his wrath he sent 
a force more than enough to carry off the wine 
in triumph — not knowing that what he believed 
to be an overcharge was a duty then recently 
put upon wines, or that the persons who held 
hie wine-casks were revenue officers, then also 
quite recently brought to Belfast. But he had 
done the deed —he had levied war against the 
King— he had been thus guilty of high treason, 
and was shut up in a dungeon at Carrickfergus 
without delay. He was to await his trial for a 
capital offence ; he would not have had long to 
wait, and his trial at that crisis, and under all 
the circumstances, could only have had one re- 
sult. But he was rescued by the heroic devotion 
of his wife, who, first having made many pre- 
liminary and most difficult arrangements for 
assistance, next found an entrance to his 
dungeon, releasing him with her own hands 
and at the most imminent peril of her own 
life. Our honest old Presbyterian chronicler, 
tiie Rev. Andrew Stewart, has recorded several 



37 

Important facte connected with tkla cam, but 
did not evidently care to be too demonstrative 
in hie admiration of Alice O'Neill's fearless 
devotednees to her husband. He speaks of her 
as a M nimble woman," bnt if he had ventured 
to describe her as a noble woman his narrative 
would have lost nothing of its quaint dignity. 
O'Neill was no sooner outside the dungeon 
than Patrick and Thomas Montgomery, two 
kinsmen to the laird of Braidetane, got hold 
of him, and carried or accompanied him first of 
all to Donaghadee, where he was hidden in an 
old church for a day ; and at night, Thomas 
Montgomery, a mariner, got him on board hie 
own vessel, and quickly brought him across the 
channel to Largs. From thence Conn was 
escorted in triumph to the residence of Hugh 
Montgomery, in the parish of Beith, " where," 
says the writer of the Montgomery Manu- 
scripts, " he was joyously and courteously re- 
ceived by the laird and his lady, with their 
nearest friends. He was kindly entertained 
and treated with due deference to his birth and 
quality, and observed with great respect by the 
laird's children and servants, they being taught 
so to behave themselves." O'Neill and Mont- 
gomery then and there agreed to divide the 
lands of Southern Clannaboy and the Great 
Ards — the Little Ards belonged to the Savages — 
into two equal parts, each taking a half, but Conn 
engaging to convey liberal portions of his own 
half to Patrick and Thomas Montgomery, in 
return for the immense services rendered by 
them in the affair of his rescue. The original 
document recording this first agreement was de 
stroyed,as we learn from the Montgomery Manu- 
scripts, when Rosemount or Greyabbey House 
was burned in 1695 Conn O'Neill's devoted 
wife survived him, and remarried with Henry 
Savage, of Ard Keen, in the Ards. Her 
youngest brother, Owen Roe, had gone to the 
Continent, when a mere boy, where he after- 
wards greatly distinguished himself as a soldier. 
He was invited to return in 1642, to command 



*6 

the armies of the Confederated Catholics, which 
he did with consummate skill, inflicting a great 
defeat on the Scottish General, Monro, at Ben- 
barb. A renegade named Plnnket wae hired to 
assassinate Owen Roe, which he did by poison, 
boasting of his foul deed afterwards. O'Neill 
felt himself very ill in the camp, near 
Limavady, and was carried to Cloughonter 
Castle, the residence of his sister, Mrs. 
OReilly, where he soon afterwards died." 

Besides Arte MaoBarron there were only 
thirty-eight other natives in the whole County 
of Armagh who got* email patches of freehold in 
the ragged and sterile barony of Upper Orior. 
These persons are all designated in their 
several grants as " gentlemen," and belonged 
to the respectable native classes throughout 
the county, but very few of them were able to 
retain their former standing when removed 
from their homes and deprived of the lands on 
which they had pastured their cattle. The 
surnames that prevailed most among these 
natives, removed from verious districts of the 
county, and placed in Upper Orior, were O'Han- 
Ion, MacAna or M'Cann, O'Neill, O'Hagan, 
O'Mellon, and Macdonnell. This policy of 
placing such native grantees by themselves, 
and so as that they could be most easily 
guarded or watched, was adopted solely on 
Chichester's suggestion. In a document for- 
warded by him to the Council in London, and 
headed «• Certain Considerations Touching the 
Plantation of the Escheated Lands id Ulster," the 
Deputy discourses thus : — " It is very difficult 
and danperonB to remove and transplant such a 
number of barbarous and warlike people into 
any parts of the kingdom ; besides that the 
other provinces are too well acquainted with 
their lives and conditions, and will be as unapt 
to receive them. Therefore, the remedy, I 
conceive, will be to appoint them some one 
part of the plainest land of their own country ; 
or to intermix their townreeds with ours in 
plaiti countries, where they may be environed 



with seas, strongholds, and powerful men, to, 
overstay them, and to proportion those lands 
indifferently upon meet rente and condition* to 
keep th^em in subjection, and that with sunn 
equality in the, partition* that the contentment) 
of the greater number may overwelgh the dis- 
pleasure and dissatisfaction pf the smaller 
number of better blood " [or higher rank]. 

But what of the multitudes who got no 
grants, however small or insignificant ? They 
were utterly cast out, not transplanted ; but 
the servitors and bishops were permitted ' to 
take as many of them as they ooufd accommo- 
date, and these napless natives were greatly 
preferred as tenants to the English or Scottish 
settlers of the same class. But, unfortunately, 
there could not be found room for all on the 
lands of the servitors and bishops, so that numy 
were scattered over the other provinces, as 
hewers of wood and drawers of water, who had 
lived comfortably on their own fends in Ulster 
amidst their flocks and herds. When it was 
announced that the bishops and servitors, qould 
take Irish tenants, it so happened that many 
who had got small grants but had good sup- 
plies of cattle, surrendered their grants to 
the Government, and hastened away more 
quickly than the Government could have 
wished to rent more extensive lands 
from bishops or servitors. Those who 
were slow or too late in thinking of fchis, 
foolishly clinging to the hope that they might 
yet be permitted to retain their own homes, 
were obliged at last to sell such cattle as their 
small patches could not accommodate at 
ruinously low prices. Prominently among 
those natives who threw back their shreds of 
land to the Government were the septs of the 
O'Qufans and O'Hagane. They had followed 
their creaghting, though not to the neglect of 
their crops, throughout various districts of 
Tyrone and Armagh. From the close of the 
war in 1002 until the escape of the Northern 
Earls in 1607, the two septs above named had 



40 

evidently been amongst the leading cultivator* 
of the soil In their own district*, and with what 
success we shall here permit one of their ex- 
terminators to oertify. Sir Thomas Phillips, 
on hearing of the flight of O'Neill and Tir- 
eonnell, made an excursion from Goleraine 
along the wooded ways of Loughinsholio as far 
asDungannon. In a letter to Salisbury, of 
September 22, 1807, he refers to this journey, 
and expresses his surprise at witnessing the 
very prosperous agricultural condition of that 
district so soon after the close of the desolating 
war. " I thought good," says he, " for se- 
curing of the people to go from Goleraine as far 
as Dungannon, and going through the country 
the people met me, and were all amazed and 
ready to forsake their houses. They now begin 
to grow rich, so that for the most part during 
peace they increase very fast in cattle, and this 
year they have great plenty of corn. I have 
passed through the fastest [most inaccessible to 
English troops] country in Tyrone, where I did 
not expect to see so much corn." 

The Government was rather taken aback by 
this move on the part of many most respectable 
natives, who preferred having landlords over 
them to the possession of small freeholds from 
the King. Davys pretended not to feel any 
surprise at this, and sought to explain their 
conduct by the following statement, which may 
be described as the very reverse of the truth :— 
" All the Irish, the chief Lord* excepted, de- 
sire naturally to be followers, and cannot live 
without a master, and for the most part they 
love every master alike, so he be present to 
protect and defend them. And, therefore, I 
am of opinion that if they were once settled 
under the bishops, or others who may receive 
Irish tenants, they would follow them as 
willingly, and rest as well contented under 
their wings, as young pheasants do under the 
wings of a home hen, though she be not their 
natural mother ; and though the transplanta- 
tion be distasteful to them, as all changes and 



41 

innovations are at first unpleasant, yet we hope 
that when they are onee seated in their new 
habitations, they will like the new soil, 
as well as prove better themselves, like 
some trees which bear bat harsh and soar 
fruit in the place where they naturally 
grow, bat, being transplanted and removed, 
like the ground better, and yield pleatanter 
and sweeter fruit than they did before " 
The foregoing extract is part of a letter ad- 
dressed to Salisbury, in September, 1610, and 
Davys was evidently proud of this figure of 
speech about the fruit trees, for he In trod noes 
it again in another letter to Salisbury written 
only a few weeks after. In this second letter 
he states bow he had actually told the Irish of 
Ulster that the King, in ordering their removal 
from their houses and lands, had *' thus imitated 
the skilful husbandman, who doth remove his 
fruit trees, not with a purpose to destroy them, 
but that they may bear better and sweeter 
fruit after the transplantation." Surely this 
was heaping insult on injury with a vengeance ! 
But, after all this man's affected nonchalance, 
he could not help returning again to the fact 
that the Irish of Ulster, even in that the day 
of their direst visitation, retained their buoy- 
ancy and independence of spirit. In May, 1611, 
he wrote once more to Salisbury as follows : — 
" Whereas, it was doubted that the natives in 
this month of May, which was the time fixed 
for their removing, would not have been trans- 
planted but with some difficulty, it has fallen 
out, contrary to their [the Government's] ex- 
pectation, that they [the nativeej are more 
willing to leave the British undertakers' lands 
than the British undertakers are to leave 
them." 



42 

COUNTY OF TYRONE. 



Tyrone is occasionally spoken of aa the premier 
county of Ulster because it is the largest and 
most central fragment of that region which 
formed the ancieno principality of the O'Neills. 
In more modern days that great portion of oar 
Northern province has been curtailed in almost 
all its boundaries, but the present county still 
contains the seat of its early government, and 
is associated more intimately than any of the 
other counties in Ulster with the history and 
traditions of the great family above named. In 
the year 1584 that portion of the principality 
which lies south of the Blackwater was shired 
off, and became the County of Armagh ; and 
in the year following another great fragment 
lying between the Bann and the Foyle was also 
snired off, and was subsequently known, at 
least for a time, as the County of Coleraine. 
At a later period, or in 1608, a third large and 
very valuable fragment, known as the barony 
of Loughinsholin, was taken from what had 
been the principality, and added to the County 
of Coleraine to form the present County of 
Londonderry. But still the remaining part of 
the principality, now known as the County of 
Tyrone, is of very ample dimensions — some- 
thing over thirty eight miles in length, from 
the town of Caledon, on the Blackwater, to the 
Mountain of Croagh, a little eastward from the 
Pass or Gap of Barnesmore ; and not less than 
thirty miles broad along its western border, by 
Strabane and Loughderg. This vast sweep of 
territory contains 467,175 Irish acres, or 751,387 
acres of English measure. These figures may 
be perhaps somewhat under the mark, if it be 
a fact, as we have seen stated, that the county 
contains 450,286 arable acres English mea- 
sure, 311,867 acres uncultivated, 11,981 acres 



43 

under wood, and the remainder water, except- 
ing email portions around several country 
towns. 

When the Commissioners of Plantation 
reached Tyrone from Armagh, they found that 
it contained four large baronies, named re- 
spectively Dangannon, Clogher, Omagh, and 
Strabane. These have been since sub divided, 
so as to make eight modern baronies. The 
Commissioners adopted the old baronial 
divisions as their plantation precincts, excepting 
in the case of Dungannon, which, because of its 
great extent, they divided, naming the lower 
or northern portion the precinct of Monntjoy. 
They found that all the lands in Tyrone be- 
longed to the Crown, excepting the Church 
lands, and excepting about 5,000 acres lying on 
the western side of the Blackwater, which had 
been granted by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Henry 
Oge O'Neill, and were then held by his heirs. 
These lands comprised the ancient Irish ter- 
ritory known as Mointerburn, and were the in- 
heritance of Sir Felim Roe O'Neill, who 
resided at Kfoaird, on the Black- 
water. The termon and herenagh lands 
in Tyrone, although originally belonging to the 
early Irish Church, were found by the Commis- 
sioners to have been virtually in the hands of 
the minor septs, t. e. of the clansmen, for many 
centuries, and, suoh being the case, they fell to 
the Crown, as all lands held by the people were 
confiscated by the attainder of the Earl of Ty- 
rone. The barony of Clogher was the recog- 
nised territory or "country" of Sir Cormao 
O'Neill, a younger brother of the Earl, but 
there is not a word in any of the Commissioners' 
reports to indicate what had become of him, or 
on what plea they had appropriated his lands. 
It was taken for granted no doubt that Sir 
Cormao held his estanes by grant from the Earl, 
and that the attainder of one latter was enough, 
as forfeiting all the lands of his tenants as well 
as those held immediately by himself. When 
the Earl unexpectedly left Ulster— an event 



44 

which the Government) pretended to regard as 
deeply offensive, although it was exactly what 
they wished and wanted— no one was more sur- 
prised or upset than Sir Cor mac, and he was 
the very first to bring intelligence of it to Chi- 
chester. Sir Cormac had been living on peace- 
able terms with the Government since the close 
of the war in 1602 ; so much so indeed that the 
Earl does not appear to have given him any in- 
timation of his own intended movements ; but 
Chichester and Davys suspected Sir Cormac of 
complicity with the Earl, so that when he has- 
tened to Dublin to let them know of the flight 
from Lough S willy he was seized, and soon 
afterwards sent off to the Tower in London, 
where he pined a woeworn captiye for the 
space of eighteen years, until death released 
him. 

However, daring the movements of these 
Commissioners throughout Ulster an incident 
occurred which must have reminded them very 
unpleasantly of the way in which they had 
dealt with Sir Cormac 0'NeilL As they jour- 
neyed from Lifford so Enniakillen the Lord 
Chief Justice Winch, who was of the party, be- 
came seriously ill, and was sent by Colchester 
to recuperate at the residence of Sir Edward 
Blaney, near Monaghan. On the way thither 
Winch informs us that he " was in his travel 
enforced to Sir Cormac M 'Baron's house, now 
prisoner in the Tower." In other words, he 
was obliged to take refuge for a time in the 
Castle of Agher. "His lady," continues 
Winch, " gave us house room, but had neither 
bread, drink, meat, nor linen to welcome us, 
yet kindly helped us to two or three muttons 
from her tenants." This lady was a daughter 
of the chief house of the O'Donnnells, of Done- 
gal, and would probably have been offered a 
little patch of her husband's lands on planta- 
tion conditions, but ebe died soon after Winch's 
enforced visit. She had already, however, 
been doomed to feel and see the Commissioners 
at work around her, for they commenced with 



45 

the barony of Ologher daring their work in Ty- 
rone. This barony contains 97,669 acres, and 
comprises part of the parishes of Agha- 
luroher, Donagheavy, and Brrigal Trough, 
with the whole of the parishes of 
Ologher and Errigal-Keerogue. Its ohief 
towns and villages are Ologher, Agher, 
Ballygawley, and Fintona. The Commissioners 
loond in this barony or preoinot of Ologher 
only 12,600 acres of arable land, which they 
■aarked off into ten proportions — seven small, 
one middle, and two great. These proportions 
were soon afterwards allotted to the following ' 
eight English undertakers, viz. :— Sir Thomas 
Ridgeway, Knight ; John Leigh, gentleman ; 
Walter and Thomas Edney, Esqrs. ; George 
Ridgeway, gentleman ; .William Parsons, Esq.; 
William Tnrvin, gentleman ; Edward Kings- 
well, Esq. ; and William Glegge, gentleman. 

When the above* namd planters had been 
in possession of their several estates in Ologher 
for a year, Sir George Garew made the follow- 
ing report of their progress: — "Sir Thomas 
Ridgeway, vioe-treasurer and treasurer of 
wars in Ireland, 2,000 acres ; has appeared in 
person ; his agent is Emmanuel Ley, resident 
this twelvemonth, who is to be' made a free- 
holder under him ; Sir Thomas brought from 
London and Devonshire, the 4th May, 1610, 
twelve carpenters, mostly with wives and 
families, who have since been resident, em- 
ployed in felling timber, brought by Patrick 
M'Kenna, of Trugh, County Monaghan, none 
being in any part of the barony of Ologher, or 
elsewhere near him— viz , 700 trees, 400 boards 
and planks, besides a quantity of stone, timber 
for tenements, with timber ready for setting up 
a water mill ; he Is erecting a wardable castle 
and houses, to be finished about the next 
spring ; ten masons work upon the oastle, and 
two smiths ; one Mr. Tareiax, Mr. Laughton, 
Robert Williams, Henry Holland, and three of 
said carpenters, are to be made freeholders; other 
families are resident, wherewith he will perform 



46 

all things answerable to his covenants. Edward 
Kingswell, 2,000 acres, has appeared at Dublin 
and taken possession personally ; returned into 
England to bring over his wife and family ; his 
agent, William Routes, has money imprested 
for providing materials to set forward all neces- 
sary works. Sir Francis Willoughby, Knight 
[who sold out to John Leigh], 2,000 acres ; has 
taken possession personally ; William Roales 
and Emanuel Ley, in hiB absence, employed in 
providing materials for buildings; 200 trees 
felled and squared. George Ridgeway, 1,000 
acres ; took possession in person ; his agent is 
resident since March last ; some materials 
ready to place ; intends to go forward with 
building his bawne; some freeholders and 
tenants to inhabit, bat no work done. William 
Parsons, the King's surveyor, 1,000 acres; 
took possession personally ; his brother, Fenton 
Parsons, his agent, is resident since March 
last ; has provided materials for building ; has 
two carpenters and a mason, and expects four 
Englishmen, with their families, to come over 
shortly ; no work done. William Clegge, 
2,000 ; has not appeared, nor any for him ; it is 
reported he passed his land to Sir Anthony 
Cope, whose son came to see the same, and re- 
turned into England ; nothing done ; by letter 
he desires to be excused, promising to go on 
thoroughly with his plantation next spring. 
Captain Walter Edney, 1,500 acres ; took pos- 
session personally ; his son in-law resident 
since March last ; provision made for building 
a house, the foundation laid ; six families of 
English in the kingdom that will come to plant 
and settle next spring. William Turvin, 1,000 
acres ; took possession in person ; his brother 
resident since March last ; has provided ma- 
terials for building ; agreed with four families 
to come out of England the next spring to 
plant, who promised to brine other five 
families ; intends to go shortly in band with 
building a bawne and a house, but nothing 
* done yet." 



47 

The progre ss of these planters during the 
first year may seem slow ; bat their difficulties 
at the commencement most have been serious, 
and their parses generally were bat light 1. 
Sir Thomas Ridgeway exchanged his propor- 
tion of Portclare and Ballykirgir in 1622 for the 
title and dignity of an earldom. Sir James 
Erskine came to Ulster, bringing with him 
from James I. the power of oreabing an earl, 
and this power he was permitted to utilise as 
best he could. He appears to have been for- 
tunate in meeting a ready customer, for the ex- 
change w,aa very simply and speedily made, 
Ridgeway becoming thenceforth Earl of Lon- 
donderry, and Sir James Erskine the owner of 
the lands in Clogher that had been granted to 
the former. 2. John Leigh was an engineer by 
profession, and came to Ulster with the Earl of 
Essex in 1572. Before the time of the Planta- 
tion he had visited many localities in this pro- 
vince as an engineer, and knew many of its 
leading Irish inhabitants. He appears to have 
bought the proportion of Fintona from Sir 
Francis Willoughby even before the latter had 
taken out a patent, for the grant was made 
in Leigh's own name. The engineer seems to 
have had no particular taste for planting, for, 
instead of bringing strangers on his lands, he 
let them off to the Irish occupants at the risk 
of being forfeited for so doing. At his death 
he was succeeded by his nephew, Sir Arthur 
Leigh, who sold the estate to Captain James 
Mervin, or Mervyn. 3. Walter and Thomas 
Edney, who were brothers, came to Ireland as 
servitors during the war against the Northern 
earls, and were generally employed as spies. 
Walter had received such rigorous treatment 
as a spy in 8pain that he died about 1610; and 
Thomas was classed among such servitors as 
" would be content to undertake, but not to 
build, castled unless by extraordinary helps and 
encouragements " Both the brothers, however, 
had soon disappeared, and their proportion of 
Bally 'oughmaguiffe was known for some time as 



48 

the Manor of Ridgeway, and eventually as the 
Manor of Bleseingbourne, having passed 
through many hands. 4. George Ridgeway 
came from Devonshire, and was a younger 
brother of Sir Thomas. He ranked amongst 
such servitors as " undertook of themselves, 
with some help and encouragement," obtaining 
the proportion oi Ballymakell, which adjoined 
' his brother's lands at Augher, and which he 
named the Manor of Thomas Court, probably 
in honour of his brother. 



IL 

The next or fifth undertaker on the foregoing 
list was William Parsons, who came to Ulster 
very poor, and quickly became known as a 
clever but unscrupulous adventurer. He was 
the nephew of Sir Geoffry Fen ton, another ad- 
venturer similarly endowed, and by whose in- 
fluence Parsons climbed the ladder lightly until 
he became surveyor • general. He had then 
ample opportunities for accumulation, which 
he never, by any chance, appears to have 
neglected. His proportion of Ballaologh he 
named Cecil Manor, in honour of his great 
patron, the Earl of Salisbury ; this name still 
survives in Clog her as the designation of a 
respectable residence on the northern frontier 
of the barony. 6. William Turvin came to take 
formal possession of his lands, but it is not 
known from what locality in England h * came. 
He was probably a servant in the Royal service, 
as he soon disposed of his proportion called 
Moyenner to Sir Gerrard Lowther. In 1628 
this estate had become the property of Archi- 
bald Hamilton. 7. Edward Kingswell was, no 
doubt, a servant in some department of the 
Royal household, and he appears to have been 
specially indulged in his plantation business. 
He did not take out a patent until 1613, four 
years after the time appointed by proclamation 



49 

for so doing. He then obtained two propor- 
tions, named Ballinconnolly and Ballyranill, 
both of which he sold in 1616. Sff William 
Stewart was the purchaser of all Kingswell's 
lands. 8. William Clegge was another servant 
of the King, but it is not known from what 
place he originally oame. He sold his propor- 
tion, known as the manor of Derrybard and 
Killaney, to Sir Anthony Cope, so early as 
1611. The last mentioned was the same under- 
taker whom we have already met in the barony 
of Oneilan. 

From Clogher the Commissioners passed 
into the barony of Omagh, which has, in more 
modern days, been divided into east and west. 
The two divisions contain 224,647 statute 
acres, and include part* of the parishes of 
Cappagh, Donaghcavy, Magheracross, and 
Termonmaguirk, with the whole parishes of 
Cloghherney, Dromore, Drumragh, Kilskerry, 
East Longfield, West Long field, Skirt of Urney 
and Ardstraw, and Termonamungan. The 
principal towns and villages in the barony are 
Omagh, Baragh, Sheskinore, Dromore, TrflUck, 
Drumquinn, Gastlederg, and Sixmilecross. In 
all this vast precinct the Commissioners 
only found 11,000 acres arable, which they 
marked off into nine proportions—one great, 
two middle, and six email These proportions 
were soon afterwards distributed amongst the 
following English undertakers— viz , George 
Tuchet, Lord Audley, and Elizabeth, his wife ; 
Sir Marvin, or Mervyn, Tuchet, Knight ; Sir 
Ferdinand Tuchet, Knight; Edward Blunt, 
Esq. ; and Sir John Davys, Attorney-General. 
Sir George Carew reported of this family 
party after twelve months 1 occupancy as follows: 
— " The Lord Audley, 3,000 acres ; has not ap- 
peared, nor any for him ; nothing done. Sir 
Marvin Audley, Knight, 2,000 acres ; the like, 
i.e., nothing done. Sir Ferdinand Audley, 
Knight, 2,000 acres; the like. Sir John 
Davys, Knight, 2,000 acres ; possession taken 
by his agent, William Bradley, resident, who 



50 

ia preparing materials for building a stone 
house or castle, with a bawne, whieh materials 
will be ready before AUhallowtide next ; at this 
instant the walls of the caetle are twenty-two 
foot high, and in breadth between the walls 
nineteen foot, and in length thirty-six foot. 
Already four fee farmers and a carpenter, with 
their families, are ready to be ee bated pn por- 
tions, which they oould not receive until n6w> 
for that five quarters of the beet of {be said 
lands were in controversy, and some of it not 
yet cleared. The said Sir John intends to 
fipish his works next soring, and to plant ajad 
people hie lands according 'to the articles. The 
Lord Andley and Mr. Btunte came out of Bag- 
land since oar return from the North, apd went 
to see their proportions. The Fort of Omey Is 
a good fort, fairly walled with lime and stone, 
about thirty foot high above the ground, with 
a parapet, the- river on one side and a large 
deep ditch about the rest, within which is built 
a fair house of timber after the English man- 
ner. All begun by Captain Edmon I^igh, and 
finished by his brothers John and Daniel Leigh, 
at their own charges, upon the lands of the 
Abbey of Omey, at which place are many 
families of Irish and English, who have built 
them good dwelling-houses, which is a safety 
and comfort for passengers between Dongan- 
non and the Liffer. The fort is a place of good 
import upon all occasions of service, and fit to 
be maintained." 

It thus appears that tine barony of Omagn 
was handed over to a family party, consisting 
of Lord and Lady Aualey, with their two sons 
and their two sons-in-law, for Blunte afnd 
Davys had married Lord Audley's two daugh- 
ters. Here was surely a gratifying spectacle 
for the King, who specially rejoiced to see 
people of rank comiog forward to assist him in 
the grand empriee. " We intend nothing," ex- 
claimed the Scottish Solomon, " with greater 
earnestness than that the plantation of Ulster, 
now In hand 9 with civil men, and men well- 



61 

fe4te£ in religion, should be aceoupliqhcriL" 



/wo special pleas, urged by the lung for 
prompt aqd vigorous action on the part of his 
influential subjects, were— that other countries 
in Europe were watching to discover what taw 
movement in Ulster might really mean, and 
political critfcs everywhere were ready to make 
Japltal put or any or every failure of the work 
(n hand— oc, as he expressed it, " both in re- 
spect, tl^at foreign States do cast their eyes 
upon m. and tine ill-affected at home and 



afiroad will be ready to take advantage of any- 
thing omitted or neglected therein. put hte 
Majesty might have urged another very touch- 
ing plea on his loyal subjects— to wft, that he 
fondly hoped the plantation in Ulster might 
prove the speedy meque of relieving him from 
many Importunate people who would get '* pro- 
portions" as payments, and whose claims of 
various kinds be did not then see exactly haw 
he could otherwise meet. This aristocratic lot 
thus launched on Omagn did but little to re- 
commend the project on which their Sovereign 
has so set his heart. 1. Lord Audley had oome 
from Aditheley or Audley, in Staffordshire, and 
was the eighteenth Baron Tuchet. He had 
entirely failed as a planter In Munster, and 
when the plantation movement was about to 
commence in Ulster he came hastily north- 
W«Mfd. and commenced to prowl ajbout this 
province in atl directions in search of desirable 
localities— a recreation in which he was chiefly 
guided by his amiable son-in law, Davys, who 
had already had many favourable opportunities 
of taking lessons in Northern topography, 
first of all, Lord Audley proposed to undertake 
for 100,000 acres in Tyrone, but in offering fcir 
so much he probably intended to aocommodate, 
and to be assisted by, tie whole xamily party 
above named. He was ridiculed for askjug so 
much, but he and the other members of his 
family* got 11,000 arable acres, and" this wfth 
the proportionable exteni of unprofitable lano> 
would comprise nearly, if not altogether, the 



acreage for which he had asked. Hie 3,000 
acres in Omagh included 2,000 for himself and 
1,000 for his wife Elizabeth, who was the 
daughter of Sir James Mervyn, of Fonthill, in 
Wiltshire. Lord Audley was created Earl of 
Caetlehaven in 1616, but only lived a few 
months afterwards. He does not appear to 
have built a castle, and died at an out-of-the- 
way place called Drumquinn. His Countess 
soon remarried with Sir Pierce Crosby. His 
two proportions called Fynagh and Barone 
were created the manor of Aeley. When this 
property was sold after his death, it was found 
that, besides the original 3,000 in the grant, it 
contained also 3,000 acres of meadow, 3,000 
acres of pasture land, 2,000 acres of wood, 
2,000 acres covered with bramble and furze- 
briars and whins—and 200 acres of bogg, all of 
which had been thrown in gratuitously to his 
proportion as waste or unprofitable lands. 
This account of what was called unprofitable 
lands on Lord Audley's property was applicable, 
more or less, to every proportion granted 
throughout Ulster. 

The second name on this family list was that 
of Sir Mervyn Tuohet, whom Carew, as above 
quoted, calls Audley, erroneously supposing 
the latter to be the family name, whereas it was 
only the family title. His proportion called the 
Brade was known as the manor of Stowey. Sir 
Mervyn Tuchet became Lord Audley and Earl 
of Castlehaven at his father's death. He 
settled on his Omagh estate, and at the time 
of Pynnar's inspection, 1618-20, he held not 
only his own proportion, but that of his 
younger brother, called Fintonagh, and also 
that of Blunte, his brother-in-law, known as 
the manor of Ardleston. He was twice 
married, first to Elizabeth, daughter of 
Benedict Barnham, a London alderman ; se- 
condly to Anne, daughter of Ferdinand Earl of 
Derby, and widow of Grey Bridges, Lord 
Chandos. There was no house of family 
residence on any one of the three pro- 



63 

portions In hit possession. Pynnar re- 
ported on this planter's estates m follows s— 
" The agent for the Earl showed me the rent- 
roll of all the tenants that are on these three 
proportions; but their tenures are so weak 
and uncertain that they are all leaving the 
land. These were in number 64 ; and each of 
these hold 60 acres/which they term a town- 
land. The rest of the land is let to twenty 
Irish gentlemen, which is contrary to the 
articles of plantation ; and these Irish gentle- 
men have under them, as I was informed by 
the gentlemen and tenants in the country, 
about 3,000 souls of all sorts." 3. Sir Ferdinand 
Tuchet, the younger son of Lord Audley, 
married the widow of Sir John Rodney, of Pil- 
ton, in the County of Somerset. His propor- 
tion of Fintonagh, " the green fields, com- 
prised a part of the ancient Irish territory 
so-called, as did also the proportion of John 
Leigh, in the adjoining barony of Glogher, 
already mentioned. Sir Ferdinand's proportion 
was known as the manor of Tuchet. 4. Edward 
Blunte was a native of Harleston, in Derby- 
shire, and had married Anne, eldest daughter 
of old Lord Audley. His two proportions of 
Eddergoule and Carn^acken were known as the 
manor of Ardleeton— probably a misprint for 
Harleston — the name of Blunte's English estate. 
5. Sir John Davys was by birth a Welshman, 
and married Elinor, third daughter of Lord 
Audley. Davys's two proportions in Omagh 
contained 1,000 acres each, and were named 
Olpnaghmore and Gravelagh. His wife remar- 
ried with Sir Archibald Douglas, and his only 
daughter, Lucy, married Lord Hastings, after- 
wards Earl of Huntington. When Davys sup- 
posed that he had done his work in Ire- 
land, and was certain that he had accumulated 
enormously during his Bojourn of seven years 
in this land, he began to press and petition 
urgently for permission to return to England. 
He died in 1626. His work, whilst in Ireland, 
he describes in general terms, as follows ;— 



66 

Sfarabane, with the demesnes belonging thereto. 
In hia " fortes of Remembrances " the Deputy 
made the following entry :— " I have delivered 
the possession of the Newtowne, with tome 
three Ballybeteghs of land [about 3,000 acres], 
to Tirlagh and Neal M'Arte, the children 
of Sir Arte O'Neale, in respect of 
the good services they did against 
the traitor O'Dogherty, and the relief 
they gave to the Lifter upon the burning of 
Derry. I think this sufficient for them, but 
they do not. If the King will be pleased to 
reserve the town of Strabane, which stands 
within the landB now assigned to them, and 
give them a greater scope on the other side, I 
think it would be best for his service ; for 
divers Soottishmen will plant there, and make 
it a pretty town, albeit it was all burned to 
the ground by O'Dogherty, which was the 
cause they [the young O'Neills] were permitted 
to take it at this time." The brothers made as 
good a fight as they oould for better terms, and 
Tirlagh, the eldest of the four, undertook the 
risk and expense of a trip to London, that he 
might lav their case personally before the 
Council, but without materially changing the 
decision already made. He brought back a 
letter from the Council to Chichester, contain- 
ing their final answer, as follows :— " We re- 
commend the bearer, Tyrloghe O'Neale, 
eldest son of Sir Arthur O'Neale, Knight, for 
two middle proportions [3,000 acres] in the 
precinct of Dongannon, in Tyrone. He be- 
sought us for all the land in Ulster called Slew- 
sheese [about 11,000 acres] which formerly 
belonged to Neal Connelagh O'Neal, his great 
grandfather. Of these lands he only has a 
custody grant from you of the castles of Stra- 
bane and Newtowne, with some ballybetaghs of 
land belonging to them. He now prays that 
he may have in addition to the two proportions 
we have recommended for him the castles of 
Benburb and Knockicligh, in the barony of 
Dungannon, but this we leave altogether to 



57 

your judgment, as to you is left the placing of 
the natives. Considering his acceptable ser- 
vices, and his willingness to be transplanted, 
we hope he may be extraordinarily respected 
in the greatness of his proportion, and in the 
choice of a good Beat for his greater comfort. 
One other middle proportion should be divided 
among the other three sons of Sir Arthur 
OTOeale, namely, Neal, Oon, and Bryan."' 
Slewsheese was the then local name at Strabane 
of the great range now known as the Sperrin 
Mountains, extending from that barony to 
within four miles of Garvagh, a reach of about 
thirty-six miles. 

Tirlagh O'Neill and his three brothers were 
obliged to be satisfied to be removed into the 
barony of Dungannon, although Chichester re- 
fused to allow them the possession of the two 
old castles there which they appear to have 
wished for. The Commissioners had thus free 
access to all the barony of Strabane, which is 
very extensive, containing 240,490 statute 
acres. In this precinct, however, they only 
found 13,500 plantation acres, which they 
marked off into eleven proportions — one great, 
three middle, and Beven small— distributing 
them soon afterwards amongst the following 
Scottish undertakers, viz.:— James Hamilton, 
Earl of Aberoorn ; Sir Claude Hamilton, James 
Clephane, gentleman ; Sir Thomas Boyd, Sir 
George Hamilton, Sir John Drummond, James 
Haig, gentleman ; and George Hamilton, 
gentleman. 

Fully a year after these planters had taken 
possession of their several proportions, Sir 
George Carew reported of them as follows : — 
"The Earl of Abercorn, chief undertaker, has 
taken possession, resident, with lady and 
family ; has built for the present near the town 
of Strabane some large timber houses, with a 
court 116 feeb in length and 87 in breadth, the 
groundsells of oaken timber, and the rest of 
allor [alder] and birch, which is well thatched 
with heath and finished; has built a great brew 



59 

house outside hie court forty* six foot loigaji A 
twenty five foot wide. Bis followers and ten- 
ants have since May last [1611] built twenty- 
eight houses of fair copies ; and before May, 
histenants»whoareall Scottishmen, built thirty- 
two houses of like goodness. He is preparing 
materials for building a fair castle and bawne, 
which he means to put in hand for the next 
spring. There are 120 cows in stock for his own 
use. Sir Thomas Boyd, Knight, has a propor- 
tion of land ; is resident with his wife and 
family, and is providing materials for bnildiug. 
Sir George Hamilton, Knight, has a proportion 
of land, and resident, with his wife and family. 
He has built a good house of timber for the pre- 
sent, sixty two foot long and thirty foot wid#, 
He has brought over some families of Scots, 
who have buUt themselves a bawne and good 
timber houses, eighty cows and sixteen garron* 
among them. Sir John Brummpnd, Knight, 
appeared in person, took possession, and has 
one Scottyshman, two garrons, and a mare. 
James Clapham. [Clephane], 1,000 acres ; resi- 
dent, prepares to people his land, and has a 
competent store of arms in readiness. <James 
Hayge or Hajg, 1,500 acres ; has nob appeared, 
nor aoy far him ; nothing done. Sir Claude 
Hamilton, Kuight* 2,Q00 acres ; has not ap- 
peared* nor any lor him ; nothing done. George 
Hamilton, 1,000 acres ; he has taken possession, 
is resident, and making provision far build- 
ing. " 

Thus, the precinct of Strabane was invaded 
by a distinguished family party from Scotland, 
for the planters there were all kinsmen variously 
related, excepting two or three who were ser- 
vants of the King. In this particular, the 
Hamiltons in Strabane were circumstanced 
similarly with the Audley party in the adjoin- 
ing barony of Omagh, except that the two sets 
of undertakers belong to different nationalities. 
Jealousies appear to have sprung up between 
them at an early period originating probably in 
the fact that the King was specially pleased by 



Hamtifcmtan zeal In the plantation, although It 
Could not be said to exceed that of 
the Audleyan party In the same direc- 
tion. Bat each was the Royal anxiety 
for Aberoorn's success that on the 7th of May, 
1611, James wrote to Chichester "requiring 
him to take out of all the companies in Ulster 
In hb Majesty's pay, and out of all the wards 
there, the number of twenty-five footmen to 
attend the Earl of Aberoorn, for bis aid in the 
plantation." This kingly care for Aberoorn 
seems to hate rendered him too exacting, and 
rather prone to take offence for trivial causes. 
On one occasion a dispute arose between him 
and Lord Andley about a small portion of de- 
batable land on their mutual border ; and Lord 
Aberoorn, like a petted child, thought proper 
to complain to the king that, In the 
course of their controversy on the ques- 
tion of mearings, Audley had said some- 
thing Blightingly of the whole Scottish 
nation ! The Ktng» being a Scotchman him- 
self, was gravely offended, and even gave ex- 
pression to his displeasure. Fortunately for 
Audley, he had an influential advocate tn his 
son-in-law, Sir John Davys, who wrote to the 
Earl of Somerset, a member of the English 
Council, as follows :— " Part of this barren land 
borders on the barony of Strabane, ' where the 
Earl of Aberoorn is the principal undertaker, 
by occasion whereof there grew a controversy 
touching a small piece of land. Some 111 in- 
telligence was carried between their noblemen 
by servants or undertenants, as It ever falls out 
when there Is a difference between such persons 
of quality. Among other things it was re- 
ported that Lord Audelay had let fall some un- 
fit speeches against the Scottish nation In gene- 
ral, and this was not only told the Earl, but also 
the Ring, and the King was pleased to let 
the Lord Deputy and myself to know as 
much. My Lord Audelay being afterwards ad- 
vertised that the King takes notice thereof, and 
being grieved that such a report should be 



60 

made of him, has written this enolosed letter to 
me, wherein he makes protestation of his in- 
nocence in that behalf, and desires that the 
same might be made known to some of his 
honourable friends in England, who might 
acquaint) the King therewith, otherwise he 
would come over to England and cast himBelf 
at the King's feet, and never leave until the 
King Is assured of his innocence." Audley'a 
enclosed letter is a rambling account of his own 
loyalty and old family position, and also of his 
having been in danger of his life from the 
Scotchmen in Strabane, although he had as 
many Scotch as English on his own lands. 



IV. 

Of the Hamiltons who settled on the lands of 
Sir Arthur O'Neill's sons in the barony of 
Strabane certain explanatory notes may be 
added. 1. James Hamilton, the firBt Earl of 
Abercorn, was a grandson of the second Earl 
of Arran in Scotland, and obtained a prant of 
lands in the barony of Strabane, including 
3,000 acres— one large proportion and one 
small, named respectively Dunnalong and 
Strabane. The family residence takes its 
name of Baronecourt from the court origin- 
ally erected there of timber and thatched with 
heather. The two proportions above-mentioned 
were separated from each other by the propor- 
tion of Ologhognall, now incorporated with the 
Baronecourt estate. 2. Sir Claud Hamilton 
was the Earl of Abercorn's next brother, and 
resided in Scotland at a place called Lerle- 
previcke. He got two small proportions of 
1,000 acres each, and known respectively as 
Killeny and Teadane or Eden. In 1620 Pyn- 
nar reported that Sir Claude had died, and 
that he had left his lands in charge with Sir 
George Hamilton, his brother. An inquisition 
held at £Augher, in May, 1631, states that 



61 

these two proportions of Killlney and Bden 
were held by Sir William Hamilton, probably 
a son of the original patentee. 3. James 
Glephane or Clapham had been and then was 
a servant in the Royal Household; he was one 
of many in the same class who accompanied 
the King when coming across the Tweed to be 
enthroned as Queen Elizabeth's successor. 
James I. had probably owed this Glephane a 
round Bum, for he borrowed occasionally from 
his humblest lieges. In December, 1607, 
there is a grant from the King to Glephane of 
'•the moiety of so much money as is or may be 
due to the Grown from the statute for purchases 
of landB at undervalues. 44 In August, 1611, 
when Glephane was coming to secure a portion 
of the Ulster spoils, he carried with him a 
letter from the King to Chichester in the fol- 
lowing terms:—'* The bearer, James Clapham, 
goes to Ireland as an undertaker. Inasmuch 
as he is an old servant whom the King desires 
to favour, his Majesty has bestowed on him the 
castle of Newton (now Newtownstewart), in 
Tyrone, and commands him to be kindly used 
and furthered in his settling. Grafton, 20th 
August, in the 8th year of our reign." [1611.] 
Thus the castle and a large slice of the lands 
that had been owned during many centuries 
by the great sept or claim Arte O'Neill was 
handed over to a servant of the King, as pay- 
ment, probably, for accumulated arrears of 
wages. Clephane's grant included two 
proportions of 1,000 acres each, and 
named respectively Newton and Lislapp, 
the whole premises being created 
the manor of Newtowne. In the pro- 
portion of Newtowne stood the historical 
old castle of Neal Connelagh O'Neill and 
his ancestors, and in the proportion of Lislapp 
stood the two great piles known as Gastlemoyle 
and Shancasla, also family residences of the 
O'Neills, and associated with many striking 
events in their history. 
The associations and traditions of these 



#2 

greod old femfiy residences, however, were en- 
tirely lost on Otophane, their new owner, who 
only looked at his lands in a thoroughly busi- 
ness-like spirit. It is curious, indeed, that 
Olephane, who was spoken of by the King as so 
" faithful," should aet so contrary to Us Royal 
master's wishes after leaving his service, for the 
first and perhaps the only aet whleh he 
(Glephane) did as an undertaker was to let ont 
his entire lands to Irish tenants, contrary to 
the conditions of plantation. This simple 

Eess (always so highly disapproved of by the 
5) saved a world of trouble, whieh the in- 
notion of British tenants incurred, and 
gave the largest and most satisfactory returns 
from the lands in the shape of rents. Glephane 
was no doubt thwarted in his policy, but at all 
events he very soon sold his estate to Sir Robt. 
Neweomen, who was in possession at the time 
of Pynuar's survey (1618), and who rebuilt the 
old castle of the O'Neills at Newtowne. Sir 
Robert Neweomen resold this property to Sir 
William Stewart. On the -26th of July, 1629, 
letters patent of denization were issued to Sir 
William Stewart, and also a grant unto him of 
four several proportions— namely, the two small 
proportions of Ballyneoonnolly and Ballyravill, 
In the barony of Ologher, and the two small 
proportions of Newtowne and Lislapp, in the 
barony of Strabane, and other lands, amount- 
ing to 140 acres, lying in the barony of Stra- 
bane. The two proportions of Ballyneoonnolly 
and Ballyravill are created into a manor, to be 
called the manor of Mount Stewart ; and the 
other two proportions of Newtowne and Lislapp 
are created into a manor, to be called the 
manor of New Stewardstown[Newtownstewart]. 
Sir William Stewart's grandson— William 
Montgomery of the "Manuscripts"— pasted a 
few years of his boyhood at Newton, and has left 
the following account of his hurried departure 
thence at the time of the outbreak of the insur- 
rection in 1641 :— "I was kept at school in 
Newtown^Sotwatt house* and had a pike and a 



uwskeetmadeto myaixe; and on the 28rd of 
October, 1641, 1 wm in the garden performing 
the postures of my arms, my grandfather, Sir 
William Stewart's foot company, himself view- 
ing bis soldiers and their arms, and exercising 
them, when about four* hours afternoon, to oar 
amazement, a man half stripped oame with a 
letter signifying the insurrections, murthers, 
and burnings on all sides committed by the 
Irish. The messengers, one after another, 
oame sweating and out of breath from 
divers quarters, with like consternation and 
haste as Job's escaped servants did to 
tell him of his losses; and they related 
the cruel massacres of divers persons. Sir 
William, leaving a guard in his said house, 
went next morning with his lady and family, to 
Strabane, and thence to Londonderry, ten miles 
further. " 

The remaining planters in the barony of 
Strabane are also worthy of brief separate 
notices. 4. Sir Thomas Boyd, who got a 
middle proportion known as the Manor of 
Sheane, was brother in-law to the Earl of Aber- 
corn, the latter having married Sir Thomas 
Boyd's sister Marion. Sir Thomas Boyd was 
son oi the fifteenth representative chief of the 
Boyd tribe or clan in Kilmarnock, and was 
known as of Bedlay and Bonshawe. He mar- 
ried Grissel Cunningham, a granddaughter of 
the fifth Earl of Glencairn. His father, the 
fifth Lord Boyd, had made himself notorious in 
the clan feuds and fights of his own district, 
but he suffered from some malady which made 
him more known as an invalid than any ex- 
ploits he had been able to perform as a clan 
warrior. In 1597 he got a pass from the King 
(then James VI. of Scotland) to travel in 
foreign countries for his health, and of this 
Royal document the following is a copy :— 
" We, understanding that our oouaing, Thomas 
Master of Boyd, is vexed with ane grievous 
dolor in his held, and other diseises in his 
body aa that be cannot find sufficient ease and 



64 

remeid within our realme, but is in mind bo 
seek the same in foreign countries where the 
same may be maist oonvenientlie had, thairfor 
givis and grantis licence to him to de- 
part and pass forth our realme to the partes of 
France, Flanders, Well of the Spa, and other 
partes, where he pleisls, there to remaine." 
With what results this trip was attended does 
net appear, bat it is known that this old gentle- 
man's son wa* amongst the very first Scottish 
undertakers in Ulster to secure his patent for 
his proportion of Sheane, which lay on the 
border of County Donegal, from which it was 
separated by the River Finn. It is probable, 
however, he was soon called on to succeed his 
father at Kilmarnock, for he disposed of his 
Ulster lands to the Earl of Abercorn, and is not 
mentioned afterwards as having lot or part in 
the plantation. 5. Sir George Hamilton was 
third brother of the Earl of Abercorn, and was 
known as of Greenlaw, in Scotland. He got 
the middle proportion of Largieor Cloghognall, 
and the Bmall proportion of Dirreowen, which 
lay along the River Derg, and was somewhat 
distant from the former. There is no mention 
of this planter or his lands in the printed in] 
quisitions of Ulster, and his estate is now also 
a part of the Baronscourt property. Sir George 
Hamilton incurred the displeasure of the King 
by becoming a recusant and a Roman Catholic, 
and his services were, therefore, no longer 
wanted as an Ulster planter. His grandson, 
General ttichard Hamilton, led the army which 
Lord Tyrconnell sent against the Northern 
Protestants in 1689. 6. Sir John Drummond 
came from Menteith, and was one of a 
great Perth family, all the members of 
which, in their generations, were devoted 
adherents of the Stuart dynasty. His pro- 
portion of Ballymagrieth lay near the town of 
Omagfa, from which it was only separated by a 
little stream, the boundary line between the 
two baronies of Omagh and Strabane. Sir 
John does not appear to have been a popular 



to 

landlord, for Pynnar reports that, '"although 
there are many tenants on hia lands, they 
have no estates [tenures] at all ; insomuch 
that they, knowing I was in the country, 
came and complained unto me, and said that 
for these many years they could never get 
anything from him but promises ; and, there* 
fore, the most part of them are leaving the 
land. I desired the lady to show me their 
oounterpaines, but her answer was that her 
Knight was in Scotland, and that she could 
not come unto them ; but upon examination, I 
found there were 90 men of firittone [from Scot- 
land] on the land." Sir John Drummond was 
styled as of the Rosses, in the parish of 
Oapprey, where he died in May, 1625. He left 
no children, and his brother Malcolm succeeded 
to the estate. The latter got a re-grant of the 
premises, which were created into a manor, to 
be called the manor of Castle Dormand. 7. 
James Haige came from, or rather belonged to, 
some Scottish district, but he appears not to 
have even visited his proportion of Meenter- 
long. He was a servant of the King, and be- 
came a political agent or spy on the Continent. 
He soon disposed of his lands to Sir William 
Stewart and Sir George Hamilton. In 1629, 
Sir Henry Tichbourne gotagrant of the greater 
part of Haige's proportion, his lands being 
created a manor called the manor of Mounthifi 
— so named, perhaps, from the mountainous 
nature of the surface. 8. George Hamilton, 
gent., who got the small proportion of Tea- 
dane or Eden, came from Bynning, in Scotland, 
and was a kinsman of the other Hamiltons who 
planted in the same barony. He, in common 
with the Hamiltons generally, was descended 
from Sir Gilbert de Hamiltown, who is said to 
be the founder of this numerous tribe or race. 
This George Hamilton of Bynning belonged to 
the well-known family seated at Fingaltown, 
in Renfrewshire, and was the thirteenth in 
descent from Sir Gilbert above-mentioned. 
George Hamilton was son of Sir John Hamilton, 



Ma mother Mug a daughter of Sir Thomas 
Otterburn, of RedhalL Ha had served in the 
army of Gustavus Adolphus, and on his return 
from Sweden he appears to have been attracted 
to Ulster for a time ; bat he toon sold his lands 
to Sir Claude Hamilton, although he had taken 
possession, and had made some preparations for 
building. His proportion of Eden lay on 
boundaries of the baronies of Coleraine and 
Loughlnsholin, being intersected by the tail or 
termination of the great ranee known as the 
Sperrin Mountains. The River Derg flows 
through this proportion from end to end. 
This estate, with ohat of Killiney, was, in 1629, 
granted to Sir William Hamilton, the lands 
being created a manor, to be called the manor 
of EUistown. 



The plantation precinct named Mount joy com- 

C)d the northern or lower division of the 
ny of Dnngannon, and was set apart for 
the accommodation of seven Scottish under- 
takers. It was so called from a fort in the dis- 
trict, and the fort when being built had been 
named in honour of Lord Mountjoy — the 
general who, by bringing fresh relays of soldiers 
from England, was able to defeat the worn-out 
and wasted foroes of the Northern earls, in 
1602. Although the name was used in planta- 
tion documents for a few years, it appears to 
have been discontinued after 1620, and the old 
one resumed for the whole barony. Indeed, 
the surveyors of 1609 did not call this precinct 
Mountjoy, but wrote it down on their map as 
" Parte of the barony of Donganon." This 
great barony is since divided into upper, 
middle, and lower, and is bounded on the north 
by the County of Londonderry, on the east by 
Lough Neagh and the lower part of the Black- 
water, which separate it from the Counties of 



67 

Antrim, Down, and Armagh ; on the Math by 
the upper part of the Blaokwater, which separ- 
ates it from the County of Monaghan,andonthe 
west by the baronies of Clogher, Omagh, and 
Strabane. In this precinct of Moantjoy, the 
surveyors could only find 10,500 acres of arable 
land, although it really contained about 50,000 
statute acres— all of which was thrown in 
gratuitously with the 10,500 arable acres to 
the seven undertakers placed thereon. 

The names of these undertakers were as fow- 
low ; — Andrew Stewart, Lord O'Chiltree ; 
Robert Sewart, of Hilton, gent. ; Sir Robert 
Hepburne, Knight ; George Crayford or Craw- 
ford, Laird of Loohnorrie ; Bernard Lindtey, 
gent. ; Robert lindsey, gent ; and Robert 
Stewart, of Rotton, Esq. Of these Scot- 
tish planters in the precinct of Moant- 
joy, Carew makes the following report in 
1611, or a year after they had taken out their 
patents -.—Lord Uehelrie, 3,000 acres ; being 
stayed by contrary winds in Scotland, arrived 
in Ireland (at the time of onr being in Armagh, 
upon oar return home), accompanied with 33 
followers, gents, of sort [gentlemen of 
rank], a minister, some tenants, free- 
holders, and artificers, unto whom he 
hath passed estates; he hath built for his 
present use three houses of oak timber— one of 
50 feet long and 22 feet wide, and two of 40 
feet long, within an old foit, about whioh he is 
building a bawne. There are two ploughs 
going on his demesne, with some fifty cows and 
three score young heifers landed at Island 
Magy [Magee], in Clandeboy, whioh are 
coming to his proportion, with some twelve 
working mares. Sir Robert Hepburne, Knight, 
1,500 aores; sowed oats and barley the last year 
upon his land, and reaped this harvest forty 
hogsheads of corn ; is resident ; hath 140 cows, 
young and old, and eight mares ; is 
building a stone house forty feet long and 
twenty feet wide, already a storey high ; 
intends to have it three stories high, and to 



68 

oover it, and the next spring to add another 
storey to it ; good store of timber felled and 
squared, and providing materials to finish the 
work. The Laird Lochnorris, 1,000 acres ; 
being deceased himself, as we are informed, 
had his agent here, Robert O'Rorke ; hath tim- 
ber felled, and is preparing materials for build- 
ing against the spring. Bernard Lindsey and 
Robert Lindsey, 1,000 acres apiece ; have taken 
possession personally in the summer, 1610, re- 
turned into Scotland ; agent, Robert Cowties, 
resident; a timber bouse is built on Robert 
Lindsey'8 proportion ; hath eight mares, and 
eight cows with their calves, and five oxen, 
with swine and other small cattle, and a com- 
petent portion of arms. Robert Stewart, of 
Haulton, 1,000 acres ; hath appeared in person 
and brought some people ; timber felled, and 
preparing materials for building. Robert 
Stewart, of Robstone, 1,000 acres ; hath ap- 
peared in person, with tenants and cattle ; 
timber felled and squared, and providing 
materials for building. The castle of Mountjoy, 
upon Lough Chichester [Lough Neagh], beside 
the old fort, wherein are many inhabitants 
both English and Irish, together with Sir 
Francis Roe's foot company. Here is a fair 
castle of stone and brick, covered with slate 
and tile, begun in the late Queen's time, and 
finished by his Majesty. It is compassed about 
by a good strong rampier of earth, well ditched, 
and flanked with bulwarks. In this castle Sir 
Francis Roe, the constable, and his family 
dwelL" 

These Scottish planters had got into a de- 
sirable locality, and they appear generally to 
have commenced with vigour, 1. Andrew 
Stewart was the fourth Lord Ochiltree, and 
was descended, through the Stewarts of Avon- 
dale, from Murdock, Duke of Albany. One of 
this family exchanged the barony of Avondale 
for that of Ochiltree with Sir James Hamilton, 
of Finnart, about the year 1534. This fourth 
Lord Ochiltree had become embarrassed, and 



was obliged to sell his barony of Ochiltree with 
other family property, the title passing away 
with the barony to the purchaser, who was Sir 
James Stewart, of Killeth. Although, there- 
fore, this undertaker was by courtesy styled 
Lord Ochiltree in his Ulster patent, he was 
only plain Andrew Stewart; but as an en- 
couragement to him and his son, and to recon 
die them to their two proportions of Revel- 
inowtra and Revelineightra, the King con- 
ferred upon the young gentleman the title and 
dignity of Earl of Castle atewart. The father 
died in March, 1639, and was succeeded in all 
his landed property by his son. In 1629 the 
father had got a re-grant of three proportions 
in the preoinct of Mouncjoy, created into the 
two manors of Castlestewart and Foreward. 
2. Robert Stewart, of Hilton, or Halltown, was 
described as an indweller in Edinburgh, and 
was the first of the Stewart family here 
who settled at Killymoon, near Gookstowo. 
He purchased the lands in his proportion 
from Sir Francis Cooke, before getting 
a grant of them from the Crown; and a younger 
brother also obtained a grant of the proportion 
of Gortville, or Gortegal, in the same district. 
The grant to the older brother contained the 
two Irish territories of Ballyokavan and Ballyo- 
quinn, or all the lands in the district of the pre- 
sent Cookatjown. 3. Sir Robert Hepburne was 
a member of the well-known Aulderstown 
family of this name. In 1605, this undertaker 
of the middle proportion of O'Carragan was a 
lieutenant of the King's Guard, and in this 
capacity was sent to the Western Isles of Soot- 
land to receive surrenders of the castles of 
Dunyveg and Dowart. He was also commis- 
sioned on that occasion to prevent the escape of 
any rebellious Islesmen, by seizing their boats. 
This undertaker is called Hay bourne by Pynnar, 
and he was styled as of Killaman,in the County 
of Tyrone. He had parted with his proportion 
before 1629, as in that year there is a grant of 
it from the Crown to Henry Soewart. 4, George 



70 

Cray ford, or Crawford, belonged to a family in 
Cumnock, Ayrshire, a branoh of the Crawfords 
of Loudan. Lefuories or Loohnorris Cattle 
stood on the Lagar, not far from Cumnock, but 
the Crawford estates there eventually passed 
into the possession of the Earls of Dumfries, 
who superseded the] old castle by a fine resid- 
dence known as Dumfries House. George Craw- 
ford died soon after getting bis grant in Tyrone, 
and in the time of Pynnar his lands were 
owned by a Captain Sanderson. 5. Bernard 
Lindsay and Robert Lindsay were sons of 
Thomas Lindsay, of Kingswork,Leith, although 
the former came to Ulster from Lough Hill, in 
the County of Haddington. Bernard sold his 
lands soon after getting possession, and in 
Pynnar 's time his proportion of Craig bailey was 
owned by Alexander Richardson. Robert 
Lindsay remained in Tullahoge, near Dungan- 
non, and was the founder of a respectable 
family there. 6. Robert Stewart, of Rotton, 
or Robstone, or more correctly Robertstown, 
was uncle of Andrew Stewart, Lord Ochiltree, 
but he does not appear to have done more than 
take possession of his proportion of Ballenkenan, 
whioh, in the time of Pynnar, belonged to 
Lord Ochiltree's son. 7. The brother of Robert 
Stewart, of Hilton, or Halltown, aforesaid, sold 
his proportion of Gorteville or Gortegall soon 
after getting possession, and in the time of 
Pynnar It was owned by David Kennedy. 
These Stewarts, "indwellers in Edinburgh," 
and the two Lindsays were all servants or 
caterers in some fashion to the King. 

The remaining, and much the more extensive 
part of the great region known as the barony of 
Dungannon, was allotted to certain leading 
servitors and a few natives who had been 
deemed worthy of some recognition by 
the Government. The three sections 
into which this' barony is now divided 
when taken together, extend twenty- 
two miles from east to west, and about the 
same length from north to south. These three 



divisions, although separately dealt with m 
three baronies, are represented on the ordnance 
survey maps ae if undivided ; and it is to be 
observed that they only ferm one barony in the 
old survey of 1591, whioh was made by the 
Government at the urgent request of the great 
Earl of Tyrone. The vast region anoientry, 
and in modern times, known as Dungannon 
contained the three Irish territories of Magh- 
Lomohlalr, whioh lay around Donaphmore; 
Ui Briuin, now Minterburn, in Aghabo ; and 
Ui Garaoain, or O'Caraghan, now comprised in 
the parish of Killaman. This barony is so 
extensive as to include almost all the varieties 
of surface in Tyrone, containing rich meadow 
lands along the flat sweeps adjoining the shores 
of Lough Neagh ; fertile grain -bearing undula- 
tions on the banks of the Blaokwater ; and dis- 
mally bleak uplands in some other localities. 
The area of the whole three divisions comprises 
something more than 216,000 statute acres. 
This area contains part of the parishes of 
Arboe, Artrea, Ballinderry, Clonfeacle, Deny- 
loran, Killymao, Lissan, and Tamlagho, 
together with the whole parishes of Aughloe, 
Ballyclog, Carranteel, Glonoe, Desertcreapho, 
Donaghenry, Donaghmore, Drumglass, Kil- 
dross, Killishall, Pomeroy, and Tullynaiskin. 
The chief towns are Dungannon, Caledon, 
Aughnaoloy, Moy, Gookstown, and Stewarts- 
town ; and the chief villages are Pomeroy, 
Ooalisland, Grange, Carnteel, Tullyhoge, 
Castleeaulfield, Donaghmore, Coagh, and New- 



The inhabitants of this barony adhered un- 
flinchingly to the Earl of Tyrone, as a general 
rule, until his final separation from them in the 
autumn of 1607, when he sailed from Lough 
S willy never to return. The inhabitants of 
Dungannon were exceptional in their fidelity, 
for long previously to his " Flight" many of 
his own name and kindred had fallen from 
their allegiance to The O'Neill, and had even 
learned to take up and circulate every evil re- 



w 

port ooneernlng him. Among the threw 
MSB. Is a paper drawn up by a well-known 
servitor named Jobn Leigh, who was high 
sheriff of Tyrone In 1608, and who kept what he 
called a " Breefe of some things which I have 
observed in the several baronies of the County 
of Tyrone." Amongst other matters, " I ob- 
served," says he, "that there are certain 
kindreds or septs of the Neales [O'Neillsl in 
divers parts of Tyrone, which ever did, and 
still doe, as much as in them lyeth, oppose 
both againtt Tyrone (the Earl] and all those of 
his proper sept and party— namely, in the 
barony of Strabane, Tirloghe, Oge O'Neale, 
son to Sir Arthur O'Neale, and all 
his followers and dependents as well of 
the Neales as of the Qainns, and likewise of 
divers other septs on that [the Strabane] side 
of the Slewsheese. Alsoe in the barony of 
O'Meaghe [Omagh] all that sept of the Neales 
called the Clan- Arte doe deadly hate Tyrone 
and bis septs. And likewise in the barony of 
Olougher are two other distincts septs of the 
Neales, who hate Tyrone and his septs— one of 
which septs are the sons of Shan O'Neale, and 
their followers." 



VL 

Thb surveyors of 1609 could only find 16,000 
arable acres in the precinct or barony of Dun- 
gannon, not including of course the 9,500 
arable acres already noticed in the precinct of 
Mountjoy. Remembering, however, the vast 
extent of the Dungannon precinct, and making 
due allowance for church lands and educational 
grants, and grants to certain forts therein, it 
will be seen that the planters had ample room 
for expansion here, as in all the other escheated 
baronies, because of the vast sweeps of what 
were termed unprofitable lands being thrown 
gratuitously into their several proportions. 



73 

The Plantation Commissioner! narked off the 
precinct of Dungannon into twelve proportion! 
—two great ones of 2,000 acre* each, four 
middle-sized of 1,500 acres each, and six small 
ones of 1,000 each. These were allotted to 
eight servitors and four natives, whose names 
are as follow:— Sir Arthur Chichester, the 
Lord Deputy; Sir Thomas Ridgeway, Treasurer 
at War ; Sir Richard Wingfield, Knight, Mar- 
shal of the Army; Sir Toby Caulfield, Knight ; 
Sir Francis Roe, Knight ; Franois Annesley, 
Wm. Parsons, Tirlagh O'Neill of Oaslane, Esq.; 
Neal O'Neill, Esq., brother of Tirlagh ; Bryan 
O'Neill, Esq., also a brother of Tirlagh, sons 
of Sir Arthur of Newton Castle, now Newtown- 
Stewart; and Catherine Ny Nelll, wife of Tir- 
lagh Oge O'Neill, deceased, and remarried to 
Robert Hovenden, gent. 

The following is Carew's report on the pro- 
gress made by the above-named servitors at 
the end of the first year's occupancy of their 
respective proportions :— " Sir Arthur Chiches- 
ter, now Lord Deputy, has 600 acres about 
Dungannon, as a servitor, where he intends to 
build a castle, or strong house of lime and 
stone ; has masons and workmen to take down 
such remains of the old castle as are yet stand- 
ing. There are families of English and other 
civil men who for the present have built houses 
of copels, but are bound to build cage-work or 
stone after the English manner, and make en- 
closures about the town. Sir Thomas Ridge- 
way, 2,000 acres, as servitor; hath carpenters 
providing timber for building next spring. Sir 
Richard Wingfield, 2,000 acres, as a servitor ; 
has great store of timber for buildings, and wilL 
have other materials ready by the beginning of 
spring. Sir Toby Caulfield, 1,000 acres, as 
servitor ; is making preparations for building. 
Sir Francis Roe, 1,000 acres, as servitor ; Is 
providing materials for building. William Par- 
sons, 1,000 acres, as servitor; preparing to for- 
ward buildings next spring. Francis Annes- 
ley, 400_acres, as servitor ; has made a 



w 

bawaa of earth and tods, with convenient dltoh 
and flankers, and provided timber to build a 
substantial house within it. Captain Tirlagh 
O'Neale, one of the natives of Tyrone, hai re- 
moved, and dwells on his lands in the precinct 
of Dungannon; has no preparations for building 
bnt an Irish honse." 

It is to be observed that here, as in other 
baronies allotted to servitors and natives, the 
former class got the choicest lands, whilst the 
latter were obliged to accept the rough and 
comparatively barren portions of the soil. 
1. Sir Arthur Chichester had in the first in- 
stance 600 acres immediately surrounding 
Dungannon, which comprised a large seotion of 
the demesne lands of the O'Neills, and on it 
stood their old family residence, mentioned In 
the Annals of Ireland at the year 1430 as the 
abode of Owen or John O'Neill, the then Prince 
of Ulster. It would not now be considered a 
very princely palace, for, although built of 
stone and very spacious, it was thatched with 
heath or heather. It seems to have so con- 
tinued until the time of Hugh, the great Earl 
of Tyrone. When the latter married Mable 
Bagnall in 1593 he had commenced to build "a 
faire house," as Fynes Moryson informs us, 
" which," that chronicler further says, " our 
Government thinks a tye of civilite." In order 
to cover this fair house in a oivilised fashion the 
Earl procured a vast quantity of lead, but just 
at that juncture he was hurried into the com- 
mencement of the seven years' war with the 
Government by the undisguised provocations of 
Fitzwilliam and Bagnall— so the lead,- instead 
of being used for roofing purposes, was con- 
verted into bullets. At the battle of the Yel- 
low Ford, on the Blackwater, one of these 
bullets found its way through BagnalTs brain, 
and so terminated the career of a very turbu- 
lent and cowardly servant of good Queen Bess. 
However, the remains of O'Neill's old castle 
were cleared away by Chichester, who had one 
for himself placed on its site, but the latter has 



75 

long since disappeared In Its burn, although 
built by Captain Sandford— a crack hand at 
such work—In the summer of 1618. 2 Of Sir 
Thomas Ridgeway we have already a brief 
notice in connection with his two proportions of 
Ballykirgir and Portclare, in the barony of 
Clogher. This proportion in Dungannon was 
originally the Largie, but it was afterwards 
known as the manor of Ridgeway, the town of 
Aughnaoloy being now the most important 
place in the district. Sir Thomas Ridgeway 
was a prominent member of several commis- 
sions appointed to carry forward the planta- 
tion movement, and to him we are chit fly in- 
debted for the beautiful baronial maps of 1609, 
representing the six escheated counties of 
Ulster. 3. Sir Richard Wingfield belonged to 
the family of this name at Letheringham, in 
the County of Suffolk, which family is believed 
to have represented an older branch 
seated at Wingfield, in the same county, 
before the Norman Conquest. Sir Richard 
commenced his Irish career under the auspices 
of hie uncle, Sir William Fitzwilliam, the 
notoriously money* loving Lord-reputy, whose 
three administrations form three of the most 
disastrous periods in the history of this 
country, Wingfield was appointed Marshal 
of Ireland in 1600, and after the olose of the 
war, and the subsequent defeat of O'Dogherty 
in 1608, he was frequently in Ulster at the 
head of formidable forces required to keep the 
Northern Irish in order whilst their lands were 
being confiscated, surveyed, and set apart for 
the occupation of strangers. He was created 
Viscount Powersconrt in 1618, and he died in 
1634, his estates devolving upon his cousin, Sir 
Edward Wingfield, who had served in Ireland 
during the Yiceroyalty of Robert, the second 
and last Devereux, Earl of Essex. This estate 
was known as the Manor of Benburb, and lay 
along the Blackwater, which separated its 
lands from those in the County of Armagh. 
The Powerscourt estate has been recently sold 



76 

to a firm of Belfast whieky manufacturers. 4. 
Sir Toby Calefield, now written Canlfield, oame 
from Oxford, but not) much appears to have 
been known about hia family. However, he 
served the Queen gallantly, first in Spain, then 
in the Low Countries, and lastly in Ulster. 
Amongst the numerous adventurers coming 
here during the war with the Northern earls, 
no one, perhaps, was more fortunate than Sir 
Toby— at least in the accumulation of landed 
property. After an uninterruptedly- successful 
run from about 1606 to 1620, he surrendered 
the various great fragments of his lands, and 

§ot out a renewal of the whole in one patent, 
atedJnly 12, 1620, so that an indef ectable 
estate in all his lands might remain to him and 
his heirs in the several counties of Armagh, 
Tyrone, Monaghan, Derry, Louth, Cavan, Fer- 
managh, and Donegal. His estates contained 
every variety of landed property, for he had 
extensive grants of rich abbey lands, and he 
had a patent, also, of all the mountains in 
Ulster, which, being omitted in the survey of 
1609, were regarded as concealments in the 
plantation of this province. He died unmarried 
in 1627, at the age of 62, and all his gettings 
went principally to his nephew, the son of Dr. 
James Canlfield. 5. Sir Francis Roe was the 
son of Robert Roe, of Lower Laytoo, in Essex, 
and grandson of Sir Thomas Roe, Lord Mayor 
of London in 1568. This Sir Francis— a dis- 
tinguished servitor in Ulster — was a younger 
brother of Sir Thomas Roe, the well-known 
diplomatist, whose first public employment was 
his mission to the Great Mogul in 1614. In 
1607, immediately after the Flight of the Earls, 
Sir Francis Roe and Sir Tobie Canlfield were 
appointed governors of the upper or southern 
part of Tyrone and the whole of the County 
Armagh. In June, 1616, Sir Francis Roe en- 
feoffed Sir Garrett Moore, Viscount Drogheda, 
Sir Roger Jones, Sir Nicholas White, and 
George White, of Dnndalk, as trustees to ad- 
minister hia property for hie own use during 



77 

his life, and afterwards for that of his 
wife, Margaret Row, or Rowe. 6. Of Sir 
William Parsons, the surveyor- general of the 
escheated counties in Ulster, there has been 
a brief notice in connection with his proportion 
of Ballenologh, named by him the Manor of 
GeoilL We shall hear of him again as a planter 
in the County of Cavan. 7. Sir Francis 
Ansley'e grant in this precinct is still known as 
Manor Annesley, and the lord of the manor is 
bound in perpetuo to pay £10 yearly to a school 
in Clanaghrie — the Irish name of his propor- 
tion. Clanaghrie borders on the western 
margin of Lough Neagh, and is included in the 
present parish of Clonoe, two miles south-east 
of Stewartstown. A little river rising in the 
vicinity of the place last mentioned crosses 
Clanaghrie in its course to Lough Neagh, and 
on this stream stands the old Castle of Mount- 
joy. 

Of the natives who chanced to get somewhat 
liberally of the land-spoil few were able to 
retain their allotments until the time of 
Pynnar's inspection in 1618-1620. Of this 
small number, however, one was Tirlage, the 
son of 8 i) Arthur O'Neill, of Newtown and 
Strabane, who was located near Duneannon, 
and who had his proportion erected into a 
manor, and called by the name of Caslane. 
Another grant which continued for a time was 
that made to the widow of Tirlagh Oge, son of 
Sir Henry O'Neill, of Minterburn. This lady 
was the mother of the well-known Felim Roe 
O'Neill and several other obildren, amongst 
whom the lands thus granted were distributed 
after the Celtic custom observed in such cases. 
Although this distribution violated the feudal 
law of succession so ruthlessly introduced by 
the Government themselves, yet Chichester was 
fain to adopt the Celtic law, in this case at 
least, as being most likely to promote the peace 
of the district. Accordingly, the Deputy pro- 
cured a King's letter, or Royal mandate, 
March, 1612, in the following terms :— " Sir 



78 * 

Henry Oge O'Neill, Knight, lately slain in the 
King's servioe against the traitor O'Dogherty, 
being possessed of lands in the Counties of 
Tyrone and Armagh, and the King being in- 
formed that it would tend to the qniet of those 
parts if the said lands were divided in some 
convenient manner among the issue male, yon 
are hereby authorised to- accept the surrender 
of the heir (Felim Roe O'Neill), and to divide 
the said lands among the issue male of the said 
Sir Henry as you shall think fit, to be htld by 
eaoh of them, and his heirs for ever, or for such 
estate and at such rents as yon shall think fit. 
You are also to assure to the wife of the said 
Sir Henry 0&e, and to the wife of his eldest 
son, deceased, such parcels of the premises 
daring their lives as yon shall think fib." 
Accordingly the two widows, with all the sons 
and grandsons of Sir Henry Oge, received 
grants ; bat the grantees were to hold by the 
feudal tenure of knight service, which was an 
unfair arrangement for them, because being 
bound by the conditions of plantation, they 
ought to have had their lands by the more 
liberal and less expensive tenure of free and 
common soccage. 

There were sixty natives in Tyrone who got 
small grants, generally of sixty acres each. 
They were all transplanted into portions of the 
barony of Dungannon which neither under- 
takers nor servitors would occupy. These 
natives are all described in the Government 
grants as gentlemen, and the surnames most 
common amongst them were those of O'Neill, 
O'Hagan, O'Quino, and O'Donnelaugh, or . 
Donnelly. 

About the year 1603, and immediately after 
the old Earl of Tyrone had been nominally re- 
stored to his estates, a proclamation was 
issued by Sir George Garew, the then Lord 
Deputy, regulating the "rates for the wages 
of artificers, labourers, and household servants 
' within the County of Tyrone." From this 



rather ouriooi and fa tere i tl ug we nake paper 
a few extracts as follow :— 

" AU manner of persons being under the age 
of fifty yean, not having to the value of £6 
sterling of their own proper assets, shall be 
compelled to labour for their living. No 
labourers or servants shall depart oat of one 
barony into another without leave of a justice 
of peace. No person not having the eighth 
part of a plough shall keep any servant in his 
house, bat shall labour and do his work him- 
self. No person shall hire any servant for less 
than a year. No servant Bhall depart from his 
master without giving a quarter's warning 
before witness, and at the end of his term the 
master shall give him a certificate of good be- 
haviour, upon pain of 40s. No person shall 
harbour or relieve any servant, being departed 
from his master without certificate, upon pain 
of 10s. Every plough bolder shall have 
wages by the quarter 6b 8d sterling, with meat 
and drink. Every leader, of the plough shall 
have by the quarter 5s, with meat and drink. 
Every beam holder shall have by the quarter 3a 
4d, with meat and drink. A good servant 
maid by the year 10s. A cowboy, for every 
cow for the half year, 1 Jd. A* cowboy, for two 
heifers, Id. Every labourer shall be hired by 
the day, with meat, 2d. From Michaelmas to 
our Lady Bay in Lent, with a dinner, 2d. 
Every labourer, without meat, per day, 4d. A 
master carpenter or mason shall have, per day, 
with meat and drink, 6d. Without meat and 
drink, 12d. Every apprentice, being able to 
work well, 2d. For making a plough beam, 
with meat, 8d. For the best cow-hide, 5s. 
For the largest pair of broaghs, 9d. For 
women's broaghs, 6d. The best plough iron 
shall be sold for 4s. For making a plough 
iron, the owner finding iron, 18d. Every 
smith shall bring axes, spades, shovells, and 
such necessaries to the common markets. A 
weaver shall have for every weaver's slatt con- 
taining three market slatts, 4d and eight 



60 

quarto of meal ; of 1,000 or 1,600, a maddar 
of meal and Id. For weaving a mantle, 
a meddar or two gallons of meal and 
3d. For weaving the beet caddowe, a meddar 
of meal and 4d. For weaving a jerkin, 2d. A 
cottener, for the beet mantle oottened in the 
beet faehlon, hie dinner and 6d. For cottoning 
the beet mantle with cards, hie dinner and 6a. 
For cottoning the best caddowe with shears, 
being the beet fashion, 8d. Every one refus- 
ing or leaving hie work because of these rates 
is to be fined 40s, or imprisoned until he be 
content." 



81 

COUNTY OF LONDONDERRY. 



The present County of Londonderry is a some- 
what curious specimen of territorial patchwork, 
the several fragments of whloh It is formed 
being arbitrarily regarded as one, although 
nature had put some of them distinctly asunder 
by the intervention of two large rivers. The 
first and largest fragment once formed a por- 
tion of the ancient principality of Ulster, but, 
being shired off by the English In 1585, it was 
afterwards known for about) a quarter of a cen- 
tury as the County of Coleralne. To this frag- 
ment was added another in 1609, which also 
had been taken from the old principality, and 
was known as Loughlnsholln. Another frag- 
ment was added at the same date from the 
County of Donegal, on the western side of the 
JFoyle ; and still another from the County of 
Antrim, on the eastern side of the Bann. The 
County of Coleralne was divided into the three 
small baronies of Coleralne, Iimavadjr, and 
Anagh, now known as the baronies of Coleralne, 
Keenaght, and Tirkeeran. The barony of 
Loughinsholin, subsequently added to the three 
others above-named, was anciently so-called 
from Lough -Inis O'Lynn, the island of O'Lynn's 
lake- dwelling— a well known position near the 
village of Desert Lynn, now Desertmartm. 
This barony of Loughinshdlin included the 
two sub- divisions of Glenobnkeyn and Eille- 
firagh, memorable for their wealth of ancient 
forests. The fragments taken from the counties 
of Donegal and Antrim became what are since 
known as the Liberties of Deny and Coleralne. 

The old County of Coleralne, although 
Originally constituting an important part of the 
O'Neill principality, was recognised rrdm in 
6arlV date as peculiarly the couritijr of the 
Ul OWha^lD, or OXJahans. fhls grtat tribe was 



82 

a kindred family or raoe of the O'Neills, and 
were descended in common with the latter from 
thatEoghan or Owen from whom the prin- 
cipality of Tyrone took its name. The 
OxJahans first appear in Northern history 
under the tribe name of Fir or Fear-na-Oraebh, 
or " Men of the Oreeve," the territory of the 
Groove being so-called from the celebrated 
cataract of Eas Craebhe, afterwards known as 
the Salmon Leap. At this place, Craebh, a 
daughter of the prince who occupied the ancient 
fortress of Dan-da Bheann, now Mount Sandal, 
was drowned; and hence the ancient Irish name 
of the waterfall, and also of the territory asso- 
ciated with the earliest history of the O'Cahans. 
To this district their chieftains, although only 
yassals of the O'Neills, gradually annexed the 
whole territory comprising the three baronies 
of the County of Coleraine, and were ever re- 
garded as the most trusted adherents of the 
prinoipal house. Towards the close of the 
sixteenth century the representative of this 
very long line of chieftains was Donnell 
Ballagh O'Oahan, who had married a daughter 
of the Earl of Tyrone, and who, for a time, 
was the most efficient ally of the latter in the 
deadly struggle against the Government, com- 
mencing in 1595. In the spring of 1600, how- 
ever, Donnell Ballagh had changed his mind, 
and on the landing of Sir Henry Doowra at 
Deny, at the head of a large English force, he 
surrendered to the Government, and joined 
Doowra with all the Irish troops under his com- 
mand, on condition that he should have a grant 
from the Queen of all the lands which his 
family had hitherto held under the O'Neills. 
This condition, with one or two trifling reser- 
vations, was then gladly accepted by the 
Crown, for, in thus securing the defection of 
O'Oahan, O'Neill's principal support was swept 
away. O'Oahan was forthwith granted a 
autodiam of his "country" until a regular 
grant oould be made out, and every day from 
the date of O'Oahan's desertion O'Neill was ob- 



'* 

••rod to become weaker until the crisis of hk 
surrender in 1602. 

Bat when O'Oahan had thus eflftcientlv 
assisted the Government in defeating O'Neill 
in the field, and afterwards in worrying him at 
the Council table and in the oonrte of law, ha 
wm unable to obtain his own grant, aa .had been 
promised. His lands eame in a very short time 
to be regarded as much more valuable and ac- 
ceptable than any future services he could 
ever likely be able to render ; and indeed, from 
less to more, it eame out at last that he, 
Donnell Ballagh, and all the O'Oahan's toge- 
ther, were simply intruders on their own 
lands from the daoe of the Act known as the 
11th of Elizabeth, which had not been repealed, 
nor even in any degree modified, and which 
vested in the Grown all the lands included in 
the principality of Tyrone. Donnell, to be 
sure, had been created an English knight, but 
that fact he felt afforded him nut cold comfort 
under the circumstanoee. He now also had 
got the Lord Deputy Chichester to deal 
with, and the latter was not likely to make 
allowanee for sulklness on the part of any Irish 
chieftain, however unfortunate. We had bet- 
ter, however, permit Chichester to explain the 
situation in his own words :— " The Earl of 
Tyrone made challenge to this country 
[O'Cahan's] as passed unto him by letters patent, 
and required Sir Donnell 0'Oahane,.the now 
ohief of that name, to give him £200 a" year, in 
consideration of this challenge, but being 
unable to make him payment of so muoh, 
in respect of the waste and riotous 
expenses otherwise, he yielded one of the 
baronies up to the Earl in lieu of the 
£200 which the Earl possessed at the time of 
his flight ; and albeit It is thought that neither 
Tyrone nor O'Oahan© had any good and lawful 
estate in that country, the right being in the 
King by the statute 11 Elizabeth, yet it is my 
duty to declare that the whole country was 
promised to the said Sir Donnell O'Cahane 



14 

ttpot kb Mfcalt** fcitbe leeeUOltsltx 

Lord Mount joy, then lord deputy ; and In eon- 
firmetfon hereof a custodimm was passed to him 
under the Qreat Seal He is now prisoner in 
the Gertie o! Dublin. If he be found unworthy 
of the King's favour by reason of his treasonable 
praotloes and misdemeanours, then is that 
oonntry in the King's hands to dispose as shall 
seem best to bU Majesty." Unfortunate 
Oonnell 1 He had begun to regret his conduct 
towards the Earl of Tyrone, and on hearing 
that the latter was seen journeying towards 
Lough Swilly, O'Cahan suspected that he was 
about leaving Ulster, and determined, at the 
eleventh hour, to follow and embark with him. 
But he was too late, although he rode in hot 
haste, and crossed at several ferries in apparent 
desperation. O'Neill had sailed, and O'Cahan 
was seized when he soon afterwards visited 
Dublin as a " suspeot" merely, for the " head 
and front of his offending" appears to have been 
his anxiety to make his escape in good company 
from *he turmoils then the order of the day in 
Ulster. At all events, no pretext for his 
punishment or even trial could be found, and 
his longer presence in Ireland being feared to 
act somehow as a hindrance to the plantation, 
he was sent to the Tower in London, where he 
was doomed to suffer a life-long imprisonment. 
He lingered there from 1609 to 1628, and was 
only released at last by the kindly interposition 
of death. 

Amidst all the excitement and horror caused 
at this crisis in Ulster by the violent discussions 

Sreparatory to carrying off to the Tower of 
'Cahan with Sir Cormao O'Neill and SJr Keal 
O'Dounell, the Commissioners of plantation 
went upon their way rejoicing. Having per- 
formed their work in Tyrone, they started from 
Dungannon, journeying still Northward. They 
wanted to make their way directly to Lima- 
vady, then the moss conspicuous position in the 
County of Coleraine, or " O'Oahan's, country, 11 
but the shortest roa4 lying through the Sparrfe 



and fiUevaffallon sanas waa At that time on* 
fvajlable because of great raw, and % party 
was thai compelled to take % rather circuitous 
route through Desert Linn, now Desertmartin* 
and the woods ol Glenconkeyne. " The 24th, M 
■aye toe chronicler ol their movement*, " we 
marched towards Coleraine. The mountains ol 
Slewsishe [Sperrin] and Slewgannon [Slieve- 
gallon] not being passable with carriages* we 

Sere constrained to pass by Desert linn and 
lanconkene, near to Kilulter [Killetragh.1, 
the great fastness of Tyrone. Through the 
glens in this passage we were enforced to oamp 
three niffbte. In the preceding autumn a lot 
of Commissioners, with Chichester at their 
head, took the same route through the woods, 
" where the wild inhabitants," as Davys then 
jokingly remarked, " wondered as much 
to see the King's deputy as the gboste 
|n Virgil wondered to see Aeneas alive in 
hell." The barrier then presented by the vast 
Blewsheese or Sperrin range is not so formid- 
able now, as roads have been since made along 
the four glens by which it is intersected, one 
running almost parallel with the mountain 
range from Newtownstewart to Draperstown, 
along the picturesque highland defile of Glen- 
filly, which separates the Sperrin range from 
the Munterlony mountains. SlievegaUon is in 
the parish of Lissan, and nearly four miles 
north west' from the town of Moneymore. It 
forms at once the commencement and highest 
portion ol that chain whioh extends north by 
west to the sea at Magilligan Point. 
. The road by Desert Linn, although then 
leading through a labyrinth of woods and 
wilds, was level, and had at least one rare at- 
traction for the Commissioners as conducting 
them to the celebrated lake- dwelling of Loch- 
inis-O'Lynn, already mentioned, and on which 
they determined to erect a fort for the protec- 
tion of the settlers who might be there located. 
The lake is partly in the townlaud of Desert- 
martin, and partly in that of Annagh and 



M 

Moneytterlin, the kit name Mag a oorraptton 
of Meinlster-O'Fhloinn, and derived from a 
monastery founded there by a chieftain of the 
O'Lynns. On 8unday, the 27th, the Commis- 
sioners emerged from the woods in the neigh- 
borhood of Llmavady, for the vast forests of 
Glenoonkeyne and Eilletragh stretched down 
in that direction to the shores of Lough Foyle. 
The chronicler of the party states that on the 
day above-named they "obtained [reached] 
Limavadie, the chief house of O'Oahan, and the 
best town of that country, and camped a mile 
and more from the town. The 28 th of August 
being Monday, they began the Assizes and the 
rest of their business at Limavadie, and ended 
the Thursday following." On that day, also, 
Davys snatohed from his own peculiar work as 
much time as enabled him to write to Salis- 
bury. From his letter we make the following 
extract relative to the several works on hand:— 
" We are now in the Oounty of Coleralne, 
which contains O'Chane's fruitful country, and 
is the third stage in our journey. We pursue 
onr first course in describing and distinguish- 
ing the land. Our geography has had the 
speedier dispatch, inasmuch as here the county 
is but little, consisting only of three baronies, 
and as they had sent two surveyors before to 
perambulate the country, and to prepare the 
business by gathering notes of the names, sites, 
and extent of townlands. This they performed 
well and readily, being accompanied with but 
a slender guard. I speak of a guard as of a 
necessary circumstance; for though the country 
be now quiet, and the heads of greatness gone, 
yet their geographers do not forget what enter- 
tainment the Irish of Tyrconnell gave to a map- 
maker, about the end of the late great rebel- 
ion ; for one Berkeley being appointed by the 
late Earl of Devonshire to draw a true and per- 
fect map of the north parts of Ulster (the old 
maps being false and defective), when he came 
into Tyrconnell the inhabitants took off his 



87 

head, because they would not have their 
country discovered. 

The concluding portion of this letter ro- 
utes to the controversy between the Grown 
and the Church on the Herenagh and Termon 
lands, and as the Bishops so pertinaoionsly 
adhered to their claims, we give Davys's own 
account of their overthrow in O'Caban's 
country:— •'For the distinction of Church lands 
in this country, we had a jury of clerks or 
scholars ; for the jurors, being fifteen in 
number, thirteen spake good Latin, and that 
very readily. These clerks, being chosen in the 
presence of the Lord Primate, should by 
reasonable presumption rather be partial for the 
clergy than for the King. They conceived 
their verdict or presentment in a singular good 
form and method, and gave as more light than 
ever we had before touching the original and 
estate of Herenaghes and Termon lands. Here 
at length, after long expectation, the Lord Bishop 
of Derry [George Montgomery] came to 
the camp, and was present at the get- 
ting up of the jurors' presentment, 
wherein because it was found that the lands 
possessed by the Herenaghes and their septs 
were their proper inheritance, and not the 
inheritance of the Bishops, and that the 
Bishops had only rents out of those lands, and 
not the lands themselves (though herein they 
concurred with the verdicts given in Tyrone 
and Armagh this year, and with all the pre- 
sentments made the last year, being Indeed the 
manifest and infallible truth), yet because it 
contradicts his Lordship's suggestions made in 
England with great confidence and assurance, 
namely, that these lands were the very demesne 
lands of the Bishops, upon which suggestion 
his Majesty was speedily moved to con- 
fer all those lands to their several sees : 
therefore, his Lordship took exception to 
that part of the verdict, affirming that 
he would not believe that they all speed in 
that point i and therefore he examined them by 



88 

the poll, before the Lord Deputy and the rest 
of the Commissioners, and though he expostu- 
lated with them somewhat roundly and sharply 
(which might) have altered such poor men as 
mast live under his jurisdiction), yet every one 
held his opinion constantly, and every one 
severally gave such plain and probable reasons 
for his opinions that the Commissioner* were 
fully satisfied, and the presentment was re- 
ceived." The results, therefore, of this inqui- 
sition at Limavady respecting the Crown and 
Church lands were as satisfactory to the Com- 
missioners as those arising from similar inves- 
tigations at Armagh and Dungannon, and, in- 
deed, as found afterward* in the re- 
maining three counties of Donegal, Fer- 
managh, and Cavan. All the Herenagh 
and Termon lands were taken to be 
temporal lands, and Davys, in his " Abstract 
of Titles," stated that " there is no 
part of the temporal lands lying within this 
county granted to any person, but all remaineth 
in his Majesty's hands to be disposed of to 
undertakers, except the moiety of the Royal 
fishing of the Ban." The half of the Bann 
fishings belonging to the Crown was between 
Lough Neagh and the Salmon Leap, which half 
or moiety the King granted to James Hamilton, 
assignee of Thomas Ireland. Hamilton by deed 
assigned and conveyed the same to* Sir Arthur 
Chichester, and the latter was obliged, for 
valuable considerations, to surrender it to the 
Londoners soon after having secured it him- 
self. 



n. 

Whilst Davys and others were thus engaged 
in clearing the King's title on a point involving 
extensive territory in each of the six counties, 
the surveyors and those appointed to mark off 
the lands in proportions were buy in their 



several special departments. They oommeooed 
work in the barony of Ooleraine, which, in 
remote times, had contained two divisions, 
North and South, the former being occupied by 
the great tribe Gaara, and the hitter by the 
sept Donagh. The northern division of this 
barony was occupied, even at an earlier period, 
by the Fir Li, a family or race well known in 
ancient Irish records. The northern half 
barony of Coleraine was designated in the olden 
days as Maohaire or Maghery, the " Plain." 
lying between the mountain of Benevenagh or 
Ben-Aibhne and the River Bann The greatest 
length of this «« Plain" is seventeen miles, 
whilst its breadth varies from two to nine 
miles. Its northern boundary is the Atlantic ; 
and its southern the barony of Longbinsholin ; 
on the east it is bounded by the County of An- 
trim ; and on the west partly by the barony of 
Keenaght. The southern part of the barony 
of Ooleraine was the country of the sept 
Donagh, and lies a little to the north-west of 
the present town of Kllrea. The whole barony 
Coleraine, north and south, comprises some- 
what over 104,800 statute acres, and oon tains 
the present parishes of Agivey, Aghadowey, 
Desertoghill, Dunboe, Errigal, Killowen, 
Macoequin, Ballyaohran, and Coleraine, with 
part of the parishes of Kilrea, Tamlaght- 
O'Crilly, Balrashane, Ballywillen, Ballymoney, 
and Kildollagh. In this barony the Commis- 
sioners of survey found about 8,000 arable 
acres, which was marked off into seven propor- 
tions—one large, one middle, and ftve small. 
The names of these proportions were Bought- 
begg, Forntinule, Lisetrim, Claggin, Magheri- 
boy, Cam, and Moyoosquin. The last propor- 
tion on this list contained 600 acres which had 
belonged to the ancient and well known abbey 
of this name. The proportion called Cam or 
Camus contained the lands of the celebrated 
abbey founded by St. Comghall on the Bann, 
about three miles south of Coleraine. 
From the barony of Coleraine theCommis- 



into feat of Limavadie, now 
ataaagajk This barony, first known as Urn*- 
redie-Leim an-Mh*daidh,t*e "Dog's Leap"— 
contained the three sub-divisions of Keenaghe, 
Farnacreeve, and Ardmagilligan. Keenaght, 
which now gives name to the whole barony, it 
a contracted form of Cianachta, the name of an 
ancient tribe or clan dwelling there, and ex- 
pelled by theO'Cahane. Cianachta of Keenaght 
was the district around the present town of 
Dungiven. Farancreeve — Feara-na Craebh, 
" men of the Groove,"— as already stated, was the 
earliest tribe name of the O'Oahaas, who dwelt 
originally on the western aide of the Bann 9 in 
the district opposite the celebrated waterfall of 
Eas Creeve, afterwards known as the " Salmon 
Leap," and now as the "Cutte," nearColeraine. 
Ardmagilligan, the third old sub division of this 
barony, is now known as Magilligan, and was 
originally eo named from a numerous, though 
never a powerful, tribe, the»UiGiollogain, who 
held the whole district from the summit of 
Benevenagh and the mouth of the River Boa 
northward, to the east side of the entrance of 
Lough Foyle, and thence four miles in a south- 
eastward direction along the Atlantic This 
modern barony of Keenaght comprises about 
128,692 acres, and contains the parishes of 
Aghanloo, Balteagh, Bovevagh, Drumacbose, 
Dungiven, Magilligan, and Tamlaghtfinlagan ; 
wi&h part of the parish of Banagher. In 
Keenaght the Commissioners found 8,000 arable 
acres, whioh was marked off into seven propor- 
tions—one great, two middle, and four 
small. The names of these proportions 
were Dowlinn, Oulmore, Cammes, Bar- 
cagh, Rousky, Mackan, and Dungiven. The 
proportion last named contained the lands 
connected with a castle of the O'Cahans, and 
with the famous old monastery there in which 
these chief tains had their principal burying- 
plaoe. 

From the barony of Llmavadie or Keenaght 
the Commissioners moved into that of Annagh, 



91 

now Tbrkeertn. This barony Alto 
tire* mbHttvisiooft or aubterritQctee la ancient 
times* named respectively Tyiohyriae, Sgsyn* 
and Oendesmod. The first of these tab terri- 
to r i e s ie now represented by the district of 
FenghanTale, the second by the district) of 
Comber, end the third by the district of 
Ctondermot, This barony oomprises about 
102,0W acres, and contains the perishes o£ 
Cloadermot, Lower Camber, and Eeaf haawele» 
wJtb past of the parishes of Baanagher 
and Upper Comber. Tirkeerln wm found by 
the Oomniissioners to contain only 8,500 arable, 
acres* which were marked off into eight pro- 
portions— one great* one middle* and six small. 
The name* of these proportions were* respec- 
tively Lisglasse, Loyer, Monagh b ogg, Moyeg- 
hoy» Carnemoyaga,, Brackmoy, KUdonan, and 
Limavadlfiv Anagh, the place from which the 
wholo barony received toe old name, was about 
two miles to the- north-east of Deny. At this 
point the O'Gahans had a well* known castle or 
residence, a» well as one at Limavady. 

After the Commissioners had finished their 
work in Keeneght, they passed southward into 
the borony of Loughinsholin. Their- map 
of 1609, prepared soon after their retwm 
to Dublin, presents this, large barony in 
two sections, the first containing the ancient 
territories of RiUetregh, Tamlaght* Tarragh- 
ter» and Melannagh ; the second section, 
containing Glanconkeyne and OlandonneU* 
the last-named territory being so called 
ae the inheritance of sept descended frost 1 
a Donnell O'Neill. The first section oi 
the barony is represented on the map as 
bounded east by Lough Begg. and the Biver 
Bans, en the south-east by Lough Neagh*. on 
too south-west and north-west by the 
b^arony of Dungaunonyand on the north by the 
barony of Strabane. This whole section is also 
represented as wooded* boa free from bogs. 
The. castle of Toome*. between Lough Neagh 
and fougftBeggs i» marked on the ma£H*in: » 



92 

ruinous or decayed condition. The second 
section, containing Glanconkeyne and Olan- 
donnell, la shown on the map as also very much 
wooded, with several patches of bog in the 
latter territory around the present Innis- 
rash. The two principal and beet 
known territories in Loughinsholin were Glan- 
oonkeyne and Eillitragh. The former is called 
Gleann Conoadhain in the Annals of Ireland at 
the years 1526 and 1584. On Norden's map the 
name is written " Olanoonoan ;" and on Speed's 
map "Glan- kankyne," lying between 8 lew Gallon 
and Carntogher. This region, which was so 
clothed indensewoode, forms the western part of 
the barony of Loughinsholin. KUletragh-Coill- 
ioohtarach, the lower wood, was separated from 
Glenconkeyne by the River Moyola.. John 
Leigh, a very active servitor, in his Briefe 
already quoted, has the following reference to 
this district :— " In the barony of the Glynnes, 
called Loaghinsholyn, the inhabitants, consist- 
ing chiefly of the Neales[0'Neill6],the Haggans, 
the Mnlhallans, with the M'Oahirs and the 
Qainnes, are wholly those which had their de- 
pendence upon the Earl of Tyrone and 
his sept, and in this place, especially 
about that part of the barony called Kllly- 
traghe, being a strong fastness, do inhabit the 
chief e nest of those that, upon any sudden oc- 
casion offered them, would first show them- 
selves in action for Tyrone's party, they being 
able, out of this one quarter, to draw together 
at least 200 able men, and well-armed, within 
24 hours. Also, I have observed that under 
colour of having liberty to wear arms in the 
time of O'Dogherty's rebellion, for their own 
defence, the country is now everywhere full of 
pikes and other weapons, which their Irish 
smiths daily make." In Loughinsholin, the 
Commissioners found 13,500 arable acres, 
which were marked off into fourteen propor- 
tions—two great, one middle, and eleven small* 
The names of these proportions respectively 
were— Ballinemanagh, Drumrott, Tirnafeesy, 



M 

Gortoonra, BaUymacrossy, Moysaden, Oyna, 
Coholre, Oarramony, Tyrassan, Cully, Bally- 
voley, Ballyleitrim, and Laokah. 

The Commissioners had now completed their 
work In Loughinsholin, and in the three other 
baronies above described, but where were the 
applicant* or undertakers ? They had carved 
up " O'Oahan's fruitful country," as Davys 
expressed it, and had spread oat the land- ban- 
quet as invitingly as possible, but where were 
the hungry speculators and intending planters 
who had crowded around the Commissioners in 
other counties ? They were conspicuous by their 
entire and determined absence. There is no 
trace in the State papers, so far as we know, 
of any individual applicants for lands either in 
Loughinsholin, or in "O'Cahan's fruitful 
country." The doom of that Northern Lord 
must have shocked the community to some ex- 
tent both north and south of the Tweed, 
whilst the planters and speculators generally 
were afraid that O'Oahan might be permitted 
to return. There is, or has been hitherto, a 
sort of affected mystery as to the real origin of 
the Londoners' plantation— as to whether the 
scheme was hatched in the Court or in the 
Corporation. There need be no mystery what- 
ever about it. The King and 'his councillors, 
informed no doubt by their Irish agents and 
emissaries, saw at a glance that no undertakers 
could be induced to go singly, or even in small 
companies, to settle between the Bann and the 
Foyle, and they also knew vexy well the 
cause. The Scottish Solomon then became 
suddenly and deeply impressed with a faith, 
which he could have had only at second hand, 
in the great power and resources of the Lon- 
don Corporation, and, being urged on by 
others, he could not rest until he had enlisted 
its assistance in the settlement of this other- 
wise impracticable county. There is no doubt 
the idea originally arose in the Council or 
Cabinet, and from that moment the Corpora- 
tion was sought to be led into the transaction 



Hz 

bv OMTV »w^«ll*l^ ttt^mmmflnk On fcha fifgfe. 

quarrefc— end there were many— between, the. 
two parties, the Corporation in- self-defence de*» 
dared: — "About* July, in the 7th yet? 
oi James [1609], eame a proposition by the 
Lords of the, Privy Council to the city of Lon- 
don to undertake, the plantajhJon oi divers land* 
of great extent io the province of Ulster,, in the 
remotest part* of the, North oi Ireland, at thai 
time doser-ted by other, planter*, which the 
City at first refused to undertake ; but* upon 
pressing importunity of the said Lords that 
Borne selected persona from the City might be 
sent to view the country, and that the said 
plantation might be undertaken* upon the 
signification of bis Majesty's earnest, desire to 
further the 'said weik, and upon tender of 
large privileges and immunities to invite them 
thereunto, oertain persons oi the City [oi 
London} were employed to view the premises." 



HI* 

Ths Londoners were very hard to be moved* 
and indeed would not and did not move* until 
they got evexf point down to the minutest 
details granted and artanged.as.they required. 
The Council wrote to Chichester that the. Lon- 
doner* were then ready and <4 willing to under- 
take such e> part as might befit them in the pro- 
ject of the plantation of Ulster, and to be a. 
means to reduce that savage and rebellions, 
people to» civility, peace, religion, and obedir 
ence; and having commissioned the bearers — 
John Bijoda, goldsmith ; John Monroes, Robert. 
Tceswell, painter ;. and John Rowley, draper, 
to view, the country and make report.on the re* 
turn, you are to direct a snpply|of all neces- 
saries, in their travel in those countries, and to 
aid them in every way. And we have directed! 
Sir Thomas, Phillips to accompany them, whose* 
i^ ^y ift ^j ya ^n ^ . residence* in* thoifl toarlw jj end* 



good affection to fee mam to general, w* 
assure ourselves wtii be off great nee el this 
time, seeing there it no men that Intendeth any 
plantation or habitation fn Ulster who ought 
not to be moat desirous of suoh neighbours as 
will bring trade and traffic into tee porta." 
The closing sentence in this letter was a gentle 
bint to certain servitors, who believed they 
could secure very comfortable " habitation in 
Ulster," even if the Londoners were never to 
show their faces, and who did not relish the 
idea of having to surrender their lucrative fish* 
Inge and abbey • lands . for the delectation of 
these London drapers and painters. Not ap- 
parently satisfied, however, with sending the 
foregoing letter by the persons who came to 
spy the land, the Council, through another 
channel, on the same day, Aug. 3, 1009, wrote 
again to Chichester, as follows:—" Referring to 
oar foregoing letter, recommending certain 
citizens appointed by the city of London to view 
the Derry and Colrane, and the country between 
them, we anxiously entreat yon to select dis- 
creet persons to conduct and accompany them, 
who shall be able to control whatever dis- 
couraging reports may be made to them out of 
ignorance or malice. The conductors mast take 
care to lead them by the best ways, andto lodge 
them in their travel where they may, if possi- 
ble, receive English entertainment in English* 
men's houses. And though we have the oppor- 
tunity to lay the first band on this offer and to* 
make the project to the city ; yet that it majr 
be well followed up, we send the same in that 
letter enclosed ; and must lea\e it to you to 
perfect). The persons sent with these citizens to 
conduct them must be prepared beforehand to 
strengthen every part thereof by demonstration, 
so as they [the citizens] may conceive the com* 
moditles to be of good use and profit ; on the 
other hand, that matters of distaste [mat- 
apropos questions], as fears of the Irish, of the 
soldiers, of cess, and such like be not so much 



D6 > 

as named, seeing that you know that discipline 
and order will easily secure them." 

It Is curious to read there instructions to the 
Deputy in the light of succeeding events. The 
English visitors, who were thus only to be 
lodged in " Englishmen's houses " in O'Cahan's 
oountry, must have got an occasional peep, 
during their peregrinations, into or at Irish- 
men's housee 4 too— for only a few months later 
we find this same Council suggesting that the 
Irish houses, from whioh the owners were to be 
.turned adrift, should be preserved for the 
use of English settlers throughout this very 
County of Londonderry . Nov, this suggestion 
must have probably originated with the 
Londoners themselves, whose agents, although 
not permitted to lodge in these houses, had 
learned to oovet them. Then these worthy 
citizens were not, on any pretext, to be per- 
mitted to listen to any stories tending to in- 
spire them with a " fear of the Irish" — and this 
was well ordered — for the London Companies 
afterwards found these Irish to be their best 
friends, and rather than part with their 
services were willing to incur the displeasure, 
and even the threatened hostility, of the Gov- 
ernment. It so happened that the London 
Companies could get very few British tenant- 
settlers to risk themselves either in O'Cahan's 
oountry or in Loughlosholin, where the people 
kept so manypikes, and perhaps the only one 
advantage of having them (the Companies) in 
Ulster at all was, that these Companies, al- 
though for their owji interests, were a principal 
means of preserving the Irish race from utter 
extinction in our Northern province. At 
all events, the Companies stoutly maintained 
the right of holding the Irish as their tenants, 
of preventing their expulsion ; and to these 
Londoners we are indebted, more perhaps than 
to the servitors or Bishops, for the thriving and 
vigorous native population in Ulster at the 
present day. Indeed, this whole business fur- 



97 

njahas a cnrioua illustration off the following 
words of the poet :— 

The best laid schemes of mice and men 
Gang aft aglee, 

And leave them nought bat grief and pain 
For promised joy. 

In the meantime, whilst the Commissioners 
at Limavady were beginning to fear that they 
had been labouring there in vain, the four Lon- 
don citizens arrived at the camp— even aa the 
official party were collecting their traps to de- 
park Davys immediately informed Salisbury of 
their arrival, on the 28th of August, 1609, in 
the following terms :— " The Londoners are 
now come and are exceeding welcome. We all 
use our best rhetoric to persuade them to go on 
with their plantation, which will assure this 
whole island to the Grown of England for ever. 
They like and praise the country very much, 
speoially the Banne and the river of Lough- 
feyle. One of the agents is fallen sick, and 
would fain return ; but the Lord Deputy and all 
the rest here use means to comfort him, and to 
retain him, lest this accident should discourage 
his fellow -citizens. 14 We have a much more 
interesting account of the Londoners' four 
agents in a letter written by Chichester from 
the " Camp in Fermanagh, near Ennishkeelyn, 
18 September, 1609. " " Sir Thomas Phillips," 
he writes, " with the four agents of London, 
came into me likewise in the County of 
Coleraine. They landed at Knock- 
fergus, and in their way from thence they 
beheld Coleraine and the River Banne beneath 
the Leape ; they nave now seen the Derry, the 
river of Loughfoyle, the Lyffer [Lifford], and 
sundry parts adjoining, and they like so well of 
the sates, the lands adjoining the rivers, and 
the commodities they think to raise by their 
purse and good husbandry, that they assure me 
the city of London will really undertake the 
plantation upon the report they are to make, 
and that with expedition. If they should not, 
as I have often told them, they will be enemies 



to themselves, for the fishings, lands, and 
woods, with toleration of custom and other 
privileges, which his Majesty has graciously 
proffered to them, are worth not less than £2,000 
a year as they now are, and their parse and in- 
dustry will, within two or three years, improve 
them to doable that value. They came in a 
convenient time, when the people in each 
county made their appearance, declaring 
their obedience and submission to the 
law in a far better fashion than with- 
in these three years I ever expected 
to have seen within this province; and if my 
good usage, and that of the Council with me, 
could add to the other encouragements they 
have found, it has not been and shall not be 
wanting. I advised them to send an assay of 
the commodities which the country at this time 
afforded to the Lord Mayor, of whioh they took 
good liking ; and so I proonred them raw hides, 
tallow, salmon, herrings, eels, pipe staves, beef, 
and the like, at easy prices. I also procured 
them some of the iron ore, and will add speci- 
mens of the lead and copper. They are now 
gone to take a more exact view of the River 
Banne above the Leape, and of the woods of 
Glankonkyne and Kylletra, intending to meet 
me about fourteen days hence, upon my return 
towards Dublin. Sir Thomas Phillips, to his 
charge and trouble, daily accompanies them 
from one place to another, which is a great 
comfort to them. He will return with them ; 
and in the meantime nothing shall be wanting 
to continue them in the resolution they have 
taken ; for albeit I perceive they aim at some 
things that yield no profit, yet I will not hinder 
so good a work— the best that ever was under- 
taken in my time for the general good of the 
kingdom — for my own private ends, as I doubt 
not they will declare unto your Lordship." 

From this point the negotiations between the 
Council in London and the Corporation went 
forward without a hitch until the 
whole arrangements were completed. The 



99 

deputies on their return from Ulster 
gave a glowing bat strictly true ac- 
count of " O'Oahao's fertile country"— which 
they represented as "fertile" in every 
respect— in its soil so well suited to the rearing 
of all sorts of cattle, and the cultivation of 
every useful crop— in its rivers and coasts, so 
abundant in the production of fish and fowl— in 
its woods, which were then the haunts of the 
red deer, and in which the Englishmen were 
astounded by the size and magnificence of the 
foreetrtrees, especially the oaks and elms— in its 
mineral wealth, where the " smiths made iron 
before their faces, and of the iron they made 
steel within less than one hour," from the ore 
which could be gathered in some districts even 
from the surface— in its springs and brooks, 
which everywhere delighted the eyes of 
the strangers — and even in its bogs, which they 
reported asaffording "plenty of good and whole- 
some turf to supply the want of other fuel. 1 ' 
When this report was read, and when, in 
addition, the Aldermen saw the magnificent 
samples of eels, fresh herrings, salmon, beef, and 
tallow which Chichester had wisely got nnder 
their very eyes, there was no longer any 
doubt about the destiny of " O'Cahan's fertile 
country ; " it was thenceforth to be taken into 
the possession of twelve London Companies, 
with a Society to act as an intermediate link 
between these Companies and the Crown, and 
which Society is generally .known as the Irish 
Society, but by its own special baptism is styled 
"The Honourable Society of the Governor 
and Assistants, London, of the New 
Plantation in Ulster, within the Realm 
of Ireland." The twelve Companies were Gold- 
smiths, Grocers, Fishmongers, Ironmongers, 
Mercers, Merchant-Tailors, Haberdashers,Cloth- 
workers, Skinners, Vintners, Drapers, and 
Salters. 

When these Companies or Associations 
had been twelve months in possession of 
their several estates in Londonderry, Sir George 



100 

Carew reported very briefly and unfavourably 
of them as follows :*— " In the County of Colrane 
we neither found nor understood of anything 
done by the Londoners towards the perform- 
ance of the Articles of the Plantation. Their 
agents receive the rents there, and in the 
barony of Lough-Enieh O'Lyn, from the natives, 
and seek not to remove them, which makes the 
said natives to conceive that they shall 
not be displanted; which is a great 
hindrance to the plantation of that 
county, and ill example to their neighbours. 
The first buildings of which we took note were 
at Colrane, where we saw a good rampier of 
earbh and eods raised 6 foot high and l£ 
or 14 foot thick, round about the town, 
and the bulwarks of same height, the ditch 
digged about 3 feet deep, and near the full 
breadth of 36 or 40 foot ; a mill-dam with a 
bank*at the head of the pond of 300 foot long; 
and 40 foot broad, and 14 or 15 foot deep, 
with two very fair flood-gates lined with strong 
oaken timber and planks ; a fair mill- house, 25 
foot long and 22 in breadth, of one storfe high 
— three mills in the same house, one for wheat, 
one for malt, and the third a truck mill ; a very 
fair pound of sawn oak timber, 40 foot square $ 
a bridge or wharf made in the Bann, of 60 foot 
long and 12 broad, of very strong oak timber, 
clasped together in the joints with bars and 
bolts of iron. Sir Thomas Phillips, Knight, hath 
erected a water-mill at Limavadie, unto 
which he drew water a mile, in a Biuice or pond 
12 foot broad and 5 foot deep ; he hath put in 
good forwardness an inn builded English 
fashion, for the relief of passengers passing that 
way. He hath, towards the building the new 
Gaetle of Lemavadie, felled and squared in the 
woods of Glenconkeyne good store of timber, 
and hath raised stone out of the ditch adjoining 
the old Castle, being a very hard rock, whereby 
he intends to make some good work for the 
defence of the country. Captain Edward Dod- 
dington hath builded at Dungiven a Castle of 



22 foot broad and four stqries high, whereof 
some part of the walls were stranding before, 
and is now by him well finished and stated ; he 
hath built a house adjoining to the Castle 43 foot 
long and 18 broad, the walls whereof some parts 
were standing, but now very well and hand- 
somely slated and finished ; he hath repaired 
a bawne of lime and stone about the 
castle and house. We next came to Derry, 
where we saw the church well slated and re- 
paired ; two fair houses of stone, two stories 
high, slated and finished, with cellars ; a 
thatched house wherein Mr. Wray dwelleth ; a 
Sawplt covered with deal boards; a smith's 
forge, with a dwell house to the same ; two 
lime-kilns ; a wharf 300 foot long and 14 broad ; 
a bark building, of 70 or 80 tons, with pro 
visions of plank and other timber for her. The 
Fort of Deserte Marty ne, a place in Glencon- • 
keyne, is thought fit for the King's service, and 
the service of travellers between Coleraine and 
all parts of Tyrooe and Armagh, to be laid out 
with 300 acres for a fort. The London agents 
have agreed to the place and number of acres, 
but in regard that Deeerte Marty ne, on which 
the forte is to be erected, is the Bishop of 
Derry's land. We think fit that the Londoners 
should give him so much in exchange thereof 
of their own land, and we think it not amiss 
that the King should give £200 toward* 
erecting the fort, the constable to pay the over- 
plus, if any." 



IV 

The Company of Goldsmiths was the first of 
those mentioned on the foregoipg list. This 
Company's lands are situated in the bar.ony of 
Tirkeerin, and border on the County Tyrone 
northward, their other boundaries being chiefly 
the Lough and River of Foyle. Pynnar states 
that the agent of this Company in 1620 was 



102 

John Freeman, Esq. The Goldsmiths were the 
first amonget several other companies to dispose 
of their lands in perpetuity, reserving small rents 
generally between £400 and £500. So early as 
the year 1730 the Goldsmiths sold their manor, 
known as Goldsmiths' Hall, to the Earl of 
Sheltrarne, for the snm of £14,100, and a re- 
served rent of £450. This small head- rent gives 
the Goldsmiths still a semblance of authority on 
their lands, and the Irish Society is thus pri- 
vileged to go through a . formal routine 
of suggestions aa to the management 
of the estate. In 1838, these lands, 
which had long previously passed from 
the Shelburne family, are referred to in the 
Society's Report for that year, as follows :— 
" This estate has been miserably neglected, 
but we hope, now that the whole is in pos- 
session of Leslie Alexander, Esq., of Foyle 
Park, he will immediately attend to the per- 
formance of those duties incumbent on him as 
the possessor of this proportion." The Society's 
advice will have since, no doubt, been addressed 
to several other holders of fragments of the 
Goldsmiths 1 lands, for the family of Alexander, 
in 1875, retained not much over 5,000 acres of 
the same. These fragments now comprise 
many thousands of acres, although the Gold- 
smiths' grant only originally conveyed to that 
Company 3,210 acres. 

2. The Grocers' lands lie also in the barony 
of Tirkeerin. The manor of Muff, or Grocers' 
Hall, is bounded on the north by Lough Foyle, 
and extends southward as far as the Burntollet 
River ; its western boundary is the River 
Foyle, and eastward it meets the lands of an 
adjoining proportion. When Pynnar came — 
1-618-1620— he found the Grocers' agent, 
Edward Rowan, Beq., just dead, and the whole 
estate neglected, and lying in confusion. There 
were some buildings, but chiefly done by a few 
tenants, although they got no tenures, and in- 
formed Pynnar that they were likely to be re 
moved, although some of them had severally 



103 

expended £100 In improvements. All the lands, 
with slight exceptions, were occupied by the 
Irish, the former owners. Seven of the com- 
panies, the Grocers included, leased their lands 
to persons who had come as their agents, and 
generally for terms of 61 years and three lives. 
Some considerable time after Rowan's death, 
a Mr. Babington became the Grocers 1 tenant, 
and devoted himself very efficiently to the task 
of making up for previous neglect. It may, 
therefore, be supposed that the Irish Society 
would be pleased at last with the state of 
affairs on the Grocers' lands. After having 
made many unfavourable reports, the Society 
was able to affirm in 1838 that the " Grocers' 
proportion, next to the Drapers', is the best 
managed estate." The chief town is Muff, 
which is a very neat and clean place, with an 
excellent church and market- house and other 
buildings. It appears from a comparatively 
recent return of owners of land in Ireland that 
the Grocers' Company hold 11,638 acres, 
nearly four times the quantity conveyed In 
their grant. 

3. The Fishmongers' lands lie partly in the 
barony of Keenaght and partly in that of 
Tirkeerin. The finds in Keenaght lie along 
the eastern and southern shores of Lough Foyle, 
and those in Tirkeerin extend from Faughan- 
vale in the north to a place called Feeny in 
the south. In Pynnar's time the Fishmongers 
had let this property to a London merchant 
named Higgins, whose agent dwelt at Fish- 
mongers' Hall, alias Ballykellie, and near this 
place, Fynnar reports, there was then 
"a good preacher to teach the people." In 
Samson's "Memoir of Chart," and when referring 
to good residences in this district, he mentions 
that a " Mr. Sterling had a good dwelling on 
the site of the ancient castle of the Fish* 
mongers' proportion. Here also are the earliest 
gardens in the county, well enclosed with walls 
and stored with excellent fruit trees." The 
Fishmongers hold 20,509 acres, or nearly seven 



times* the quantiby oonveyed in their grant 
from the Crown. ( 

4. The Ironmongers 1 proportion known as 
the manor of Lizard, ie situated in the barony 
of Coleraine, between the Bann on the east and 
the barony of Keenaghb on the weBt. Pynnar 
reported that "George Cammynge (Canning), 
agent for the Company, is ijere resident; but he 
hath no order to make any estates to any ten- 
ants that are come hither to dwell, notwith- 
standing there are divers that have disbursed a 
great deal of money and built houses. Besides, 
here is an infinite number of Irish upon the 
land, which give such great rents that the 
English cannot get any land." The Irish 
cheerfully submitted to rack- renting rather 
than being disturbed in their old,, 
cherished houses. The lands of this manor, 
extend more or less into the five parishes of 
Aghadowey, Agivey, Desertoghill, Errigal, and 
Macosqutn. The Ironmongers leased their 
lands in 1705, 1725, 1766, and 1813 respectively 
to George Canning, juh'., Henry Lecky, Josi«s 
Du Pr6 ? and Sir William C. Beresftrd. The 
Company holds at the present time 12,714 
acres, or four times the quantity conveyed in 
their grant from the Crown. . 

5. The Mercers' lands l|e in part along the 
Bann, in the barony of Coleraine, but by much 
the larger portion is situated in the barony of 
Loughinsholln, extending southward from the 
Ironmongers' proportion as far as a little stream 
called Ermivaroy, and a locality known as 
Granahan. The ruins of the castle called 
Mercers' Hall still exist in the townland of 
Movanagher, parish of Kilrea. In 1620 Pyn- 
nar reported that the Mercers' lands were not 
" set to any man as yet, but held by one Ver- 
non, agent for the Company, Not far from 
the Bawne t\here are six houses of cage-work, 
inhabited by such poor men as they could 
find in the country, and these pay such 
dear rates for the land that they are forced, 
to take "Irish tenants under them to pay 



10i5 

the rent* TBere are divers other houses of 
•light building, bat they ere far off, and dwell 
dispersedly in the woods, where they areforoed 
of mere necessity to relieve such woodkeern as 
go up and down the country ; and, as I am in* 
formed by diverse in the country, there are 
• .forty-six townlands of this proportion that are 
' set to the Irish of the sept of Olandonnells 
(descendants of a Donald O'Neill), which are 
the wickedest men in all the oountry." The 
Mercers now hold 21,241 acres, or over seven 
times as much as was conveyed to them In their 
grant from the Grown. 

6. The Merchant Tailors' proportion is 
situated in the northern half of the barony of 
Goleraine. Along the Bann, its eastern boun- 
dary, it reaches from near Killowen, in a south- 
ern direction, as far as a place' called Curragh, 
the Intermediate localities along this eastern 

. border being Somerset, Ballynas, Castleroe, 
Camus, Cbole, and Ballylaggan. Westward 
the lands of this proportion extend as far as the 
boundary line between the baronies of 
Goleraine and Keenaght. Pynnar reported 
in 1620 that the manor of "Merchant Tailors' 
Hall, alias Maoosquin, is in the hands of Valen- 
tine Hartopp, Esq., who is newly come to dwell 
there, having taken this proportion of the Com- 
pany for 61 years. 1 ' This Company is one of 
four who granted their lands in perpetuity for 
small yearly head rents and large fines or pur- 
chase money.. In this case the purchaser was 
a Mr. Richardson, whose present representative 
'holds 18,159, although this quantity does not 
Include all the lands belonging to the estate. 
The whole lands are more than seven times as 
much as Was originally granted to the Tailors 
from the Grown. ■ • 

7. tfhe Haberdashers'landa lie along the east- 
ern boundary in the barony of Keenaght, com- 
mencing on the skirts of Benevenagh in 
the north, and reaching, southward as far 
as Formil and Camnish, on the * eastern 
and western slopes of the Benbradach 



106 

mountain range. Pynnar reported that- the 
* manor, of " Haberdashers' Hall, alias Bally- 
castle, was taken by Sir Robert M'Lellan for 61 
years, and upon this proportion the castle is 
strongly finished, being very strong and well 
wrought, himself with his lady and family 
dwelling in it." Sir Robert MacLellan was 
eon in-law to Sir Hugh Montgomery, first Lord 
Ards, bat neither he nor his lady lived long 
after Pynnar'e visit in 1618-20. The Haber- 
dashers sold their lands in perpetuity to the 
Beresfords, whose residence therein was known 
as Walworth. The Marquis of Waterford, the 
representative of Beresford, eold recently to 
Sir H. H. Bruce 29,801 acres of the Haber- 
dashers' lands ; whilst John B. Beresford, Esq., 
■till holds 10,420 acres of the same property, 
so that this estate is more than ten times' as 
large as the quantity conveyed in that grant 
from the Crown. 

8. The Cloth workers' proportion ocoupies 
the most northern position in the barony of 
Coleraine, extending from the shore of the 
Atlantic, in a south western direction, - 
as far ae Killowen, and along its western border 
as far southward as Forinoyle. Pynnar reports 
that Sir Robert MacLellan had rented this pro- 
portion also, and that it was entirely inhabited 
by Irish, the only British freeholder being the 
parson of the parish. The. Clothworkers sold 
their, lands in perpetuity to the Bruce family 
for a large sum, reserving a small head rent. 
The most notable place of residence on these 
lands is Downhill, whose picturesque beauty 

.has been duly noticed by the Rev. G. V. Sam- 
son thus :— " Amidst these rude masses wind- 
ing walks are laid out. with taste ; the naked- . 
ness is generally relieved by abundant crops of 
grasses, and not unfrequently the brow of a 
rude ledge is decorated by the rich yellow and 
green of various trefoils, sea pinks, and sea- 
campions/ 1 

9. TheSkinners' lands lie in the three baronies 
of Loughinsholin, Keenaght, and Tirkeerin. 



107 

Pynnar reported that the manor of " Skinners' 
Hall, alias Dungevan, was in the possession of 
Lady Dodington, wife of the late Sir Edward 
Dodington, she having taken a grant of it from 
the Company for 61 years." This Lady Doding- 
ton, who was a daughter of Tristram Beres* 
ford,' the Irish Society's first agent, was resid- 
ing in- Skinners' Hall, at Daogiven,*" with 24 
in her family," during Fynnar's visit. She 
aoon afterwards remarried with Sir Francis 
Cooke. The Skinners have frequently let their 
lands by lump to great advantage, getting so 
much as £25,000 at one haul, on a terminable 
lease, from a Mr. Ogilvie, a Dublin linen manu- 
facturer. The Irish Society report in 1838 
that they are '• Sorry to say that this property 
is proverbial throughout the County of Derry 
for that lack of comfort among the tenantry so 
. much deplored in some parts of Ireland." The • 
Company is now in exclusive- possession of 
34,772 acres, or between eleven and twelve 
times as much land as was conveyed to it in 
the grant from the Crown. 

10. The Vintners' lands, known as Bellaghy, 
from the principal town therein, are situated in 
the barony of Lbughinsholin, and extend from 
the Mercers' proportion, in a southern direction . 
near the Bann, as far as the shore of Lough 
Beg, and westward at one point to the boun- 
dary between this barony and Keenaght. Pyn- 
nar reported that the manor of Vintners' Hall 
was in the hands of Baptist Jones, Esq., who 
was then resident, with his wife and family. 
The Vintners' Company was one of the four 
who sold their lands in perpetuity, reserving a 
small head rent. This sale was made in 1736, 
the purchaser, Mr. Conolly, of Castletown, 
paying the Vintners £15,000— a goodly sum at 
that period. Mr. Samson, refers to this dis- 
trict as follows :— " There is a good number of 
trees scattered about Mrs. Downing's house 
at Bose;Gift, and at the old castle of Bel- 
laghy some fine old timber. Mr. Spojitis- 
wood has planted with good success at 



108 

Bellaghy. Near to Portglenone Mr. Bills, of 
Innbrush, and Mr. Courtney, of fUenoweiii 
have respectable residences and 'plantations. ' 

11. The Drapers' lands, also in the barony of 
Loughinsholin, extend southward as far as the 
Coon by of Tyrone, and westward to Glenshane 
and the vloinity of Desertmartin. Pynnav re- 
ported that at the time of his visib Drapers' 
Hall, alicu Money more, was " not set to any 
man, bat held by the agent, Mr. 'Russell. 7 ' 
Much of this proportion adjoins fine -mountain 
oi Slievegallon. Great improvements were 
made in this district from the time the Drapers 
secured the services of a Mr. Rowley Miller as 
agent. In 1838 the report of the Irish Spoiety 
speaks in rapturous terms of these improve- 
ments. u We were very much pleased," eay 
the deputies, "in going through this 

Sroportion. The chief town, Nfopeymore, 
i quite an English town, most beauti- 
fully laid out and managed by 
Mr. Rowley Miller and his son. The inn is 
one of the best we met whilst in Ireland. ' The 
Company have lately established another town 
called Drapers' Town, which is thriving rapidly. 
There are many thriving plantations Of timber 
here ; and the whole appearances of the farm- 
houses, and the town, with the church, the 
market- house, and other buildings, all indicate, 
the kindness of the Drapers' Company, and of 
their excellent manager, Mr. Miller." The 
'Drapers hold 27,026 acres, or about nine times 
the. quantity of land conveyed in their grant 
from the Crown. 

12. The Baiters' lands lie also in the barony 
of Loughinsholin, and extend from the Vint- 
ners' proportion along the shore of Lough 
Neagh to Ballinderry, on the confines of 
Tyrone. The Salters' agent in Pynnar's time 
was a Mr. Hugh Savers, and the Company had 
commenced to ouild Magherafelt and Baiters' 
Town. The Salters' lands were leased for years 
only, when Samson wrote his "Memoir" in 1814, 
and probably for long periods before and after 



• 

that date. He states that It wis the only 
manor or proportion of the twelve so managed. 
The Belters changed this system of looting their 
lands before the year 1838, as at that date they 
had. demised the whole manor for a term of 
years, receiving a large fine from the lessee. 
The Irish Society's, report in 1838 states that 
" the Salter*' estate is one of the four propor- 
tions which is leased for a term of years'; in 
other words, it is ' for a time ont of 
their bands, and consequently oat of 
the management of. the Company. 
The lease granted by the Company will expire 
in 1853. This proportion, however, is. most 
fortunate In having snob * landlord as Sir 
Robert Pateson, the member for the connty, 
who holds directly from the Company." . The 
Salters now hold 19,445 acres, or between six 
and seven times as much as was conveyed to 
them by their original grant from the Crown. 

These Londoners have had a stormy career in 
Ulster, but as* that career is probably soon to 
terminate, it is not necessary here to particu- 
larise the number and- variety of their triumphs. 
They have swept enormous wealth from this 
' " fowling wilderness" between the Foyle and 
the Bann since 1610 ;. and they must have had 
pretty jolly times -in their intervals from 
anxiety and labour, as it is admitted that they 
have spent £76,00(0 a year on dinners. Who 
would not be dvilisers and suppressors of Irish 
barbarism? 



110 

THE COUNTY OF DONEGAL. 



Until titie •commencement) of the seventeenth 
century this vast region was known as Tyrcon- 
nell, and in very early Irish history as €inel- 
Oonail, or the country of the descendants of 
Conall Galban. These descendants were the 
celebrated ClannDalaigh, of " Brown Shields," 
so named from Dalaoh, one of their most dis- 
tinguished chiefs, who died In the year 868. 
From his grandson Domhnail (pronounced 
Donnell) this great race or tribe derived its 
hereditary surname of O'Donnell. tfhe O'Neills 
and O'Donnells. were kindred races, both being 
descended from a common ancestor* and this 
relationship was not unfrequently and not un- 
naturally, appealed to as a reason for political 
union on any great emergency. This appeal 
. war uniformly successful until the time of the 
* English invasion ; but, very soon afterwards, 
the O'Donnells began to transfer their allegi- 
ance occasionally to the Saxons, as by so doing 
they found that they could better extend then* 
own territory in the North West of Ulster. Be- 
tween the years 640 and 1207, the O'Donnells 
were lords only of one cantred, of which Kilma- 
orenan was the mosfe noted district, but sub- 
sequently, by the aid of English soldiers, they 
became princes of all Tirconnell. This position 
was retained by their chiefs until the close of 
the sixteenth century, when the Northernjlords 
lost everything in the course of the seven years' 
war against thettovernment. Tyroonnell lost 
even its ancient and proud name ; and it was 
only left for Tyrconnell's last hereditary Bard 
to contrast mournfully the loneliness of his 
chieftain's grave in a foreign land with the 
deeply sympathetic honours and regrets which 
would have distinguished it had he died in his 



1U 

native Ulster. Hear how he apostrophises 
Naala O'Donnell as she weeps by her brother's . 
grave :— 

O woman of the piercing wail, 
Who mournest o'er yon mound of clay 
With sigh -and groan 1 
Would God thou wert among the Gael ! 
Thou would'st not then from day to day 
Weep thus alone. 
Twere long before, around a grave 
In green Tvroonnell, one could find 
This loneliness. 
Near where Beann Boirche's banners wave 
Such grief as thine could ne'er have pined 
Oompanionless. 

Beside the wave in Donegal, 
In Antrim's glens, or fair Dromore, 
OrKUlilea; 
Or where the sunny waters fall 
At Assaroe, near Erna's shore, 
This could not be 1 
On Derry'a plains, in rich Drumoleid, 
' Throughout Armagh the great, renowned 

In older years — 
No day could pass but woman's grief 
■ Would rain upon this burial ground 
Fresh floods of tears. 

Oh no I from Shannon, Boyne, and Suir, 
From high Dunluce's castle walls, 
From LissnadilL 
Would flock alike both rich and poor, . 
One wail would rise from Oruaohan's halls, 
ToTara'sbilli 
And some would come from Barrow's side, 
And many a maid would leave her home 
On I^eitrim's plains. 
And by melodious Banna's tide, 
And by the Mourne and Erne, to come 
And swell thy strains. 

The " country" of the O'Donnells, now Done- 
gal, contains no less than 1,193,443 acres. 
When Dr. Beaufort drew up his admirable 
" Memoir of a Map of Ireland," there were 
forty-two parishes in this county, containing on 
an average 10,179 acres each, thirty of these 
parishes being in the diooese of Raphoe, eleven 



U2 

in that of Deny, and only one in tne bUshoprfck 
of Ologher. According to the census of 1831 
the number of parishes has been considerably 
increased a^oeB^nfortfmbUshed his "Memoir/' 
the barony of Inishowea now - containing 
twelve parish* and two extra parochial dis- 
tricts ; RaptJo*, eleven whole parishes atod parts 
of two mother parishes,* Tyrhugh, four whole 
parishes an4 part of fonr Other parishes ; Ban- 
nagh, seven Whole parishes, and part of 
another parish ; Boylagh, three whole parishes, 
and part of another parish ; and Kilmaorenan, 
twelve whole parishes, and part of another 
parish. The present Cottofcy Of Donegal con- 
tains six baronies, namely, .Infehowen in the 
north, Baphoe in the east, Tyrhngh and Boy- 
lagh in the west, Bannagh in the south-west, 
and Kilmaorenan' in the north-west. • • 

The Plantation Commissioners did not include 
, the great barony of Infeshowen 1 m. their opera- 
tions, as it had been handed oyer by the Grown 
to Chichester by way 0/ a reward for his effec- 
tive services in smoothing np the various rough 
and noisy places, throughout Ulster. They 
found that in Donegal there were certain native 
chiefs of small septs who had owned lands in- 
dependently of O'Donnel. and whose claims 
the Commissioners were disposed to allow, but 
eventually these claimants had to rest and con 
tent themselves with comparatively small por- 
tions as undertakers, although they had taken 
the part of the Government in the preceding 
struggle. They were fortunate, however, in 
obtaining any terms, for -Chichester disliked 
every mother's son of them, and hadV in his 
"Notes of Remembrances" prejudice*! the 
London authorities against them. "Divers 
gentlemen," said he, V claim freeholds in that 
country, as, namely, the three septs of the 
M'Swynes, Banagh, Fanaght, and Doe ; also 
O'Boyle and O'Gallagher; but these men 
passed over their rights, if any they had, to the 
Earl [Rorie O'Donnell], which he got from them 
eatrttously, and by unworthy mean* ; and I am 



sure all of thdm have more land than they or 
their septs will be able to manure and plant In 
any civil fashion these forty years, albeit peace 
did continue among them ; and they are for the 
most part unworthy of what they possess, being 
a people inclined to blood and trouble, but to 
dispiant them is very difficult. If his Majesty 
disposes of the land to strangers, they {the 
strangers] must be very powerful to suppress 
them. I suggest that if his pleasure be 
to continue them in what they claim, 
the lands may be divided into many 
parts, and disposed to several men 
of the septs, and some to strangers or others of 
this nation, leaving none greater than another, 
unless it be in a small difference to the now 
chiefs of the name." 

The Commissioners divided the whole county, 
exclnsive of Inlshowen, into six great planta- 
tion precincts— namely, Portlough, Lfffer, 
Doe, Faynaght, Boylagh, andBanagh, and 
Tyrhugh. They commenced with the Lifter or 
Lifford, in which they found 15,000 arable 
acres, marking this quantity off into eleven 
proportions, which were afterwards allotted, 
with some slight exceptions, to nine English 
undertakers. This precinct of the Liffer formed 
the greater part of the present barony of 
Raphoe, which contains 220,723 acres, contain- 
ing part -of the parishes of Cornwall and Arney, 
with the whole of the parishes of All Saints, 
Clonleigh, Convoy, Donaghmore, Killea, Kilbe- 
vogoe, Leek, Raphoe, Raymqghy, Stranorlar, 
and Tonghboyne ; tts . towns and principal 
villages* being Newtown Cunningham, Ballin- 
drait, Convoy, Castlefinn, Carrigans, Raphoe, 
Manorcunningham, Ballybofey, Killygordon, 
Stranorlar, Creaghdoss, St. Johnston, and part 
of Lifford. The names of the English planters to 
whom this great sweep of territory was allotted 
were Henry Clare of Stanfield Hall, in the 
County of Norfolk, Esq. ; Edward Russell, Esq.; 
Sir William Barnes, Knight ; Captain Ralph 
Mansfield; Sir Thomas Cornewall, Knight; 



114 

Sir Thomas Remyngton, Knight ; Sir Maurice 
Berkeley, Knight; and Sir Thomas Coach, 
Knight. These planters had, it will be ad- 
mitted, vast scopes on which to augment 
their several estates, when it is considered that 
all the waste or unprofitable lands were thrown 
in gratuitously to the several proportions. 

After they had been twelve months in occu- 
pation, Sir George Garew made the following 
report from this precinct of the Lifter, or Baphoe : 
— " Sir Henry Dowra, Knight, undertaker of 
2,000 acres, has by allowance of the Council 
passed over his portion of land to William 
Wilson, of Clayre, in Suffolk, who has letters 
patent in his own name. The said Wilson had 
his agent, Chris. Parmenter, resident, who 
appeared before us. There are some families 
of English resident, who brought over good 
store of household stuff, and have stock 21 cows 
and oxen, nine mares, one service horse, and some 
small cattle. Sir Morris Barkley, Knight, 
undertaker of 2,000 acres ; has not been here, 
nor any agent for him ; nothing done. Sir 
Robert Remyngton, Knight, 2, 000 acres ; the 
like [ie, nothing done]. Sir Thomas Cornewall, 
Knight; 2,000 acres; his agent, Edward 
Littleton, took possession, and is resident ; has 
built nothing, nor provided any materials yet. 
Sir William Barnes, Knight ; 1,500 acres ; sold 
his proportion to Edward Russell, who is 
possessed, but has done nothing. Sir Henry 
Clare, Knight ; 1,500 acres ; has an agent resi- 
dent named William Browne ; nothing done. Sir 
Thomas Coach, Knight; 1,500 acres; is resident; 
has built a large timber house, adjoining to the 
castle of Skarfollis, and is providing materials 
for re-edifying the castle ; four families of 
British upon his lands, to whom he intends to 
pass estates. Captain Edward Russell, 1,500 
acres ; is resident, and his son with him ; there 
are two English houses of timber framed ; stock, 
four horses, six English cows, and a bull ; 
three or four English labourers, but no tenants. 
Captain ManBfield, 1,000 acres ; is resident, 



115 

bub has done nothing. Town of Lyffer, a good 
and strong fort of lime and stone, built by Sir 
Richard Hansard, towards which the King 
allowed him £200 English. Sir Richard Han- 
sard, being appointed by the now Lord Deputy 
to be at Lyffer [Lifford] with his company in 
16)7, found bat one house in that town. Upon 
view of the town we found it [1611] well fur- 
nished with inhabitants of English, and Scot- 
tish, and Irish, who live by several trades, 
brought thither by Sir Richard, who built 
twenty-one houses for tenants who are to give 
entertainment to passengers. Thirty seven 
houses are built by others. Town of Donegall ; 
we found a fair bawne built, with flankers, and 
a parapet, and a walk on the top, fifteen foot 
high. Within the bawne is a strong house of 
stone, built by Captain Baeill Brooke, towards 
which the King gave him £250 English. Many 
families of English, Scottish, and Irish are in- 
habiting in the town, who built them good 
copied houses after the manner of the Pale. 
About two miles from thence Captain Paul 
Gore has erected a fair stone house out of the 
ruins of O'Boyle's old castle upon the seaside, 
which he has by direction af the Lords of the 
Council delivered up to Laird Broughton, 
undertaker of those lands ; he demands some 
consideration for his charges, which we think 
him worthy of." 

When the Commissioners saw the old 
monastery at Donegal— which had been founded 
by the beautiful Nuala O'Donnell, alias O'Con- 
nor, in 1474, and in which the Four Masters 
had compiled their "Annals of Ireland — the 
first idea that occurred to them [the Com- 
missioners] was that it should be allotted to the 
Bishop of Raphoe for his habitation, " reserving 
sufficient room for the school and schoolmaster. 
A friar who had sojourned in this religious 
house several years described its position and 
surroundings in the following terms :— " The 
site, indeed, was happily chosen, and nothing 
could surpass the beauty of the prospect which 



It commanded. Hard by the window* of the 
refectory was the wharf, where foreign ships 
took in their cargoes of hides, fish, wooL and 
linen cloth ; and there, too, came the galleons 
of Spain, laden with wine and arms, in ex- 
change for the merchandise which the Lords of 
Tyrcoqnell sent annually to the Brabant marts* 
then the great emporium for the North of 
Europe, in sooth, it was a lovely spot, and 
sweetly suggestive of holy meditations. In the 
calm days of summer* when the broad expanse 
of the estuary lay still and unruffled, mirroring 
in its blue depths the over-canopying heaven, 
was it not a fair image of the unbroken 
tranquillity and peace to which the hearts 
of the recluses aspired ? And in the gloomy 
winter nights, when the great crested 
waves rolled in majestic fury against 
the granite headlands, would not the driv- 
ing storm and unavailing cry of drowning 
mariners remind the inmate of that monastery 
that he had ohosen the safer part, by abandon- 
ing a world where the tempest of the passionB 
wreaks destruction far more appalling." 
Leaving the poor friar's argument for a 
monastic life at what it is worth, it is gratify- 
ing to know that this venerable old pile was 
left by the planting prowlers to crumble away 
in peace. It would Have been such a startling 
contrast to have had it occupied by a worldly 
though clever prelate, as George Montgomery 
was ! And think, too, that in the library of 
this ruin was found the famous Liber Hym- 
norum t which is believed to be over a thousand 
years old, and which is, indeed, such a noble 
monument of the attainments of an Irish 
monk. More than eleven centuries ago, in the 
little island of Inlscaltra, on Lough Derg, the 
monk Camin was able to collate the Vulgate with 
the Hebrew text, and to enrich his copy of the 
work " with a lucid interpretation of obscure 
words and passages." The facts, too, that 
Nuala O'Donnell died before the completion of 
her religious house, and waa buried In a vault 



1«L. 

iinder the graed alter, are of i 
to secure for its remaining fragment) the vonara • 
tionof all who are cognisant of them. Bat 
how few of those who hare had to deal with 
Ulster as governors know anything of its hie* 
tory 1 In 1666, Sir Henry Sydney, dozing one 
of his excursions to the North, visited the 
monastery of Donegal, looked at it, and left it 
with this reflection :—" We left behind mi a 
house of Observant Friars, unspoiled or hurt, 
and with small eost fertifieble, much accom- 
modated with the nearness of the water, and 
with fair groves, orobards, and gardens, which 
are about the sama" He and others of his elaat 
only contemplated how such places could be 
best utilised as defences against the people 
who had built them, and had oheziahed them 
as places of worship. 



XL 

It would appear from Oarew's report that 
these English planters who had been allotted 
such broad lands in the Liffer were not in h a s te 
to commence their "civilising" operations 
there. 1. Henry Qiare, who came from the 
County of Norfolk, did not long retain his Ulster 
lands, and, although he was knighted abontf the 
time he got oat his patent, he could not be 
drawn, even for a short visit, from Stanfield 
Hall. He sold his proportion of Shragmlrlar to 
Peter Benson, who let or leased the mode 
thereon to the following-named British settlers, 
viz. :— Sir Ralph Bingley, Robert Kilpatteriok, 
James Kilpat>teriok» Archibald MWaah, James 
Maxwell, James Tate, John Bwart, Thomas 
Watson, George Newton. Ludovio Stubbine, 
George Hilton, George Baillie, Richard Roper, 
James Reid, Henry Atkinson, Sir Richard Han- 
sard, Richard Babington, Edward CaethereU, 
and John Kiipabfcerick, 2. William Wilson 
cam from Bolton, in the Couaty of Sufiaik, and 



11*11 

appears to have been a persevering planter. 
The date of his death is not mentioned in any 
printed inquisition, bat in 1635 his son, Sir 
John Wilson, was in possession not only of 
the originally granted proportion of Aghagalla, 
bat of another, called Oonvoigh, together with 
additional parcels in the same district, all of 
which were oreated the manor of Wilsonsfort. 
In 1629 Sir John Wilson, who was known 
as of Killenare, Coanty Donegal, was 
nominated by Sir Frederick Hamilton to be 
raised to the dignity of a baronet, pursuant) to 
the authority given by a King's letter. Sir 
Frederick Hamilton was the youngest brother 
of the Earl of Abercorn, and had got from the 
King authority to nominate two baronets, for 
the proper negotiating of which both he and 
the King were well paid by the persons receiv- 
ing the title. In 1629 also, a grant was made 
to Sir John Wilson, Knight and Baronet, of 
the two proportions above named, and other 
lands, amounting to 926 acres, all in the 
precinct of Liffer and barony of Baphoe. Sir 
John died in 1636, and his only child Anne, 
then two years of age, died in 1639. The 
property was then inherited by Andrew 
Wilson, a brother of Sir John. 3. 
Edward Russell oame from London, and 
was styled " Captain" by Pynnar. He soon 
sold his proportion, called Aoharine, to Sir 
John Kingsmill, who resold a portion of the 
lands to William Wilson above-mentioned. 
Kingsmill had a grant in 1630 of more than 
2,000 acres adjoining Gastlefinn. The old Irish 
castle there was repaired and used by Sir John 
Kingsmill as his stated place of residence. 
There had been a dispute about the possession 
of this building between Russell, the first 
patentee, and Bishop George Montgomery. 
The latter claimed it as standing on Church 
land, bat failed to establish his claim. 4. Sir 
William Barnes must have been introduced by 
some potent friend, probably the King, as an 
undertaker. He was knighted in 1611, and sold 



^9 

his proportion called Marrister to Captain 
Edward Russell above- named. The latter resold 
in turn to Sir John Kingamill and William 
Wilson, and eventually both the proportions 
of Aoharine and Marrister were included in the 
Wilsonfort estate. 5. Ralph Mansfield's 
former place of residence in England is not 
known. He dwelt on his proportion of Kilnor- 
guerdan,now Killygordon, near Stranorlar, un- 
til the time of his death in 1634. He had 
disputes with two neighbouring planters, viz., 
Sir John Davy's and Captain Russell— about 
mearings, which disputes were eventually 
settled favourably for him. He was succeeded 
by his son, John Mansfield, who was of age 
at the time of hia father's death, and married. 
The estate of Killygordon lies in the vale of 
the Finn, between Stranorlar and Strabane. 
Francis Mansfield, Esq., of Ardrummon 
House, is the present (1878) representative 
of the original patentee, and is in possession 
of the actual patent from James I. to Captain 
Ralph Mansfield. He is descended maternally 
from the Montgomery family of Eglinton, in 
Ayrshire. 6. Sir Thomas Cornwall was son 
and heir of Thomas Cornwall, Baron of Bur- 
ford, in Salop, and Gentleman of the Privy 
Chamber to the King's son, Prince Henry. In 
1610 Sir Thomas wrote to Salisbury from Bur- 
ford, in Herefordshire, requesting to be left 
out of the sheriffs roll for that county, because 
of his necessary attendance on the Prince of 
Wales, and also because of his having no 
present residence in Herefordshire. He quickly 
disposed of his proportion of Corlaokin to 
Robert Davies, and the latter let it out 
to Irish tenants of a respectable standing. 
7. Sir Thomas Remyngton was vice-presi- 
dent of Munster, and appears to have 
soon sold his proportion of Tawnaforis 
to Sir Ralph Bingley. The latter soon after- 
wards died, and in 1628 there was a Crown 
grant of Tawnaforis, 2,000 acres, and Lurga, 
1,000 acres, to Lady Anne Binglie. Her Lady- 



fco 

Afpta trustees were John, Earl of Brldgewater, 
Wutiam Ravenscroft, Edward Orwell, and 
Henry Skipwfth, Esqrs. This grant conveyed 
the advowson of the rectory of Donaghmore 
and a free fishing in the water of Lough SwiUy. 
Boon after the date of the above-mentioned 
grant, Lady Bingley married Robert Harring- 
ton, Esq., and in May, 1630, the lands of 
Tawnaforis were granted to her second husband 
and herself, or the longer fiver of them — the 
proportion of Tawnaforis to be called the manor 
of Orwell. 8. Sir Maurice Berkely was the 
leader of a small company of undertakers seek- 
ing for lands either in Oneilan or the Liffer. 
Be came from Somersetshire, and wanted 
to undertake 4,000 acres, but he was 
eventually satisfied wfth half the quantity— or 
the two proportions of Dromore and Lurga, 
each containing 1,000 acres. Sir Maurice 
married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William 
Klllegrew, of Hanworth. He was father of the 
. Sir John Berkeley, so much distinguished for 
his services in the reign of Charles I., and for 
which he was created in 1058 Baron Berkeley, 
of Stratton. Berkeley sold his two proportions 
to Sir Ralph Biagley, and these land gin 1630 were 
granted to Lady Bingley and her second husband, 
Robert Harrington, Esq. Dromore and Lurga 
were created a manor, known as the manor of 
Burleigh. 9. Sir Thomas Coach {whose sur- 
name has been written also Coath, Cootch, and 
Coatee), was a good servitor In the South of 
Ireland, where his services pleased Chichester* 
so well that the latter wrote from London re- 
questing that Coach, " who served well in the 
wars of Ireland, be remembered for someparcel 
of land in the Northern plantation." He ob- 
tained the middle proportion of 1,500 acres, 
called Frikeanagh, but afterwards known to 
Pynnar as Lismonagan. On this proportion 
stood the castle of Skarfollie, the Bite of which 
also was claimed by Bishop Montgomery as 
Church lands, but his claim was not allowed. 
Sir Thomas Coach died in May, 1620, and was 



121 

succeeded by his son Henry, then twelve year* 
of ege. 

The next plantation precinct in Donegal which 
claimed the attention of the Commissioners was 
that which they named, for convenience, 
Portlough— a name whioh has long since be- 
come obsolete. The precinct, however, com- 
prised a section of the barony of Raphoe, to- 
gether with a section of the territory now 
known as the baronies of Boylagh and Bannagh. 
In Portlongh the Commissioners found 12,000 
arable acres, whioh quantity wu marked off 
Into twelve proportions of 1,000 acres each, 
and afterwards distributed amongst nine Scot- 
tish undertakers. The names of these planters 
were— the Duke of Lennox, Sir Walter Stewart, 
laird of Minto ; Alexander M'Aula, of Durlin, 
gent. ; John Caningham, of Orawfield, gent. ; 
William Stewart, laird of Dunduff; James 
Cnnyngham, laird of Glengarnock ; Cuth- 
bert Cuningham, gent.; James Caningham, 
Esq., and John Stewart, Esq. Of these Scot- 
tish undertakers Sir George Oarew reported, 
after they had twelve months' occupancy of 
their several proportions, as follows :— u Duke 
of Lennox, chief undertaker of 2,000 acres ; 
Sir Aulant Aula, Knight, his agent resident, 
with some British families ; no preparation for 
building save some timber trees felled and 
squared. Sir Walter Stewart, Knight, laird 
of Minto, hath taken possession in person in 
the summer of 1610 ; returned into Scotland ; 
has nothing clone. John Crawford, laird Kil- 
berry, 1.000 acres ; not appeared, nor any for 
him ; nothing done. Alex. M'Aula, of Durfinge, 
1,000 acres ; appeared not ; nothing done. Sir 
James Cunningham, Knight, laird Glangarnoth, 
2,000 acres ; took Possession, but returned into 
Scotland ; his agent, Robert Tounge, resident, 
built one Irish barn of copies ; hath forty-four 
head of cattle, one plough 'of garrons, and some 
tillage last harvest. John Cunningham, of 
Crawfield, 1,000 acres ; resident, with one 
family of British ; is building a bawne and 



122 

preparing material* ; hath a plough of gamma, 
and thirty head of cattle. Cuthbert Canning- 
ham, 1,000 acres; resident, with two families of 
British ; built an Irish house of copies, and 

Srepared materials to re-edify the Castle of 
oole M'Eotrean; hath a plough of garrons, and 
eighty head of cattle in stock. William Stew- 
art, laird of Dunduff, 1,000 acres ; his brother 
was here for him in the summer of 1610, and 
returned into Sootland ; left a servant to keep 
Btock, being two mares and thirty head of cattle. 
James Cunningham, of Horomilne, 1,000 acres ; 
was here in the summer of 1610, and returned 
into Scotland ; left six servants to keep cows ; 
nothing done ; nor any preparations for 
building." 

How the King raged over the foregoing and 
other similar reports implying such apathy on 
the part of his Scottish subjects I He had 
taken great credit to himself that the Scots 
had been permitted to plant in Ulster side by 
side with his English subjects, and now here 
was the result — this beggarly commencement, 
after a whole year's waiting and watching for 
better things from them. James had especially 
Invited them to share in the Ulster spoils, 
thus :— " Forasmeikle as the King's Majesty 
"having resolved to reduoe and settle under a 
perfect obedience the North part of the king- 
dom of Ireland, which now, by the providence 
of the Almighty God, and by the power and 
strength of his Majesty's Royal army, is freed 
and disburdened of the former rebellious and 
disobedient inhabitants thereof, who in the 
justice of God, to their shame and confusion, 
are overthrown, his Majesty, for this effect, 
has taken a very princely and good course, as 
well for establishing of religion, justice, 
and civility within the said bounds, as for 
the planting of colonies therein ; and, although 
there be no want of great numbers of the 
country people of England who with 
all gladness would tiansport themselves and 
their families to Ireland and plenish the whole 



123 

bounds sufficiently with inhabitant*, yet his 
Majesty, oat of his unspeakable love and tender 
affection towards his ancient and native sub- 
jects, whom his Highness would have to 
partake in the fortunes of his said English sub- 
jects, has been pleased to make choice of them 
to be partakers in the distribution aforesaid." 
But the fact was that the Scottishmen, 
whether as planters or settlers, were not enthusi- 
astic for the first year ; but when it was dis- 
covered that, on harvesting the first year's grain 
in Ulster, the settlers had not only enough for 
themselves, but oould sell corn to their former 
neighbours in Scotland at a cheaper rate than 
the latter could raise it there, there arose over 
all the "land of mountain and of flood, of 
brown heath and shaggy wood," a fervid loyalty 
to the King, and love for the riek and labour of 
civilising the wild Irish— or such of them as 
had escaped the wrath of God, or rather the 
raiding of oruel and licentious Englishmen. 



in. 

The planters in Portlough were, with perhaps 
one exception, certain scattered members— 
disjecta membra— of the two great families of 
Stewart and Cunningham. 1. The duke of 
Lennox belonged to that branch of the 
Stewarts from which came also the Earls of 
March, the Earls and Dakes of Richmond, and 
the Earls of Litchfield. This undertaker of 
lands in Donegal was Ludovio Stuart, the second 
duke of Lennox, born in 1574, and during his 
life, which ended in 1624, enjoying several high 
offices of State. He acoompanied the King to 
England in 1603, and thereupon became 
Master of the Royal Household and 
first Gentleman of the Bedchamber. He 
wa? afterwards created Earl of Newcastle and 
Duke of Richmond. Although thrice married 
be left no male heir, and thus the family 



184 

estates devolved upon hie brother Berne 
Stuart, who was known as Lord D'Aubigny— 
a title which had been introduced into the family 
by a former member of it, who had been so styled 
in right of hie wife, the daughter of a French 
nobleman named De la Verray, Lord of 
Anbigny. The Duke of Lennox took out his 
patent among the first of the undertakers in 
this precinct, and it is a proof of how intensely 
the King had set himself to forward this 
plantation scheme when he induced persons of 
such high rank to be concerned in it only by way 
of example for the encouragement of others. 
Lennox was appropriately placed in three pro- 
portions which had all been intimately associ- 
ated with the history of the O'Donnel family— 
and indeed one of these proportions contained 
theresidenoe of the last chieftain's mother, from 
which she had been only recently expelled. 
Magevelin, one of the proportions allotted to the 
Duke, had been occupied until 1608 by the 
heroine known as Ineen-duv Macdonnell, a 
niece of the fourth Earl of Argyle, and mother 
of the Earl of Tyrconnell. These three propor- 
tions allotted to the Duke of Lennox came, as 
will be afterwards seen, into the hands of a 
turbulent relative known as Sir John Stewart. 
*y The second on this list of Porfalough planters 

r was Sir Walter Stewart, laird of Minto, whose 
hold on his family property in the parish of 
> Minto had become loose and uncertain. His 
native parish lies partly in a level 
tract along the River Teviot and 
partly on high undulating ground which is 
traversed from east to west by a ridge of hills 
culminating in two green rounded elevations, 
known as the Minto Hills, and overlooking the, 
valley of the Teviot. like so many other' 
undertakers, Laird Minto came and got a pro- 
portion that after getting out his patent he 
might be able *' to raise the wind"— i.e., supply 
himself with a little needful cash by the prompt 
disposal of it to someone else more in love with 
land than himself. Accordingly his proportion 



1*5 

of Cerogegh soon became the property of Sir 
John Colquhoun, the laird of Lou, and the 
representative of a very old and very well 
known olan whose country lay on the 
banks of Loch Lommond. Sir John told 
these lands afterward to two brothers, 
named Humphrey and Robert Galbreith, 
whose business transactions with Bishop 
Spottiswoode, of Clogher, as his agent, created 
so much noise in Tyrone and Donegal. Sir 
John Colquhoun's son eventually purchased 
back this proportion from the Galbraiths. 3, 
Alex. M'Aula» of Darling, is named by Pynnar 
Alex. M'Awloy, alias Stewart, who sold his 
proportion to another Alex. Soewart, probably 
a near kinsman. The Earls and Marquises of 
Londonderry descend from the latter, their 
pedigree explaining the family by the intro- 
duction of a laird of Minto as their ancestor. 
That pedigree, as given in Burke's Peerage, 
and as probably supplied by some member of 
the family, states that they " claim a common 
ancestor with the Earls of Galloway— namely, 
Sir William Stewart, of Garlics, from whose 
second son, Thomas Stewart, of Minto, do-! 
soended John Stewart, of Ballylawn Castle, 
the first [son of the fivstj of the family • 
who settled in Ireland." John Stewart here 
mentioned was eon of Alexander who bought 
the proportion called Ballyneegh from 
Alexander M'Aula, alias Stewart. In 1620 
a Crown grant of the premises was made to 
this John Stewart, the lands being created into 
a manor to be called the manor of Stewarts* 
court. Ballylawn, the more modern name of 
the family residence, is a slight alteration from 
Bally loane — the name of one sub division on the +* 
estate. The fourth on the list of Portlough V 
planters was John Cunningham, of Orawfield, * 
the last representative of theGlengarnookOun* 
ninghama in Scotland, his father, Sir James, 
and this son John, having both settled per- 
manently in Donegal. The family residence of 
Cflengamook was situated in the parish of Ktt- 



126 

berate, Ayrshire, and this John Cunningham's 
property lay in the parish of Beith, also in the 
County of Ayr. After ooming to his proportion 
of Danboy, in Portlough, he continued to hold 
Orawfield until the year 1632, when it was sold 
to Gabriel Porterfield, of Hapland, in the 
parish of Dnnlop, and Jean Maxwell, his 
spouse. The deed of sale was dated at Castle 
Cunningham, the residenoe of John Canning- 
ham, of Danboy, in the barony of Raphoe. 
His proportion was also known as Ardrie, both 
being names of parcels of land on the estate. 
In 1614 John Cunningham, afterwards Sir 
John, leased his lands to James Robin, Robert 
Hunter, John Martin, James Patterson, 
Alex. MacKilohany, John Plowright, John 
Molsed, Robert Allan, John Fyeff, Donnell 
M'Kllman, John Wilson, Bernard Canning- 
ham, James Boyle, John Bryoe, William 
Sayer, or Sare, Donnell Gillaspick, John Flem- 
ing, Donnell M«Evene, William M'Cassack, 
Alex. Colewell, John Wlgton, James Ramsay, 
Stephen Woolsen, Andrew Calwell, William 
Cunningham, Andrew Cunningham, Robert 
Boyle, and Donnell Oonnell. 
The next, or fifth, planter on oar list in this 

Srecinct was William Stewart, laird of Dun- 
uff, who came from Maybole, in Ayrshire. 
The family to whloh he belonged was sometimes 
named Dunduff and sometimes Stewart. 
Although styled a laird, he was perhaps not 
more than able to gather np as much means as 
served to settle him on his proportion of 
Cooleaghy, in Portlough. The little property 
of Dunduff was sold to a family of the White- 
fords in the neighbourhood. In 1614 the laird 
of Dunduff let lands on his proportion to the 
following tenants— viz., Archibald Thomson, 
John Conlngham, John Hood, James Dun- 
sayer, William Fullerton, Gilbert Kennedy, 
John M'Kay, John Smyth, Alex. Lokhard, 
Alexander Hunter, Jamea Sayer, Walter 
Stewart, William Smelly, Thomas Lodge, 
Arthur Stewart, gent.; John Maghan, and 



127 

Anthony Stewart, sent. In 1829 the laird got 
a new grant from the Grown of all his land, the 
premises being created a manor, to be called g 
the manor of Mountstewart. 6/ Sir James (- 
Cunningham, laird of Glengarnock, who ob- 
tained two proportions, named respectively 
Daorostross and Portelogh, was the eighteenth 
laird in descent from Sir fid ward Cunningham, 
of Kilmanrs, and Mary Stewart, a daughter of the 
High Steward of Scotland. The general rental 
of Sir James Cunningham's barony of Glengar- 
nock was £2,480, besides fifty- two bolls of meal, 
fourteen bolls of malt, twenty-four dozen and a 
half of capons, with work from the tenants 
sufficient to plow, harrow, weed, shear, draw 
in, and stack twenty-five acres of grain. But, 
with all these payments and this gratuitous 
help from others, his affairs had become desper- 
ate, and there was nothing for it but a perman- 
ent sojourn in Donegal. His lady was Kath- 
rine Cunningham, a daughter of the Ear) of 
Glenoairn, and their family on coming to 
Donegal consisted of two daughters and a son, 
who were left quite unprovided for at the time 
of their father's death. The King interposed, 
and took a rather curious way of relieving 
them and paying any debts left by the de- 
ceased Sir James. The King simply ordered 
an Inquisition to find out whether all the con- 
ditions of plantation had been fulfilled in re- 
spect to nis two proportions, and, when 
it was found that such was not the 
ease, his Majesty refused pointblank to 
give any title to his creditors, who had got his 
lands, until ample provision had been made for 
his lady and family. 7. Cuthbert Cunning- / 
ham was a brother of Sir James, of Glengar- ' 
nook, but he either died soon after taking pos- 
session of his proportion called Dromagn, or 
returned to Ayrshire. Sir James was left in 
possession of these lands also, although quite 
ableun to manage his own. Indeed, he resided 
on this proportion of Dromagh, and died there 
in 1623, hie son being then only nine yean of 



12S 

age. 8* Jan** Cunningham, Esq., wm irack 
off Sir James, of Glenaroook* and was known at 
of FowmUne, In Scotland. Ha let his lands, 
known as the manor of Molagh to Moyegh, to 
the following tenants in 1613— viz., Atatande* 
Dunne, John Dunne, Donnll M<Kym, John 
Dunne, janior; John Younge, William Hendry, 
Alexander Grinney, William Stewart, William 
Yalentyne, Hugh Moore, William Moore, David 
Kennedy, John Watson, Robert Peterson, Wil- 
liam Aikin, George Blaoke, Andrew Smyth, 
James Gilmore, William Gault, George Pery, 
John M'Kym, Andrew Browne, William 
Sutherland, William Rankine, John Smyth, 
John Purveyance, John Harper, Hugh Lokard, 
Thomas Scott, John Browne, John Roger, 
William Teyse, Donneil M'Eredy, William 
Arnett, Andrew Arnett, John Alexander, John 
Hatohine, Peter Stevenson, John Hamilton, 
Edward Homes, and George Leioh. 9. Sir 
John Stewart was an agent for the Dake of 
Lennox, and also a kinsman, and held a pro- 
portion called Liemolmoghan on his own ao- 
count. He appears to have been an unfaithful 
steward in more ways than one. The 
following letter from the King to the Lord De- 
puty Falkland, in 1628, throws some light en 

" Whereas we have directed yon by oar 
letters to make a grant unto Sir James FuUer- 
ton and Sir David Murray of the several pro- 
portions of Magevelin, Lettergull, and Oashel, 
and sundry other lands and hereditaments, in 
trust and confidence to the only use and behoof 
of James, Duke of Lennox and Barl of March, 
forasmuch as Sir John Steward, who hath hitherto 
held possession of the aforesaid proportions, 
hath lately, in our realme of Scotland, been 
convicted of certain capital crimes, according 
to the laws of that our kingdom, for which he 
remains in prison there at our mercy for his 
life, we require you forthwith to give effectual 
order and warrant that the house and castle of 
MftgeveMn be delivered into the possession of 



129 

Thomas flolmes, agent there for our cousin, 
and that all the household stuff and utensils 
therein remaining, and the cattle on the 
ground lately belonging to the said Sir John 
Steward, be duly inventoried and put into the 
hands of the said Holmes until we give further 
direction therein. And, understanding that 
one William Tong, late servant to Sir John 
Steward, is fled into that kingdom, and hath 
carried with him several evidences, writings, 
and papers, and some plate, money, and jewels, 
lately belonging to Sir John, and further, that 
he is in that kingdom suspected of theft, and 
become a fugitive, it is oun pleasure that you 
cause speedy and deligent search to be made 
after the said Tong, and, having found him, to 
cause such things of the nature aforesaid as can 
be discovered in his caetody to be seized on, 
and the same to be put into the hands of some 
sufficient person until further disposing of of the 
the same ; and likewise to commit him to pri- 
son, and, so soon as may be, to cause him to be 
sent in eafe custody to our Council in Scotland, 
and there to undergo eubh trial as shall be 
thought fit." 

From the precinct of Portlough the Commis- 
sioners of plantation passed into that of Boylagh 
and Bannagb, where the surveyors found 
10,000 arable acres, which quantity was marked 
off into eight proportions and afterwards dis- 
tributed amongst eight Scottish undertakers. 
The names of these North Britons were — Sir 
Robert Macklellan, laird of Bunny; George 
Murray, laird of Broughton ; William Stewart 
Esq. ; Sir Patrick M'Kee, of Laerg, Knight ; 
James M'Cullock, gent. ; Alexander Dunbar, 
gent. ; Patrick Vans, of Libragh, gent. ; and 

-^ Alexander Conlngham, of Powton, gent. The 

precinct of Boylagh and Bannagb, in which these 
planters were located, now forms the two 
baronies so-called, so that there was here vast 
scope around the 10,000 acres arable for im- 
provement and augmentation. The barony of 
Boylagh contains 158,480 acres, including the 



190 

disteiot of the Rosses in the North, and twelve 
inhabited islands off the west coast. This barony 
comprehends part of the parishes of Innlskeel and 
Lower Killybegs, and the whole of the parishes 
of Lettermaoward and Templecroan, its chief 
villages being Glenties and Dongloe. The 
barony of Bannagh contains 177,822 acres, 
including part of the parishes of Inniskeel and 
Lower Killybegs, and the parishes of Glen- 
colnmbkill, Inver, Kilcarr, Killoghtee, Upper 
Killybegs, and Killymard. Its towns and 
villages are Killybegs, Ardara, and Mount- 
charles. Much of the surface in this precinct 
still remains and ever will remain unprofitable. 



IV. 

Sib Gborge Oabew, in 1611, and after the 
planters last-named had been in possession for 
somewhat over twelve months, made the fol- 
lowing report:—" Sir Robert Maolellan,Knight, 
laird of Bomby, chief undertaker of the Rosses, 
2,000 acres; took possession in the summer 
1610; returned into Scotland; hie agent, Andrew 
Johnson, resident, has prepared no materials 
for building. George Murrye, laird Broughton, 
1,500 acres ; took possession summer 1610 ; 
returned into Scotland ; his brother came with 
two or three others, and thirty or forty cows; no 
preparation for building. William Steward, 
brother to Gartlesse [Lord Garlics], 1,500 acres ; 
took possession in the summer 1610 ; returned 
into Scotland ; six families British upon his 
proportion; he is building a mill and 
other houses ; agent, John Stewart, resi- 
dent; materials provided for building. Sir 
Patrick M'Kee, Knight, 1,000 acres; not 
appeared ; agent resident ; nothing done. 
Alexander Cunningham, of Ponton, 1,000 acres ; 
not appeared ; agent resident ; making winter 
provisions ; no materials for building. James 
M'Cullogh, 1,000 acres ; not appeared ; agent 



131 

resident; nothing done. Alexander Down- 
bar, 1,000 acres ; resident in person ; nothing 
done. Patrick Vans, or Vance, 1,000 ; 
has not appeared ; six quarters of his 
land let to English and Sootoh men for four 
years ; nothing done. George Marrye, laird 
Broughbon, undertaker of 1,500 acres, appeared 
before us here at Dublin, and returned to his 
land." 

The first and prinoipal undertaker on the list 
of planters in the precinct of Boylagh and 
Bannagh was Sir Robert Maclellan, the 
seventh baron of Bombie, in Galloway, and 
afterwards created Lord Kircudbright. He 
became well known in Ulster, not so much, 
however, because of his being an undertaker in 
the remote barony of Boylagh as from the cir- 
cumstance of his being son-in-law of Sir Hugh 
Montgomery, and obtaining valuable lands in 
the County of Down as his wife's dowry. The 
writer of the ** Montgomery Manuscripts" 
notices this marriage alliance as follows :— 
"Sir Hugh married his eldest daughter to Sir 
Robert M'Clellan, baron. of Kircoubry [Kir- 
cudbright], who, with her, had four great 
townlands near Lisnagarvey [Lisburn], whereof 
she was possessed in December, 1622. Sir 
Hugh and his Lady also had likewise given 
him a considerable sum of money as an 
augmentation to the marriage portion ; but 
the said Sir Robert spent the money and sold 
the lands after her Ladyship's death, and he 
died not long after her, but without issue." 
In 1616 Sir Robert sold his proportion in Boy- 
lagh, called the Rosses, to Sir Archibald 
Acheson, who soon afterwards surrendered 
these lands to Sir John Murray, afterwards 
Earl of Annadale. 2. George Murray came 
from the parish of Whithorn, in Wigtonshire. 
The Murrays of this branch moved from 
Morayshire into Galloway in the twelfth 
century. From the commencement of the 
fifteenth century the Murrays were owners of 
the estate called Broughton, of which this 



132 

George Murrey wm at least the nominal owner 
when he came to Ulster. It had long been 
heavily mortgaged, and. he, with his brother 
John, were taken in as servants in the Royal 
household. He coon disposed of his proportion 
called Boylagheightra. 3. William Stewart, 
Esq., was probably a servitor, but, as at this 
crisis there were four servitors so named, it 
would be difficult to identify this particular 

E ottoman. A Colonel William Stewart, in 
ay, 1603, writes privately to Salisbury that 
the "King's disposition is excellent, but he 
relies too muoh on others, 11 and advises Cecil 
how to guide him " in this new world [Eng- 
land] to which he has come." Very soon after 
getting his patent this undertaker sold his pro- 
portion of Dunconnolly to Sir John Vance, of 
Lancaster, who appears to have lost it by 
neglecting to observe any of the conditions of 
plantation. 4. Sir Patrick M'Kee came from 
some place in the parish of Minnigaff, but the 
estate known as that of the principal family 
had passed out of his hands. Obher localities 
were occupied by the once numerous and in- 
fluential sept of the M'Kees, among which may 
be mentioned Mertoun-M'Kle, in the parish of 
Peninghame, and Whitehills, in the parish of 
Sorbie, Wigtonshire. Many settlers of this 
surname came to Ulster from Wigtonshire, and 
are numerously represented throughout several 
of our Northern counties at the present day. 
Sir Patrick let off his proportion of Cargie to 
William Stewart, of Maines, to his brother 
Patrick Stewart, of Raneall, and to Sir Robert 
Gordon. 

The next, or fifth, on this list of grantees was 
James M'Cullock, who got a proportion named 
Mullaveagh, and had come also from Wigton- 
shire. His family had belonged to Argylesbire, 
and moved southward, like many other North- 
ern families, into Galloway at an early period. 
This James was son of William M'Culloch, by 
his wife Elizabeth Dunbar, of Mocrum, a 
daughter of Elizabeth Muir, of Rowallan. In 



m 

1612 M<Cuiloch sold his lands of Mulkveegh 
to Patrick Nemooh, a burgess of Edinburgh. 
6. Alexander Dunbar, gent., was a oonsin, to 
James M'Cullooh, and came also from Gallo- 
way, where his family onoe oeonpied a leading 
position. This undertaker was a son of Sir 
John Dunbar, of Moornm, who died in 1683. 
He sold his proportion, called KUkeran, to 8k 
Robert Gordon in 1615. 7. Patrick Vans, or 
Vance, gent., also came from Wigtonshke, 
where he owned a small property called Lib* 
ragh, or Lybrack, in the parish of Kirkinner. 
He was the second son of Sir Patrick Vans* 
of Barnbarock, and his wife, Lady Gaohtine 
Kennedy, daughter of Gilbert, third Earl of 
Cassilis. This family of Vans is said to be the 
only one in Galloway retaining its documents 



from the date of settlement in good preserva- 
tion. Patrick Vans's patent was dated; August 
11, 1610,and he sold his proportion called Boy- 



laghoutra to Patrick O'Murrey on the 3rd of 
October following. 8. Alexander Ooninghani 
came from the parish of Sorbie, In Wigton- 
shire, but to what branch of the then numerous 
race or clan bearing this surname he belonged 
we know nob. The property of Ponlton, or 
Powtoun, which he Is stated in hie, grant as 
then holding, was conveyed in a charter given 
by King Robert Bruce to the prior of 
Whithorn. In a charter granted by David IL 
to Gilbert Kennedy, the lands of Powtoun are 
coupled with those of Carroltown, and are 
believed to have onoe formed part of that cele- 
brated estate. Alexander Goningham sold hit 
proportion called Moynarga to Sir Robert 
Gordon in 1615. 

These Galloway gentlemen were specially 
unfortunate in their selection of Boylagh as 
their plantation precinct, for they must have 
had the 'selection of the barony, although they 
had to cast lots for the several proportions 
therein. They had evidently intended to 
plant in the same district, and were no 
doubt personally known to each other, 



m 

bub the lines certainly had not fallen to 
them in pleasant places, and they appear 
to have made their way with becoming celerity 
from Donegal. The natives who had been dis- 
lodged or driven out in other quarters appear 
to have made their way more numerously to 
that place than the planters there could have 
wished, although the latter regarded it as a great 
grievance to be debarred altogether from em- 
ploying Irish labourers. But Boylagh thus 
became a very decidedly congested district, 
and the wise King, the " Scottish Solomon," 
even with all the wisdom of his Council to back 
him up, could think of no remedy for the evil 
but force. At that time he had a prime 
favourite in John Murray, of Cockpool, who 
principally managed his private affairs in Scot- 
land, and was supposed to be able to manage 
public affairs as welL So the grand Idea was 
suggested, or was probably born in the Royal 
brain, that as these Boylagh undertakers 
oould not manage their own affairs, and that as 
the original set had sold their proportions to 
persons even more incompetent than them- 
selves, the latter should be required to sur- 
render their lands, that the whole ten thousand 
acres which had been distributed amongst 
them might be granted to John Murray, who 
would be responsible for the peace of the 
district, and who would regrant their pro- 
portions to any planters wishing for re- 
possession, and willing to carry out the con- 
ditions of plantation vigorously and rigorously. 
This scheme was carried out so far as the King 
and Council could do it ; the grant was 
made to Murray, in 1620, "of all and 
every the several proportions and lands 
containing 10,000 acres, or thereabout, and 
lying in the barony or precinct of Boylagh 
and Bannagh." This arrangement did nob 
mend matters much, if anything, and Murray, 
it was believed, required to be invested with 
additional powers. Accordingly, in 1625, as 
Earl of Annandale (he had been so dignified in 



136 

1624), he wm appointed Governor of Donegal, 
and the borders and limits thereof, to suppress 
and pnnish by fire and sword malefactors, 
traitors, rebels, and all who refuse to submit to 
the law. The King did not live to see how 
futile was his attempted government by force, 
or to be convinced of the cruelty and injustice 
of his policy towards the native Inhabitants of 
Ulster. 

The two plantation precincts set apart in 
Donegal for servitors and natives were Doe and 
Faroaght— two Irish territories the names of 
whioh have now become almost obsolete. These 
two divisions of ancient Tyroonnell form the 
baronyof^ilmaordnan, Fanaght,orFannat,being 
the eastern portion of the barony, and Doe, lying 
along the western coast, is nearly comprised in 
the present parish of Clondehorkey. Kilma- 
crenan contains 310,656 acres, including part of 
the parish of Gonwall with the whole parishes 
of Aughanuncheon, Aughnieh, Clondehorkey, 
Olondevaddock, Garton, Kilgarvan, Eilma- 
crenan, Mevagh, Raymunterdony, Tullagho- 
begley, and Tullyfern. The towns and chief 
villages in this barony are Letterkenny, Ramel- 
ton, Dunfanaghy, Doaghbeg, Rathmullan, 
Creeelough, Ballyrooeky, and Tawny. The 
Commissioners found 12,500 arable acres in the 
precinct of Doe, and 13,000 in the precinct 
of Fanaght, and these two quantities 
were marked of into twenty proportions. The 
two remaining baronies of Inishowen and Tir- 
hugh were not given to undertakers — the 
former, as already mentioned, being handed 
over to Chichester, and the latter, which only 
had 4,000 acres arable, allotted to Trinity Col- 
lege, Dublin. From the camp at Lifford, 
Davys wrote to Salisbury, on the 12th of Sep* 
tember, after having, as he believed, finished 
the work in Donegal to perfection: — " We are 
now come," says Davys, "to the tropic or 
turning point of our journey; for, having 
finished the services which were to be per- 
formed in Tyroonnell, we begin to return home- 



186 

wards from henoe to Fermanagh, from theooe 
to Gevan, where we will make the last period 
of this rammer's progress or ciroulb. Divers 
persons have exhibited their pretended titles to 
land la this country [Donegal], whereof some 
are merchants of the Pale, to whom the late 
fugitive Earl of Tyrconnell [Rorie O'Donnell] 
had mortgaged great scopes of land for small 
snms of money ; others are natives, who, being 
chiefs of septs, suppose their long continuance 
of possession under O'Donnell to be a good title 
now against the Grown. Besides, some of their 
widows claim jointures and dowers, though, by 
their own Irish law, no woman may have any 
estate in the land. But all these titles, appear 
to be void or voidable in English law, so that 
the pretenders (rather the only rightful 
owners] are left entirely to his Majesty's 
grace and bounty." The native chiefs of septs 
referred to by Davis were several named Mac- 
Swyne (now Sweeny)— viz., Donnell MacSwyne 
Fanett, Sir Mulmorie MacSwyne na Doe, 
Donaugh MacSwyne Banagh, Walter Mac- 
Laughlin MacSwyne, and Manus MacKeaf 
MacSwyne, Tirlagh O'Boyle, whose ancestors 
were lords of Boylagh, and Hugh MacHugh 
Duff O'DonnelL Donough MacSwyne Banagh 
was the representative of the princely Niall 
Mor MacSwyne, whom the Four Masters de- 
scribe, at the year 1524, as " a constable of 
hardiest hand and heroism, best in withholding 
and attacking, best in hospitality and prowess, 
who had the most numerous troops and the 
most vigorous soldiers, and who had foroed the 
greatest number of passes of any man of his 
own fair tribe. " 



The twenty proportions of arable land found 
in the two precincts of Doe and Fanaght, or in 
the barony of Kilmacrenan, were allotted, with 



137 

some trifling exceptions, to the following servi- 
bora— viz, William Stewart, Esq. ; Patrick 
Crawford, Eeq. ; John Vaughan, Eeq ; John 
Klngsmill, Eeq. ; Baaill Brooke, Esq. ; Sir 
Richard Hansard, Thomas Perkins, and George 
Hilton, gents.; Sir Thoaaaa Chichester, knight; 
Henry Hart, Esq ; Sir Ralph Bingley, knight; 
Edward Ellis, gent. ; Henry Vaughan, Esq. ; 
Sir Richard Bingley, of Westminster, knight ; 
George Gale, gept,; Chailes Grimsditche, gent.; 
and Thomas Browne, Eeq. Sir George Carew 
sent the following short report from what he 
called the precinct of Kilmshcrenan in 1611 :— 
" Captain William Stewart has built upon the 
proportion of 1,000 acres, granted to him as a 
servitor, a fort, or bawne, pf lime and stone, 
with two flankers. Under one is a room either 
for a munition house or a prison, and upon that 
a ooutt of guard, and above that an open 
feight, and in the outmost part thereof a (sen- 
tinel house, one curtain sixteen foot high, and 
two others twelve foot high, and the other 
eight foot high, whereupon he intends to erect 
a atone house ; has built) three houses, English 
fashion, and is in hand for more, which will 
serve for tenants. The rest of the servitors 
have done nothing by reason of the wildneea of 
the land, being the worst in all the country, 
Insomuch that the natives are unwilling to come 
to dwell upon it until they be forced to remove. 
Servitors are providing materials and purpose 
to perform tpeir covenants by the time pre- 
scribed. Tyrlagh O'Boyle, with tenants and 
followers, removed to the proportion assigned 
to him In the said barony. M'Swyne Bannagh 
will remove to his proportion, but in the mean- 
time he and his followers have bought grazing 
of Alexander Kernes, general agent for the 
Scottish undertakers in the precinct of Boy- 
lagh and Bannaght. Said natives have per- 
formed no works, but are providing materials ; 
none others have removed to portions as- 
signed, " 
The planters in Kilmacrenan had ample 



138 

ground* lor their slow, and in most eases no 
program, daring their first year of occupancy. 
1. This William Stewart came from the pariah 
of Whithorn, Wigtonahire, the lands there be- 
longing to his family being known as Barclay, 
Geatlewigg, and Tanderagie. This branch of 
the Stewarts was founded by Walter Stewart 
of the Garlies family, and we have already had 
some references to the career of Sir William — 
perhaps its most distinguished member—in 
connection with the town of Newtonstewart. 
In addition to all the lands he had obtained by 
plantation grants in the baronies of Strabane 
and KUmacrenan, he received a grant, 
in conjunction with Sir Henry Tichbnrne, 
of all the rente, profits, and forfeitures 
of sundry lands in Ulster which had escheated 
to the Crown because of being ' set by planters 
to the native Irish, contrary to the conditions 
in their patents, to be held daring pleasure, 
towards satisfaction of all arrears of pay due to 
them (Stewart and Tichbnrne) and their 
soldiers from the Crown, since their employ- 
ment in Ireland, until Michaelmas, 1629. In 
1638 he purchased extensive lands in the 
barony of Omagh also, thus laying the founda- 
tions of a family, broad and deep, whose repre- 
sentatives became Viscounts Mountjoy and 
Earls of Blessing ton. 2. Patrick Crawford, of 
Lifibrd, Esq., belonged to a Scottish family 
which had settled in Donegal at the time of 
Ineenduv MacdonnelTs marriage with the 
ohieftain of TyrconnelL This Patrick Craw- 
ford's father, Owen, or John, Crawford, was 
living in 1610 near the town of Donegal, and 
his brother David was an attendant on the Earl 
of Tyrconnell when the latter made his escape 
with the Earl of Tyrone in the autumn of 1607. 
Captain Patrick Crawford was appointed to 
accompany Sir Oliver Lambert in an expedition 
against Danyveg, in Iela, and fell at the siege 
of that fortress, February, 1613 14. Lambert, 
when writing to the King an account of the 
expedition, concludes his letter in the follow- 



139 

ing terms :— " Tour Majesty baa lost, in the 
death of Captain Graifford, a valiant captain by 
whom I was not a little assisted. The fortune 
of war is not to be resisted." Crawford's 
widow married Sir George Marburie, or Mai- 
bury, who soon afterwards got ont a patent for 
Crawford's proportion of Letterkenny in right 
of his wife. Malbury was one of Sir Riohard 
Hansard's executors. 

The next, and third, planter on the foregoing 
list was John Vaughan, Esq , who sold his pro- 
portion of Carnagifiy soon after visiting the same 
to John Wray. He did not, however, leave the 
district, bat accepted the very dangerous office 
of High Sheriff for Donegal. In May, 1610, a 
Mr. Fox, writing from Dublin to Salisbury, 
mentions a report then in circulation "of the 
killing of Captain John Vaaghan, the Sheriff of 
the County of Dunnagall, by a Scotchman, upon 
a sudden falling out between them." There were 
many Scotchmen crowding into that county 
at the date above-mentioned who would have 
made short work with sheriffs had circum- 
stances called for the practical use of the dirk ; 
but the rumour in this case was exaggerated, 
for Vaughan survived the assault, was after- 
wards created a knight, admitted a member of 
the Privy Council, and appointed Governor of 
the city of Londonderry. His daughter and 
heir, Sidney Vaughan, married Sir Frederick 
Hamilton, youngest son of Lord Palely, who 
followed his brothers to Ulster, and whose re- 
presentatives were ennobled as Viscounts 
Boyne. 4. John Kingsmill, Esq., was the son 
of Sir William Kingsmill, keeper of Freemantle 
Park, Hampshire, an office which a younger 
son, Henry, had in reversion. Another brother 
named Andrew received £170 for bis interest 
in certain coppices in Finkley Walk, Forest of 
Chute, Hampshire, purchased by the King for 
the preservation of deer. Sir John's 
proportion of Bally mally, in Kilma- 
orenan, remained comparatively waste even 
at the date of Pynnar's survey, 1618-20. 5. 



140 

Basffl Brooke, Esq., had distinguished himself 
as a servitor in Ireland, and was one of those 
selected by the King tor a proportion of land in 
the Ulster plantation. He was soon afterwards 
knighted, and was styled as. of Magherabegg 
and Brook Manor, in the County of Donegal. 
He married Anne, daughter of Thomas 
Leicester, of toft, in the County of Chester, 
and died in 1633. His son and heir was Sir 
Henry Brooke, of Brookeborough, in the 
County Fermanagh. Brook Manor was also 
known as Killydonnell, and Pynaar called 
Basill Brooke's proportion fedoncarne. 6. Sir 
Richard Hansard was among the most useful 
and energetic of the servitor das3, and yet he 
does not appear to have been rewarded for his 
services— at) least on the same liberal scale as 
others, who were not perhaps so deserving. 
In addition to his dignity of knighthood, he 
got only a comparatively small grant at Lifford, 
and even this was accompanied with certain 
stringent conditions. It is stated in substance 
as follows in the Patient Bolls : — " The town of 
Liffer, or Bally daffe, one quarter ; Killene- 
derfogh, one quarter ; Croghan and Bhanden, 
one quarter ; Cabragh, one quarter, with the 
ferry over the Finn, between Liffer and 
Strabane, and power to erect one or more 
ferries over the River Deale [Berg] between the 
lands of Liffer and Conleigh. From thiB grant 
"were excepted the fort known as Captain 
Brooke's Fort, to be oalled the King's fort, and 
the meadow of Stramore, near Liffer, except 
four acres thereof in the north-east point to 
be reserved to Sir Richard, with fishing in the 
Finn." 

The next, or seventh, on the foregoing list 
were George Hilton and Thomas Perkins, 
gents. , but why these undertakers were thus 
associated in so Bmall a quantity of land as 
300 acres we cannot explain. Thomas Perkins 
is styled Lieutenant Parkins in another planta- 
tion document. He is mentioned in an in- 
quisltion as one of Sir Richard Hansard's 



141 

executors. George Hilton la ate mentioned In 
an inquisition m renting a part of the quarter 
of Qarwery, in aha proportion of Shragmtrlar, 
from Peter Benson, of London, who had pur- 
chased from Sir Henry Clare. 8. Sir Thomaa 
Chichester was the youngest brother of the 
then Deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester, and, In 
eomtnon with aome others, had expressed a 
wish to have his proportion near the borders of 
Inishowen, which belonged no Sir Arthur, and, 
as a matter of coarse, would be thoroughly 
protected against the native inhabitants. In 
the Deputy's instructions fo» the Treasurer 
going to uoodon, January, 1609-10, he says : — 
"Sir Thomas Chichester and others seek for 
hmds about those parts, because it joins so 
near my land of Inishowen more than for the 
goodness of the soil." But Sir Thomas was 
already provided with rich and broad lands In 
the County of Wicklow, although he dwelt in 
Inishowen, perhaps in the oapaclty of agent 
for his brother. His plaoe of residence there 
was Birte, or Burte, Castle, which had belonged 
toSirCahir O'Dogherty. In it Sir Thomas 
Chichester died on the 20th of August*, 
1616, and was succeeded by his son 
Charles, who was of age and unmarried 
at the date of his father's death. 9. 
Henry Hart, so well known in connection 
with Sir Cahir O'Dagherty's revolt, (be- 
longed to an English Roman Catholic family. 
In February, 1604-5, he was appointed constable 
or keeper of the castle and fort ef Cuknore «w|th 
300 acres adjoining, including all fishings and 
other appurtenances as reserved to the Crown 
in the letters patent made to Sir. Cahir 
O'Dogherty, the grantee 'being required to 
search all shipping oooaing to the ports of 
Lough IToyle and <the Derrie for munition, 
armour, and all other prohibited wasee and 
merchandises imported or exported out of the 
same ; provided the said Harte shall not use 
any unnecessary vexations to the King's * sub- 
jects, or othem in amity with his 



142 

coming to trade and traffic In those parts of 
(Jitter. In the spring of 1608 Harte was 
seized by O'Dogherty, who compelled him to 
give np Culmore^ and, although he was in no 
way to blame for the surprise, he appears to 
have been suspected by some people for con- 
nivance in the affair. The whole series of 
disastrous events, however, arising from that 
surprise ended in securing the barony of 
InisLowen for Chichester, and the latter may 
have felt so much obliged to Harte, whether 
conniving or faithful, that he was put on the 
list of servitors • considered suitable for under- 
takers. He therefore got the proportion of 
1,000 acres called Ballynas, with 256 acres of 
concealments. In an inquisition of 1661 
Henry Harte is styled of Muffe, and is also 
therein stated to have sold to Wybrant Olphert, 
for the sum of £300, the several quarters of land 
oalled Inisbofin/Maghreyoutra, fiaUanas, Balle- 
oonnell, Drumnalumney, Ardbegg, Ardmore, 
and Gortoarke, in the barony of JUlmacrenan. 
The next, or tenth, servitor on this list of 
undertakers was Sir Richard Bingley, probably 
a brother of Sir Ralph Bingley— or perhaps 
Richard is a misprint for Ralph. At all events, 
when Pynnar inspected, 1618 20, Captain San- 
ford held Doe Castle, which had been "the 
strongest hold in all theprovinoe, 11 with 500 acres 
ofBingley's proportion. Of this knight we 
have already heard in connection with the pro- 
portions of Tawnaforis, Drummore, and Large. 
11. Edward Ellis's name is generally written 
Edmund in plantation papers. He sold his 
lands to Bdward Rowley, who died in 1641, and 
was succeeded by his son and heir, Sir John 
Rowley, who was 27 years of age at the date of 
his father's death. 12. Henry Vaughan was a 
brother to Sir John above mentioned. 13. 
George Gale, gent., appears to have held 
but a small portion as a servitor. He died in 
1628, leaving two daughters, Eliza and 
Margaret— the one four years of age and the 
other two years at the time of their father's 



143 

death. In 1642 Eliza was 18 years old, and 
had married William Hamilton ; and her filter 
Margaret wm then Id, and had married Francis 
Hamilton 13. Charles Grimsditch, gent., 
was brother of a John Grimsditeh who, n 1604, 
had a Royal grant in reversion, after Bristow 
Pigeon, of the keeping of the Kinp's wardrobe 
in the Tower, and of the garden there, for 
life. 14. Thomas Brown is sometimes men- 
tioned in the " Domeetie Series of State 
Papers' 1 as a sort of surveyor, who seems to 
have become rather troublesome to Salisbury 
by the too frequent application fQr little favours. 
Amongst other matters, Browne wrote to the 
Prime Minister asking " confirmation" of the 
bailiwick of Pinchbeck, granted him by the 
late Lord Burghley, Salisbury's father. The 
surveyor, however, does not appaar to have 
prospered in that suit, for he wrote soon again 
stating that he " had heard that the bailiwick of 
Pinchbeck had been conferred on another," and 
urging his own prior right to it. This grant to 
Browne, in Ulster, of 628 acres may have very 
probably been made to compensate him for dis- 
appointments elsewhere. He got his new pre- 
mises created the manor of Brownstowne, with 
200 acres in demesne, and a court baron. 



VL 

Several natives In Donegal got small grants, 
but most of the leading families there had been 
swept away during the terrible war between 
the Government and the Northern Earls. 
Among the State papers of the reign of James 
I. is the following curious and historically im- 
portant document recording the names and 
places of residence of such old Irish families of 
rank as dwelt westward of Lough S willy :— 
"From theentrie of the Lough [Swilly]nntill you 
come to a point of land a little short of Ench 
(island of Inch] there is neither castle 



144 

• 

nor fort ;bnt then aponapoynt oflande iaaoastle 
and an abbey oalled Ramalian [now Rathmnllen] 
— MacSwyne O'Farre'e [OTanaid's] chlefe 
eoantry-house. Fyye miles above Ramalian 
there is a cattle of Hugh MaoHagh DaftVs 
[O'Donnell's], oalled Ramalton, standing upon 
the Lahnan [the River Lenan], which falleth in 
Lough Swilly— Hugh Daffe's own hoaae. Three 
miles above Ramalton, upon the longh side, in 
a baye, is the Abbey of Kil O'Donnell, in Hugh 
MacHugh Daffe's ooantrey. Here dwell only 
fryers. Fyve miles above Kil-O'Donnell there is 
a ford, passabte at low water, wherein hath 
sometime been a forte, oalled the Faroet 
[Feanad] of SoloHghmore. Three myles from 
this ford, towards Birt, stands an abbey called 
Ballaghan, over against Kil-O'Donnell ; here 
dwell fryers. Three myles from Ballaghan, 
towards Birt, is a poynt of land which runs 
farr into the longh, where hath bene a strong 
fort, bat nowe broken downe, and is called 
Danboy ; here dwells Shane MacManus Oge 
[O'Donnell]. Danboye and the poynt of lande 
whereon Birte standeth maketh a baye, in the 
bottom whereof standeth an old forte oalled 
Onl MacTryen ; this was wont to be held by 
O'Donnell. From Gal MacTryen runs a bogg 
three myles in length to the syde of Longh 
Foyle ; in the midst of the bogg is a standing 
loaghe, with a forte on the syde of the loaghe 
called Bnnneber [Bun-aber], where Alexander 
MacSorlie [son of Sorly Boy Maodonnell] was 
slain. At the end of this bogg, to Longh Foyle 
syde, is the fort of Gargan ; here dwells O'Don- 
nelTs mother [Ineendabh Maodonnell]. Three 
myles above Gargan stands a fort call M'Gwy- 
velin [now Mongevlin], appon the River of 
Longh Foyle — O'Donnell's mother's ehiefehoase. 
Above M'Gwyvelin, four myles np the River 
of Longh Foyle, Is the Uffer ; here dwelt [the] 
O'Donnell. 

" Fonr myles above the Liffer stands Gastle 
Fene [Fynne], Niall Garve'e [O'Donnell's] 
noose. Fonr myles above Castle Fene is a 



146 

fryers' honse called Dramboy. Three mylet 
above Dramboy stands a fort called Ballakit ; 
here dwells Donnell Qallooar [O'Gallagher], 
one of O'DoDnell's ohiefe counsellors. Ten 
mylee above Ballakit is Loughfene [FynneJ, 
upon the River Fene, where the river hath its 
first head. Four my lea westward from Balla- 
kit is Barnesmore. From Barnesmore to the 
Castle of Baleek, that standeth upon Lough 
Eroe, is twelve mylee. From Beleek to Bal- 
lashanan is three myles. Here dwells 
M'O'Dangoarye. From Ballashanan to the 
Abbey of Asheroe, to the seawards, is one 
myle ; inhabited by monks. From the Abbey 
of Asheroe to the Abbey and Castle of Danagall 
Ib nyne myles. Here is a good haven, and the 
River Bake falls into it. Three myles above 
Danagall is Lough Eske— O'Donnell's chiefe 
keeping, O'Donnell's ohiefe storehons for the 
warr. Over against Danagall, two myles on the 
other syde of the water, stand O'Boyle, where 
the ships used to ride — O'Boyle's chiefe noose. 
Seven myles from O'Boyle, to the seaward, is a 
castle oalled M'Swyn. O'Bane's [Bannagh's] 
Tower. From this place to the haven of Cal- 
boy (Killybegs) is three miles— here dwells 
Seneechall M'GonelL Four myles from there 
stands the Castle of Bromoyle— in the lower 
end of the oountrey— here dwells Gagh boy 
M'Swyne O'Bane's brother. From thens 
foar mylee is a small haven oalled Cornetillen. 
This haven divy des M'Swyne O'Bayne's coantrey 
and O'Boyle's. At the lower end of O'Boyle's 
oonntry is a castle oalled Kilmitrieh. ffere 
dwells the Bishop of O'Boyle. Next to that 
castle is the haven of Bonabbar. This haven 
parteth O'Boyle's coantrey and M'Swyne 
O'Doe's. And next to that is the haven Cono- 
garhen, with a castle so oalled ; this is 
M'Swyne O'Doe's chiefe house. The next haven 
to this is Red Haven, which parteth M'Swyne 
O'Doe's country and M'Swyne O'Fane's [Fa- 
net's]. By the syde of this haven is the Caatle 
of Menryee, a castle of M'Swyne O'Fanet's, 



Small boat* may oome from the Red Haven to 
theoastle. Here dwells Alexander M'Dono- 
loghe. The midland of Tyroonnell li inhabited 
by the aept of O'Gallocara." 

Several districts in Donegal were known as 
the waste lands of the Clann-Dalaigh,or O'Don- 
nelle, where the chief had always the privilege 
of placing his fuidher, or fugitives, " stranger* 
tenants"— bo him a very important class. These 
were outlaws or fugitives from other tribes who 
came to him for protection, and who were only 
connected with the Clann-Dalaigh by their de- 
pendence on the chief —being simply groups or 
companies collected from other territories, and 
calling themselves tribesmen, bat in reality 
associations formed by contract among them- 
selves, and chiefly for the purpose of pasturing 
cattle. This comparatively despised class 
were exposed to the frequent exactions of the 
chief when his necessities became pressing ; 
they were really the first tenants cU-toiU known 
in Ireland, and were always rack-rentable 
when circumstances required. They were not, 
however, in other respects oppressively treated 
by the chief on whose lands they took up their 
abode, for it was really his interest to encourage 
them, and by their willingness to work and 
pay they generally became sources of his 
wealth. The members of the regular clan in- 
variably looked on these fuidhtr with jealous 
feelings, their own interests, as they believed, 
always suffering In proportion to the curtail- 
ment of such waste lands as had been used by 
themselves for purposes ot fuel and pasture. 

Only forty natives in the whole extensive 
County of Donegal obtained small grants in the 
dreary regions of Doe and Fanet, now Kilma- 
crenan. Several of them were representatives 
of noble Iriah families, and the remainder 
belonged to the class of native gentry. The 
prevailing surnames amongst them were those 
of O'Donneli, MacSwyne, O'Gallagher, and 
O'Boyle. A. few very old people got pretty 



Ut 

libeial grants, ball with remainder! to Sir 
Ralph Bingley and Sir Richard Hansard. 

Biabop George Montgomery was one oi the 
King'a most aooiva agents in the work of planta- 
tion, and had ample field for the exercise of all 
hu powers in this project, for he held no fewer 
than three bishopricks at one and the earns 
time— those of Clogher, Derry, and Raphoe. 
He had thus enormous revenues, bat he was, 
nevertheless, sadly disappointed that he oonld 
not get hold of all the harenagh lands— and they _ 
were very extensive — throughout his three " 
dioceses. He argued that all harenagh lands 
should belong to the Church, but Davys 
and Chichester thought otherwise, and 
accordingly claimed them for the Crown. 
He had enough on hands without them, 
and he spared no pains to induce Scot- 
tish settlers to come to his assistance. His 
grand-nephew, William Montgomery of the 
" Manuscripts," has rendered doe homage to 
the Bishop's zeal in this matter of plantation. ' 
" Now," says he, "as to his Lordship's usefulness 
in advancing the British plantation in those 
three Northern dioceses, the footsteps [foot- 
prints] of his so doing are yet visible ; so that I 
need but tell the reader that he was very watch- 
ful, and settled intelligences to be given from 
all the seaports in Donegal and Fermanagh, 
himself most residing at Derry, but when he 
went to view and lease the Bishop's lands, or 
settled preachers in parishes, of which he was 
very careful. The ports resorted to from Scot- 
land were Derry, Donegal, and Killybegs ; to 
which places the most that came were from 
Glasgow, Ayr, Irwin, Greenock, and Largs, and 
places from within a few miles from Braidstane 
[the Bishop's native place] ; and he ordered so 
that the masters of vessels should, before dis- 
lodging their cargoes, which were for the most 
part meal and oats, come to his Lordship with 
a list of their seamen and passengers. The 
vessels stayed not for a market. He was their 
merchant and encoorager to traffic in those 



148 

parte, and wrote to that effect), as also to the 
said towns whereto he was much acquainted 
and esteemed ; and had proclamation* made in 
them all at how easy rents he would let his 
Church lands, which drew thither manyfamiUes, 
amongst whom, one Hugh Montgomery, his 
kinsman, a master of a vessel, and also 
owner, who brought his wile and children and 
effects, and were settled at Derrybrosk, near 
Bnniskillen, where his son Nicholas, my long 
acquaintance, aged about eighty-five years, 
now lives in sound memory, and is a rational 
man, whose help I now want to recount parti- 
cular* of that Bishop's proceedings in that 
country whilst his Lordship stayed there, which 
was at leastftill near Anno 1618. One other 
Montgomery, named Alexander, a minister, his 
Lordship settled near Derry. He was prebend 
of Doe, and lived until about 1658. Thus, by 
the Bishop George's industry, in a few years 
the plantation was forwarded, and Church 
revenues increased greatly. I was credibly told 
that for the encouragement of planters 
[tenant- settlers] on Church lands he obtained 
the filing's orders to the governors, and an Act 
of Council thereon, that all the leases he made, 
which were for thirty-one years, should not be 
taken from the planters [tenant- settlers] or 
their posterity at the expiration of their term, 
but renewed to them as they held the same, 
they paying their bishop one year's rent for re- 
newal of their leases to the other thirty -one 
yeais — which was a very encouraging certainty 
—but the Parliament since that time nave taken 
other measures more for bishops 1 than tenants' 
profits." 



149 

THE COUNTY OF FERMANAGH. 



i. 

In bringing all the temporal lands in Fer- 
managh to the Grown, and consequently into 
the vast field for plantation, there were certain 
difficult questions to be dismissed and deter- 
mined. Sir Hugh Magnire was the representa- 
tive of a long line of Clann-Colla chieftains, or 
toparchs, reaching from the seventh to the 
seventeenth century, and was very popular 
throughout all his " country" of Fermanagh. 
He married a daughter of the Earl of 
Tyrone, and beoame one of the ablest and most 
trusted leaders in the war of the Northern 
Lords against the Government. He fell in 
battle, and Queen Elizabeth, in her wrath, 
hastily had hie entire territory of Feimanagh 
confiscated and handed over to his cousin, 
Connor Roe Magnire, who had taken the side of 
the English in the war, and was known as 
Maguidir Gallda, or the " English Magnire." 
But this high-handed arrangement, which had 
been almoso exclusively the work of the 
Queen, required to be set aside after her death, 
and the county was then divided into two 
nearly equal parts between Connor Roe and 
his cousin, Cuconaght Magnire, a younger 
brother of the deceased Sir Hugh. This arrange- 
ment, however, although so much more equit- 
able than the former, failed to reconcile the 
rivals,or to give peace to the distractedfolansmen. 
At length Cuconaght resolved to have no longer 
parley with his treacherous cousin, or with the 
Government who had set him up against the 
wishes of the clansmen. He had made up his 
mind to leave Ulster for some more congenial 
home on the Continent, and, on hearing that 
the Earls of Tyrone and Tyroonnell were about 
to sail from Loughgwilly, he hastily joined 



m 

thorn. The Four Masters refer briefly to the 
fate el Cuconaght Magvire, describing him as a 
" rapid •marching, adventurous man, endowed 
with wisdom and beauty of person." His 
" rapid-marching," however, was soon destined 
to come to an end on the Continent, for he died 
of fever on his arrival at Genoa. 

His death, In part, relieved Chichester of a 
great difficulty which could not otherwise have 
been permanently removed ; for how was Fer- 
managh to be secured for plantation if 
Oabonaght, a hostile chief, ware permitted to 
hold the full half of the county— as had been 
regularly arranged by Sir George Carew, the 
deputy preceding Chichester ? Cuoonaght's 
portion, or half, included some of the most im- 
portant positions in the oounty,and comprised 
the half barony of Coole, the whole baronies of 
Lurgue, Magheryboy, and Clinawley, with so 
much of the barony of Knookninny as lies on 
the southern and western shores of Lough Erne, 
together with such islands in the lough 
as anoiently belonged to the several divisions 
now named. By this arrangement, Coconaght 
also held of right the castle of Enniskillen, 
which was then considered the key to the whole 
district. In referring to that mode of settle- 
ment, Chichester explained his disapproval 
thereof in the following terms :— " For 
in certain instructions in the time of 
Sir George Carew's Governmept, his 
Highness L James I.] signified his ex* 
press pleasure that the whole oountry should 
be divided between those two chieftains, with- 
out further limitation, according to which if it 
can be settled there can be little good hope 
that ever that oountry can come to civility and 
obedience, being left in a manner wholly to the 
self-willed government of those two chiefs." 
The problem, however, which thus seemed 
seriously to stand in the way was all but solved 
by the death of Cuconaghfc— an event, however, 
which Chichester simply regarded as so far so 
good-^for what now was to be done aboat 



151 

Connor Roe's half of the county, or wen the 
Commissioners of Plantation to he that out 
from the two whole baronies of Magherl* 
etephana and Clancally, and from the half of 
the barony of Tyroannada, and from the half 
of the barony of Knookninny ? 

Bat the aetata Deputy was noteo punctilious 
about little trifles of this nature as some others 
appear to have been. By the time the Com- 
missioners were ready to commence operations 
in Fermanagh he had found a key for the look 
that threatened to shot them oat from Connor 
Roe's lands. " Connor Roe," writes Chichee* 
ter to Salisbury, •« expects to have three 
baronies, upon some promise made to him when 
Idie traitors Tyrone, Tyroonnell, and other Irish 
lords were restored to their lands ; but a more 
prudent course being now in hand, I see not 
that the King is bound in honour to make so 
barbarous and unworthy a man greater than 
his neighbours, but rather, in true construc- 
tion of State, to suppress him, for all his ac- 
tions declare an ill mind, and I am sure he will 
do much harm to the plantation if he be made 
so great. The barony of Magheristophana will 
contain him and all his followers and goods 
that depend on him, and that quantity, in my 
opinion, is rather too much than too little for 
him." And, verily, after lengthened negotia- 
tions, and many distracting remonstrances on 
the part of Connor Roe, the whole affair came 
to this* that the " English Masuire," *ho had 
deserted his own people to fight for England 
during the war of seven years, was obliged to 
accept a much smaller portion than Magheri* 
Stephana, and on the conditions by which other 
undertakers were bound. But even this was 
not alL On the allotment finally made to 
Maguire stood his old family residence of Liana- 
skea, with its surrounding demesne, but the 
castle and landB had been granted away to a 
Scottish planter, named Lord Burley, during 
the delay caused by Connor Roe's remon- 
strances, and probably by some mistake in the 



152 

i of the district Bo? ley would 
noli waive hie claim, Mid to hare done with 
Magoire's oaee altogether Chioheeter proposed 
to get a penaioD for him, and let him clear oat. 
In a list of propositions sent to the Council in 
London, one is "that Connor Roe M'Guire 
may have pension of £200 a year for life, which 
has been offered him. and £50 to one of his sons 
after his decease, for like term ; to which he 
would not listen, bat prepares to go over [to 
London J and be a farther saitor to his Majesty 
for recompense of the three baronies 
and all the islands that were taken 
from him." To this proposition the 
Council replied that it was "reasonable, if 
it will be accepted by Connor Roe. If not, 
then the Lord Deputy and Council in Dublin 
are to establish and maintain the Lord Burley 
in the possession, leaving Connor Roe to take 
his remedy. For this there is likewise a letter 
procured from his Majesty. 11 8o, Maguire had 
no remedy but to clear out of his castle and its 
demesne lands, and be thankful to live with his 
pension (daring the few years that then re- 
mained to him), on the other lands conveyed in 
his own grant. 

The temporal lands in Fermanagh were thus 
brought, without any exceptions, to the Crown. 
The termon and herenagh lands were more 
extensive in this county than perhaps anywhere 
else throughout Ulster, and were eagerly 
claimed by the Protestant bishops for the 
Church, bat in this their awfully clatchingpolioy 
signally failed. The termon and herenagh lands, 
as already mentioned, originally belonged in 
part to the early Irish Church, but in later 
times it was found by the Commissioners 
that these lands had been owned for many 
centuries by the minor septs, or in other words 
by the clansmen, and, such being the ease, the 
legal acumen of Davys, the Attorney-General, 
dearly demonstrated that every description of 
landed property in the hands of the people was 
confiscated, and as a matter of coarse belonged 



to the Crown. Thus all the iancUin Ferman- 
agh were prepared for plantation purpose*, 
exoapting 00910 belpnging to the Church, but 
even the new bishops themselves were bold 
to the conditions of plantation. And there was, 
perhaps, no portion of Ulster more eagerly 
coveted by outsiders generally than Fermanagh, 
with, its beauteous islands and ibe moato pictur- 
esque shores on both sides of Lough Erne, So 
fell) the. Norsemen daring their many and very 
unwelcome visits to. Ulster* and so felt the 
undertakers from npr^ and south of the 
Tweed, woo rivalled eaoh other in their efforts 
to get into that oounty, and who eventually 
shared its hills, and glades, and islands, amongst 
them* Sir John Davys was not slow in recog- 
nisiog the natural beauties au4 advantages of 
Fermanagh. When writing to Salisbury, from 
Enniakiuen., in the autumn of 1609, he says :— 
" We have now finished our service in Ferman- 
agh, which is. so pleasant and fruitful a country 
that if I should make a full description thereof 
it would rather be taken for a poetical fiction 
than a true and serious narration- The fresp 
lake oalled Lough Erne— being more than forty 
miles in length, and abounding in fresh water 
fish of all kinds, and containing one hundred 
djfiper*e4 islands— divides that country into 
two parte The land on either side of the lough, 
rising in little hills of eighty or a hundred acres 
apiece, is the fattest and richest soil in all 
Ulster. 1 ' 

These statements are generally correct, in- 
deed furprkingly so, when it is considered 
how little time Davys had to make 
nojbes, and what heavy matters must 
have then been occupying his thoughts. 
He speaks only in general terms, however, 
as to the size of Lough Erne, the number of ios 
islands, end the lands along its shores. The 
area of the upper lake is about 0,453 (acres, 
and that of the lower lake about 27,646. Of 
this entire area the County Fermanagh has 
36,348 acres, the County of Cavan about 749, 



154 

and the County of Donegal only one acre and 
twenty-two perches. His description of the 
land as rifling on each eide in little bills may be 
accepted ae generally accurate, for undulations, 
slopes, and gently -ascending bills form both 
the margin and skyline of the grand valley, al- 
though many delectable meadow -lands, "warm 
and low,' 1 broadly fringe the shores of the 
lakes, upper and lower. Instead of there 
being only forty- six islands in Lough Erne, as 
stated by the Plantation Commissioners, or one 
hundred islands, as Davys supposed, there are 
upwards of two hundred well known, and be- 
sides many smaller ones might be enumerated. 
The Commissioners, however, were looking 
about in the islands, as everywhere else in their 
perambulations, only for the arable acres ; and, 
on this errand bent, it waa unnecessary to visit 
all the islands, for the lands really available for 
agricultural purposes do not comprise more 
than about 2,000 acres, and are found in only 
those of the larger size. Lough Erne consists, 
strictly speaking, of two parts, or rather two 
distinct and well defined portions of the 
same, connected by a broad winding 
channel of six miles in length. The 
upper or southern portion of the lough is 
nine miles long, and from one and a half mile 
to five miles in breadth ; the lower, or northern, 
expanse of water, or that portion of the lough 
be d ween Enniskillen and the sea, is ten miles 
lone, and varies from two to eight miles in 
width. Both portions are crowded with 
islands, several of which are well wooded and 
inhabited. The upper part, reaching from 
Belturbeo to Enniskillen, is so thickly Btudded 
with islands as to appear like a number of 
winding channels rather than a lough ; whilst 
the islands in the lower lake are not so 
numerous, and generally of greater individual 
extent. Among the islands up and down, here 
aad there, occur fragments of the ancient cairn, 
the rath, the cromlech, the pillar-stone, the 
castle, and the abbey. With these curious re- 



I5ff 

mains of the past only one round tower 111 be up 
its silent and mysterious faoe, and ie said to be 
about the most interesting specimen of its class 
in Ireland. Loos h Erne is celebrated,** a retreat 
and shelter for birds in winter— these feathered 
visitors coming from the northern coasts of 
Antrim and even from the Scottish islands. 
The people dwelling on the islands are pretty 
muoh what we wonld expect to find in the re- 
mote and secluded nooks where they live- 
contemplative, peace loving, passionately at- 
tached to their homes, and fond of cherishing 
snoh old traditions as still linger about the 



IL 

The whole area of Fermanagh comprises abont 
280,228 acres, of which there are now at least 
115,000 arable. The county is divided into 
eight baronies — viz., Enookninny, Glenawley, 
and Magheraboy, on the left or west side of the 
longh ; and on the right or east side are Ooole, 
Clonkelly, Magheraateflana, Tyrkennedy, and 
Lurg. The Commissioners of Plantation 
divided the county, into eight precincts, the 
names of which were Glanoally, Goolmakernan 
and Lnrge, Knookninny, Magheriboy, Glan- 
awley, Goole and Tyroannada. Before they had 
time to commence operations in this county, a 
company of forty Englishmen came forward 
with a proposal to undertake for the whole 
lands of Fermanagh, to invest a sum of £40,000 
in the speculation, to build forty manor houses 
therein, and to plant according to whatever 
conditions the authorities might recommend or 
impose. To this proposal they appended a re- 
quest, as follows :-»-" The forty undertakers 
whose names are hereunder written are also 
petitioners for a grant of that small part of the 
County of Sligo now in the hands of the King, 
which lies between the end of Lough Brne and 



tfee sea ; av they intend to have ainarkettown 
on the sooth side thereof, at Belleek, and from 
thence, three miles nearer the sea, to erect a 
strong corporation. This part of SHgo oon- 
tains about three miles, being a piece of ground 
Very convenient, adjoining the seat for the 
necessary use of the inhabitants of that cor- 
poration for bringing in or transporting their 
commodities." The Government did not in- 
tend to deal with undertakers in companies 
bat as Individuals ; and, "besides, it was not 
thought expedient to introduce so many land- 
lords into Fermanagh, at least for a time. Al- 
though this company offered to appoint tiir 
Thomas Chichester, brother of Sir Arthur, as 
their leader, and to provido him with six as- 
sistants, the proposal fell through, and of the 
forty not more than four eventually obtained 
estates in this much coveted county. 

Nor was the company of Dotebmen more 
fortunate in their application, about the isam* 
time, for a Crown grant of all the islands in 
Lough Erne. Indeed, fhey were hardly so 
much so, for not one of them appears to have 
got any lands at the general distribution after- 
wards, ^although Davys spoke of their applica- 
tion in highly recommendatory terms. In his 
glowing account of the scenery and soil of Fer- 
managh, from which we have already quoted, 
he makes a practical, although perhaps rather 
a novel, suggestion under the circumstances, as 
follows :— '* Here is a Dutch merchant Called 
Maximilian [Van der Lever], who, like-the rest 
of his nation, is diligent and industrious to im- 
prove the commodities of this kingdom. He 
makes suit to the Lord Deputy that a 
colony of Hollanders may be planted on the 
islands in this lough. If his demands 
be notf unreasonable we [the Commissioners] wish 
his init may be granted ; for a plantation of the 
Dutch in this place will be a great encourage- 
ment and benefit to the undertakers ; for by 
their industry all the commodities will be 
wrought and vented [manufactured and ex- 



m 

portJedlattitWlake wiH %e so foil bttrtet* 
tod fctAe «t*t they w4ll be * gtfeaftfcelp to ^ 
the civil mhMbltants roond 'about." Perhaps, 
Indeed, there w«i a6 period In themnotent or 
medieval history of Ireland* or even in com- 
paratively modern times, during which the 
Ntfrth men* or their . descendants, under one 
name "or other, were tfob known 'either as 
invaders or traders arotnd the coasts of Ulster-, 
or fey the shore* of It* kmfehs. We have very 
early records <<tf their presence eft Strsngford, 
Lough ffoyie, Lotfch Bftae, LotJgh Gall, and 
other bu eh attractive places. An old ebxtonleler 
has left it <dh record ! thht "It was Impossible 
for the Uriah to free themselves from Ihe brdtal 
avid tapfeo&ble hordes of tfevsemeh, because of 
their thirst and their hunger for the frnitfnl, 
emxfctl -plained, -and sweet grasa fattda of Erin, 
With its fishfnl rivers and bays." T*he same 
metfoctB brought Maximilian and Ma friends to 
Snnltfktllen in 1009, where, indeed, ! tfcey appear 
to have been doing a little trading before %h«t 
date. 

When the Commissioners got to work m 
Fermanagh, they commenced with the barony 
of Gthmeeily, or CrancfeHy, now dlonkelly. 
This barony or plantation preelnot fa In the 
extreme eastern part of the county, and con- 
taina 30,922 acres. Ita northern bdrder eonslritB 
of upland tracts, but the enrfaoe generally is 
low-lying, and slopes to the southwest, form- 
ing a ipart of the east side in the basin Bystem 
of the Erne. Olonkelly is a comparatively 
small barony, and contains only f>art of the 
two parishes tff Clones and Galloon. Ite onto 
Httte village ia fcaified Rosslee. The Oom> 
misstoners only could find 'lb it 5,000 acres of 
arable land, which they marked off into four 
proportions— two of the mlddlesfee, 1,500 acres 
eadh,'and flwo of the small size, 1,000 acres 
each These four proportions made five of 
1,000 acres each, which were afterwards 
allotted to five English Undertakers, 'Whose 
names are as fottbw, vel?-*»ir Hugh Worrall, 



Knight ; Robert Bogas, Esq. ; Robert Calvert, 
gent; John Sedborough, Esq.; and Thomas 
Flowerdew, Esq. When these English planters 
had been fully twelve months in possession, Sir 
George Oarew reported from Clonkelly as 
follows:— "Thomas Flowerdew, 2,000 acres; 
Is resident ; has oast a trench about an old rath, 
and Is building an English house of 50 feet 
long and 22 feet broad ; providing materials. 
John Sedboroogh, 1,000 acres ; Is resident with 
his wife and family ; has felled timber, raised 
stopes, set np an oven and two chimneys 
in his house, and intends to go in hand with 
his bawne. Robert Calvert, 1,000 acres ; is 
resident ; has built a house after the English 
fashion ; has two families of English, unto whom 
be will give estates ; six other families have pro- 
mised to come to him at May next. Robert 
Bogas, 1,000 acres ; has not appeared, nor 
any for him ; nothing done." Of Sir Hugh 
Worrell it is stated by a soribe named Philip 
Gatisfeth, " that he [ Worrell] hath his brother 
there taking up his rent, but as yet nothing 
goes forward." 

Not much is known of the five planters above 
named. 1. Sir Hugh Worrell was a lawyer and 
had some employments as an agent for the 
Government. He wanted to undertake for a 
large proportion of 2,000 acres, but only suc- 
ceeded in purchasing the small one of 1,000 
acres called Ardmagh from Thomas Plumsteed. 
As an apology for his delay in attending to 
plantation duties, there is the following note to 
Chichester from the Council in London :— " Sir 
Hugh Worrell, Knight, undertaker in Ulster, 
being detained by suits beyond the time pre- 
scribed by the proclamation, prays a licence of 
absence for two months, which we have 
granted. And, one of his deputies settled there 
to oversee his proportion being dead, he has 
appointed one Richard Cotes in his room, under 
whose charge he intends to send over presently 
twenty English to inhabit part of his propor- 
tion. We accordingly accept the said Cotes as 



15ft 

his deputy, so as he send over the ssid twenty 
English presently. April 30, 1611." 2. Robert 
Bogas was one of the forty applicants for the 
whole County of Fermanagh, as above 
mentioned. On that list be named his place of 
residence in England, Dehsham Paik, Suffolk j 
bat in his grant he is styled of Braham in 
Brantham, Suffolk. He soon sold his propor- 
tion of Oloncain to Edward Hatton, and does 
not appear to have ever visited it. 3. Robert 
Calvert's place of residence in England is not 
known. He settled for a time on his proportion 
of Gortgunan, and expended a little in improve- 
ments, but he soon sold his lands to George 
Ridgeway, a brother of Sir Thomas Kidgeway, 
the Treasurer at War. 4. John Sedborough's 
place of residence in England is not known, but 
he became an energetic planter. Philip G-atis- 
feth, above quoted, has mentioned that " Mr. 
Sudborough has with him eight men well 
armed, including two sons and one Mr. 
Stookes, a leaseholder ; he has contrived an Irish 
house into three rooms and built a wattled 
chimney in it ; he has one plough of mares. and 
garrons, an English horse and mare, and 
twenty bead of cows." He died before 1629, 
and his granddaughter, Barbara, the child of 
his deceased son, Peter Sed borough, became 
his heir. She was nineteen years of acre at the 
time of her grandfather's death, and soon 
afterwards married John Mayne. In 1630, the 
lands of Gortgunan were sold to Lord Robert 
Dillon and Francis Annesley, who had been 
created Lord Mountnorris. 5. Thomas 
Flowerdew was one of the forty applicants for 
the whole County of Fermanagh, and on that 
list it was stated that he had come from 
Hetherset, in the County of Norfolk. Philip 
Gatisfeth, perhaps an assistant of Sir George 
Oarew, stated that ** Thomas Flowerdew has 
built an Irish house with a chimney at the end 
made of wattles, contrived into two rooms, and 
a frame for a timber house of birch, most part 
to be set up in a Dane's Fort." He 



w 

0MI WflW W*9, aa *n tb*t, year 
there was a rqgnuri in his proportion pallet} 
Iisresk to. his son Edward Flqwerdew,. 

From the barony of Clonkelly tlfye. Qommla; 
sioners passed into a precinct niade up of the 
half-^aronies o$ Lqrgne and Coolmakernan, 
and| now comprised in the barony of Lurg. 
This barony lies in, typ e*trerne nopt^ of 
the. county, and contains 62*939 acre*, 
ioyoiu4ing : Boa Island, and at least two thirds 
of a\l the islands in, lower ^QUgh Erne. It 
contains the whole of the parishes of Beleeb* 
Drumketran, and Magjieraculmonieg, with pai$ 
of the parishes of Derry vull^ne, Magfeeracroas, 
Templeoarna* and Trery ; its towns ajud cbiff 
villages are Beleek, Iasnarriok, Lpwtheretowu, 
Ectaney, Kesh, L^ck, and part of Pettigoe. In 
this precinct the Commissioners only found 
9.000 acres arable, which they marked qff into 
eight proportions— too of 1,500 acres each, ar*d 
six of 1,000 acres each, These proportions were 
soon afterwards distributed amongst seven 
English planters, or undertakers, na.me4 re- 
spectively Thomas yipwerdew, Esq.; Thomas 
Blenerhassett, Eeq.; Sir Edward B loner 
hasgstt. Knight ; John Aichdala, Esq.; 
Edward WarqX gentleman ; Thomas 
Qarton, Esq. ; Henry Honynge or Hun,- 
ning, Esq. Respecting three of th^se 
planters, Garew reports, after twelve 
months' occupancy, as follows ;— ** Edward 
Warde, 1,000 acres ; has not appeared, nor any 
onef or him ; nothing dpne.. Henry Honynge 
or Hnnning, 1,000 apres ; I*as tak,en, possession* 
but. nothing done. John. Archdale, \,0Qfi %cres; 
nothing done." 1. Thomas Bleqerheasett 
came from Horsefqrd, in the County of Norfolk. 
Ha held a middle proportion called Edernagh, 
and named his residence therein Cast^ehasseti. 
He left two sons. 2 Sir $dward Blenev- 
hassett is supposed to have been a brqther of 
Thomas, as their lands lay side by side on tfee 
shore of Lough Erne, Sir Edward left a sqn 
named Francis, who resjded on t||s lands, 



161 

Benahmore, in Fermanagh. 8. John Arch- 
dale came from Dareham, in the County of 
Suffolk. He died before 1639, as in that year 
his eon Edward Archdale had a regrant of hla 
estate. 4. Edward Warde oame from the 
County of Suffolk, and in 1611 sold his propor- 
tion of Nakamey to Harrington Button, of Kal- 
lam, in the County of Nottingham. The latter 
soon afterwards disposed of it to Sir Gerrard 
Lowther, whose father oonduoted Mary Queen 
of Scots to the Castle of Carlisle on her arrival 
in England. This Sir Gerrard Lowther was 
appointed Lord Chancellor in 1654. He sold 
bis lands in Fermanagh before 1630, as in that 
year they were granted to Sir William Parsons 
and Sir Adam Loftus. The latter was the 
founder of the family of Ely. 5. John Barton 
oame from Norwich, and sold his proportion of 
Dromunshyn to Sir Gerrard Lowther and Henry 
Flowerdew. 6. Henry Honynge oame from 
Da/sham, in Suffolk, but he appears to have 
made no attempt to plant his proportion of 
Dowrosse, although the lands were afterwards 
known as the Manor of Hunlngstown* 



m. 

Thomas Blenerhasset, previously named, wrote 
a tract about the " Ulster Plantation," and ad- 
dressed it to the " Mighty and High-renowned 
Prince Henry"— eldest son of James I. In this 
production the author recommends the institu- 
tion or appointment of a great periodical hunt 
in Ulster for the destruction alike of wolves 
and woodkerne, together with all such of the 
inhabitants as could be found to sympathise 
with or shelter the latter ! Here are his words : 
— " When the spaces in the woods be cut out, 
and the bogges be made somewhat passible, then 
these new erected townee intending a reforma- 
tion must oftentimes at the first set a universal 
great hunt, that a suddane search may be made 



1*2 

III all suspttions places, for the woolfe and the 
woodkerne, ^whioh, being secretly and wisely 
appointed by the governors, they, with the 
help of some Irish, well acquainted with the 
holes and holdes of those offenders, the gene- 
raHtle [the rank and file] shall search every 
particular place. For an example, the fourth 
day of March, the Lyfford, the Omagh, they in 
Fermanagh, Donganon, and Oolrayne shall, on 
that day, send forth from every one of those 
places an hundred men ; whioh five hundred men 
shall then make search in all the most suspftions 
places ; and by being at one Instant dispersed 
with furnitore [weapons] fit for such basinets, 
they shall discover all the oaves, holes, and 
larking places of that country, even for an 
hundred miles oompasse ; and no doubt it will 
be a pleasant hunt, and much prey will fall to 
the followers, for what doth escape some will 
fail late the hands of others, and bring saeh a 
terror that the woolfe himself will not dare to 
continue his haunt where such so suddane in- 
cursions shall be used, although it be but once 
In a month, the charge none, the pleasure 
much, the profit more. Then may they make 
enclosures and venture their cattle abroad— for 
to starve in the night doth overthrow the feed 
in the day— with the general improvement and 
ohlef profit, for the feeding of all kinds of 
cattle. Then may they sow, mow, plant* and 
thrive and be merry, for this kind of planting 
wttl not only supplant those domestic animals, 
but there will be out of those towns five 
thousand well armed men to encounter any 
foreign enemy that shall offer arrival to Invade, 
whereby his Majesty shall shortly have Httte 
need of those chargeable garrisons ; for these 
undertakers will easily restrain the mutinies of 
them at home, and confront the power of any 
invader whatsover ; and those good fellows in 
trowzee— I mean the everywhere dispersed 
creatures in the create— seeing this course, will 
no longer hearken after change, nor intertain 
the larking woodkerne, as they now do." The 



m 

rjeriodical hunt wm not appointed in exactly 
the form her* reoommended, bub It wm 
practically and remorselessly carried out at 
convenient timet and on fibbing occasions 
throughout the six plantation oounbies, under 
the superintendence of the several provoet- 
marshalla. 

Xbe Commissioners on leaving Lurg passed on 
• to the barony of Knookntaney which extends 
from the head bo nearly the foot of upper Longh 
Hrne, and Inolodes about a third of that upper 
lake and lbs islands. The surface of this barony 
may be described, indeed, as an expanse of 
lakes, swamps, meadows, and low lying fields, 
varied by patohes of arable lands and bogs. lb 
comprises 30,604 acres, and contains parb of the 
parishes of Kinawley, Tomregan, and Galloon. 
In this barony, or plantation preoinot, the Com- 
missioners found 9,000 acres of arable land 
which was marked off into six proportions— two 
of eaoh of the three sizas. These proportions 
were allotted af berwards bo six Scottish under- 
takers, whose names were as follow— viz.. 
Michael Balfour, Lord Barley ; Michael 
Balfour, Jan., Laird Mounbwhany ; Sir 
John Wiechart, Knight, Laird Pebbaro ; 
Thomas Moneypenny, Laird of Kinkell ; James 
Trayle, Esq.; and George Smellhome, gent.— 
1. Michael Balfour, Lord Burley, was the 
eldest son of Sir James Balfour of Pibbendreich 
and Mounbwhany, in Fifeshire. He gob bwo 
proportions in Knockninney— viz., the large 
proportion of Legan, 2,000 acres ; and bhe small 
proportion of Carrowshee, 1,000 acres. He lefb 
two sons and a daughter ; his second son, 
James Balfour, was created Lord Glenawley, 
and succeeded to his father's property In 
Fermanagh. His daughter married a Scotch 
husband named Arnob, so wealthy that he paid 
all bis wife's family debts, and, taking the name 
of Balfour, obtained also the title of Lord 
Burley. 2 Michael Balfour, Jan., was the 
elder son of old Lord Barley, and was 
known as Laird of Mountwhany. He got the 



164 

middle afaed pr oportion of KHspinan, bat sold it 
soon to Sir Stephen Butler.and it now forme part 
of the estate of the Karl of Erne. 3. Sir John 
Wishart was the son of an Karl of Angus, a 
great landowner in the Mearns. His quarrels 
with James Spottiswoode, Bishop of Ologher, 
were notorious in Fermanagh. The Bishop 
spoke of him as •• one Sir John Wishard, some- 
time Lord Pittaro in Scotland, who, having 
consumed his estate there, begged some 
escheated lands in the County of Fermanagh." 
Wisohart sold his middle proportion of 
Leitrim to Stephen Butler. The latter built 
his house on the site of the old Castle of the 
O'Cassldy's, the hereditary physicians of the 
Maguirej. The same site is now occupied by 
the magnificent residence of the Earl of Belmore, 
and is still known by the old name of Castle- 
ooole. 4. Thomas Moneypennv was also a 
FiU shire Laird, but the lands of Kinkell, near 
tit. Andrews, know his curious surname no 
more. He sold his proportion of Agha- 
lane to Thomas Crichton, ancestor of the Earls 
of Erne. Although Moneypenny sold out hie 
estate in Fermanagh, he probably settled in 
Ulster as persons of his name appeared promi- 
nently during the insurrection of 1641, and 
afterwards. 5. James Trayle came probably 
from Fifeshire also. He sold his proportion of 
Dresternan in 1615 to George Adwiok, who 
soon afterwards sold it to Sir Stephen Butler. 
Trayle settled in Ulster, although parting with 
his original estate in Fermanagh. His descend- 
ants now write their surname Traill, not Trayle. 
6 George Smelholme came from Leith. He 
sold his proportion called Dirriany to Sir 
S-epbea Butler, and returned to Scotland. 

From Knockniony the Commissioners went 
to the bare ny of Magheriboy, which is still so- 
called, and whioh lies in the north-west of the 
county. It contains 94,171 aores, and includes 
the whole of the parish of Devonian, and part 
of the parishes of Bohoe, Cleemish, Ennis- 
killen, Inismaoeaint, Roesory, and Trory. It 



165 

oontalns parti of the town of Enniakfllen, and 
the villages of Churehhill and Derry- 
gonneUy. The Commissioners here also 
found 9,000 arable acres, which they 
marked off into six proportions — two 
of each of the three sizes. These propor- 
tions were afterwards allotted to seven Scottish 
undertakers whose names were Sir John Home, 
or Hume, Knight ; Robert Hamilton, Eeq ; 
James Gibb, gent ; Jerome Lindsey , Esq ; 
William Fowler, Esq.; Alexander Home, or 
Home, Esq.; and John Dunbarr, Eeq. Oarew 
reported of the planters in Magheriboy, after 
the first twelve months of their plantation life, 
as follows :— " Sir John Home, Knight, 2,000 
acres ; has taken possession, returned to Scot- 
land; nothing done, or any agent present. 
Robert Hamilton, 1,500 acres ; has been here to 
see the land, bnt has not taken possession, and 
nothing done. But* sinoe our return [to Dublin 
from Ulster] he is arrived in Fermanagh, as we 
are informed, with 18 tenants and artificers for 
planting ; with 60 head of cattle, 10 horses and 
mares for labour; is felling timber, and provid- 
ing materials for building. William Fowler, 
1,500 acres; taken possession, returned into 
Scotland; nothing done. James Gibb, l,030acres, 
the like. Jerome Lindsey, 1,000 acres ; took pos • 
session by attorney ; did nothing else. Alex- 
ander Home, 1,000 aores ; the like. John 
Dunbarr, 1,000 acres ; has taken possession, 
returned into Scotland, and sent over six 
persons, whereof two are freeholders, one a 
tenaat for years, and two tenants at will ; 
some building in hand ; 8 horses for work 
brought over, with money to provide materials. 
Mr. Hamilton has come lately, and with him 10 
people, with 14 garrons and horses, and is 
buying cattle daily ; is about to set up a plough 
or two instantly ; as yet nothing built. Mr. 
Dunbarr's brother is there taking up his duties 
and rent, but doth nothing else that I see. 
For all the rest, some of them came 
and saw the land, and went their ways, but 



1M 

what order they look I know not, Mid what la 
above written is til that I have seen." GatoU- 
feth, whoever he may have been, has the fol- 
lowing note :— " Sir John Hume's man is there 
receiving hie rent and duties, bat nothing 



Thus, it would appear that the planters in 
Magheriboy, as in nearly all the other baronies, 
had done little or nothing daring the first year. 
1. Sir John Home was a son of Alexander 
Home, of Manderstown, in Berwickshire* and 
brother o! the well-known George Hume, 
created Earl of Dnnber. Sir John, who came 
to Fermanagh, seleoted one of the most beauti- 
ful sites for his residence on all that charming 
Lough Erne. This residenoe, known as Tully 
Castle, stood on the high point of the shore 
north-west of Inismacsaint — Iaismuigheaamh, 
" the island of the sorrel plain, and the views 
from the ivy clad rains are specially attractive* 
At this point on its western shore, Lough Erne 
spreads out its greatest expanse of water, pre- 
senting to the eye a bewildering number of 
beautifully wooded islands. Tully Castle was 
burned in 1641, and never rebuilt, and Hume 
Castle from that date became the family re- 
sidence* The name of Sir John Hume's pro- 
portion was Ardgort, the high field. 2. Robert 
Hamilton was a relative of James Hamilton, 
Lord Clandeboy, and injthe time of Pynnar's 
survey, 1618-20, he was styled Sir Robert 
Hamilton. He sold his proportion, oalled 
Derrynafogher, in 1614, to Archibald Hamilton, 
and from him they passed to his son, Malcolm 
Hamilton, Chancellor of Down, and afterwards 
Archbishop of CasheL 3. James Gibb was the 
son of John Gibb, a Scottish servant in the 
King's household. He sold his proportion, 
oalled Dromra, to James Hamilton, of Keckton, 
and the latter sold it to John Archdale. 4. 
Jerome Lindsey was also a King's servant, and 
had originally come from Ltith. In 1612 
he sold his proportion, called Drumskeagh, to 
Sir William Cole. 5. William Fowler was 



w 

another servant of the Kfag, but specially em- 
ployed by the Qeeee. In October, 1608, there la 
a note from the Sari of Shrewsbury te Salis- 
bury, greatly recommending Fowler to hie 
notiee as a person well qualified for the Queen's 
service. In 1615 Fowler sold his proportion of 
Moyglasse to Sir John Home. 6. Alexander 
Hume was a younger brother ef Sir John, to 
whom he sold his proportion of Drutneoose, re- 
turning in 1626 to the family residenee of 
Manderstown, in the parish of Dunse, Berwick- 
shire. Sir John Heme had thus, from time to 
time* become the owner of extensive estates In 
Fermanagh, which were inherited by his son, 
Sir George Heme. In 1796 Nicholas Lof Ins, 
the first Earl of Ely, married Mary Home, and 
their son, the second Earl of Ely, inherited the 
united estates of his father and mother. The 
ewe family mansions of Castle Hnme and 
Ely Lodge stand opposite to each other 
en the eastern and western shores of 
Lough Erne. 7. John Dnnbarr was the 
grandson of Sir John Dunbar, of Moernm, 
whose property now forms a part of the Earl 
of Galloway's estate on the northern and 
eastern shores of Garlieeton Bay. This under- 
taker did not come to settle permanently in 
Fermanagh nntil 1615, although he secured 
legal possesion of his proportion called Drumero 
in 1610. He was descended from an Earl ef 
Dunbar, who married a daughter of Robert 
Bruce, and be brought with him te Fermanagh 
a sword which bad belonged to Bruoe— a family 
refic which bad been piously preserved at 
Moorum during many generations. John 
Daabarr's granddaughter was married to Hugh 
Montgomery, of Derrygoaelly, near Ennis- 
killen, and with her the sword came to 
her husband's house. The writer ef the Mont- 
gomery Manuscripts, after being on a| visit to 
Sis kinsman, Hugh Montgomery, of Derry- 
gonelly, refers to this sword thus— "I saw a 
rarity eo that house, to wit, a two-edged 
award ef excellent metal, which this Hugh 



168 

never caused to be made, but had it in the late 
war about Bnniskillen. I am of the opinion 
there is no smith in Ireland could forge so good 
a blade, for I saw it severely tried. The sword 
is inscribed on the right-hand side of the 
blade thus:— 

" Robertas Bruscius, 
ScotorumRex, 1310;" 
and on the reverse side 

" Pro Ohristo et Pa trie," 

There are some obliterated or worn 
out words supposed to be the cutler's 
name, the letters being but by halves and 
quarters, whereof we oould make nothing." 
Where may this sword be now T Probably 
among the contents of some lumber-room in 
Fermanagh. Surely it must have been pre- 
served by the descendants of Hugh Mont- 
gomery, of Derrygonelly. 

From Magheriboy the Commissioners took 
their way to the preoinot of Olinawley, now 
known as the barony of Glenawley, whioh lies 
along the west side of Fermanagh, and contains 
75,469 acres. It contains the whole of the 
parish .of Kelleeher, and part of the 
parishes of Bohoe, Cleenish, Kinawley, and 
ttossory. (In this barony the Commissioners 
only found 6,000 acres arable, which they 
marked off into four proportions — two 
great and two small. These proportions 
were subsequently allotted to three servitors, a 
portion of the barony being also set apart for 
such nabives in the County Fermaneh as bad 
got small grants. The names of the three 
servitors were Sir John Davys, Knight; 
Samuel Harrison, Bsq. ; and Peter Molstin or 
Mostyn, gent. 1. Sir John Davys, the 
Attorney General, bad, no doubt, selected his 
position in this preoinot when visiting the 
neighbourhood as a commissioner, The lands 
in his proportion, called Derricurra, included 
those of Lisgoole Abbey, and extended 
thence to the vicinity of Bnniskillen. They 



m 

occupied the very centre of that sylvaa, mea- 
dowy, and wheat-bearing district. He had 
other lands in other counties of Ulster, but this 
e'tata in Fermanagh appears to have been to 
himself more interesting than the others. 
When rnles were being drawn up to regulate 
the ohoioe of such servitors as were to be under- 
takers, one rule was laid down that no servitoro 
but " martial" men were to be admitted, sav- 
ing Mr. Attorney General, who may have a 
middle proportion in Olinawley, near Lis- 
goole. 2. Samuel Harrison. 3. Peter Moys- 
tin. Nothing was specially known as to the 
birthplaces or families of these two servitors. 
WhenPynnar visited the district, 1618-20, he 
reported that Harrison was dead, and his 
widow had done nothing in building on her 
500 acres. Moyston's portion of 300 acres had 
no buildings, and the owner of them was living 
in Connaught. 



IV. 

From Clinawley, or Glenawley, the Com- 
missioners passed into the only remaining 
preoincb in Fermanagh, which they designated 
the precinot of Coole and Tircannada, and 
which now comprises the two present baronies 
of Goole and Tyrkennedy. The barony of 
Ooole contains only about 21,000 acres, and is 
situate in the south east corner of the county, 
lb is divided into two nearly equal parts by the 
road from Cavan to Enniskillen running 
through Newtownbutler. The central parts of 
Coole are comparatively rough and boggy, but 
the districts along the margin of Lough Erne, 
and those inoluding the Castle Sanderson and 
Belmont demesnes, are fertile and well wooded* 
This barony of Coole contains part of the 
parishes of Currin, Brummully, and Galloon ; 
but it has only one town, Newtown butler, 
which from its position is very much admired. 



170 

The barony of Tyrkennedy lies on the eastern 
or right hand side of the lough, and contains 
64,685 aores, its water area comprising a con- 
siderable portion of Upper Lough Erne, and 
also of that connecting link between the two 
lakes. This barony contains part of the 
parishes of Cleenieh, Derrybrusk, Derryvullane, 
Enniskillen, Magheraoross, and Trory. The 
only town is part) of Enniskillen, and the chief 
villages are Lisbellaw, Tempo, and Balliaa- 
mallard. The Commissioners here found 
10,000 acres of arable land, which they marked 
off into ten proportions of 1,000 acres each. 
These ten proportions were afterwards allotted 
to four servitors and two natives of high rank, 
other portions of the barooy being granted in 
small parcels to native gentry in the county. 

The names of the four servitors were Sir 
Henry Folliott, Knight ; Roger Atkinson, gent. ; 
William Cole, Esq. ; and Paul Gore, Esq. The 
names of the two natives were Bryan tfaguire 
and Con Mao Shane O'NeilL 1. Sir Henry 
Folliott had grants of extensive lands in Donegal 
prior to the plantation. His lands in Fer- 
managh were known as the manor of Drum- 
shine. He was created Baron Folliott, of 
Ballyshannon, in 1619. The title became 
extinct at the death of his grandson, the 
third Lord Folliott, in 1716. 2. Roger Atkin- 
son same to Ireland as a servitor in 1596, and 
after the close of the seven years' war he got a 
pension of four shillings a day, probably as a 
spy. In 1604 he was appointed provost- 
marshal of Lough Foyle, and of the forces and 
garrisons in the City of Deny, or elsewhere in 
Ulster. 3. William Cole was warmly recom- 
mended by the Council in London to Chichester 
in 1610. " The Council are satisfied of Captain 
William Cole's sufficiency to maintain a reason- 
able proportion, and are aware of his merits. 
As he has a commission for the charge of his 
Majesty's boats in Lough Yearne, and for the 
keeping of the Castle Enniskillen, the Council 
suggest that he should be assigned a servitor's 



171 

proportion as near as may be to the said castle, 
which, otherwise, will be very destitute of 
demesne, as the lands next adjacent to the castle 
have fallen to the lot of some Scottish gentle- 
man, and cannot be altered." It is hardly 
necessary to say that this suggestion from the 
supreme authority was carefully followed out 
by the Deputy, and that Cole forthwith was 
put into the possession of suitable lands known 
afterwards as the manor of Oorrigrade. Carew's 
account of Enniskillen in 1611 is as follows :— 
" There is a fair strong wall newly erected, of 
lime and stone, twenty six fooo high, with 
flankers and a parapet, and a walk on the top 
of the wall, built by Captain William Coll©, 
constable thereof, towards which he had £200 
sterling from the King. A fair house begun 
upon the foundation of the old castle, with 
other convenient houses for store and munition, 
which, besides laying out the captain's own 
money, will draw on some increase of charge 
to the King. The bawne is dibched about with 
a fair large ditch and a river on one side, with 
a good drawbridge. The King has three good 
boats there ready to attend ail services. A 
large piece of ground adjoins the fort, with a 
good timber house, after the English fashion, 
built by the captain, in which he and his 
family now dwelt" 4. Paul Gore was the 
eldest son of Qerrard Gore, a merchant tailor 
and alderman of London. He ctme to Ireland 
in command of a troop of horse, just after the 
defeat of the English by the Earl of Tyrone, 
at the Yellow Ford, on the Blackwater, in the 
year 1598. Gore's proportion in Fermanagh, 
called Oarrick, included the island of Bally- 
macmanus, in Lough Erne, now known as 
Ballisle, and once the residence of Oathal 
Maguire, who there compiled the very valuable 
fragment of Irish history Known as the " Annals 
of Ulster." Captain Paul Gore left two sons, 
named Ralph and Arthur. Ralph, who suc- 
ceeded, was ancestor of the Earls of 
Ross. Arthur settled at Newtowngore, 



172 

in the County of Mayo, and married a daughter 
of Sir George 8b. George, of Carriok, in the 
County of Leitrim. His grandson, also named 
Arthur, was advanced to the peerage as Baron 
Saunders, of Deeps, in the County of Wexford, 
and Viscount Sudley, of Castle- Gore, in the 
County of Mayo. In 1759 he was oreated Earl 
of Arran— deriving the name of his Earldom 
from the County of Galway. The two chief 
residences of the Earls of Arran were Newton- 
gore, in Mayo, and Saunders -Court, in Wex- 

The only members of theold main family of the 
Maguires who got portions of their own lands 
were Bryan and Tirlagh, two younger brothers 
of Sir Hugh and Cuconaght already mentioned. 
Sir George Carew stated in 1611 that Brian 
and Tirlagh had removed to their proportions 
assigned to them in the precinct of Coole and 
Tyrcannada, where they had built a great 
ooppled house, in which they dwelt, although 
Tirlagh did not live long after his removal. 
The name of their manor was Inseyloughgeaese, 
and their lands there contained 2,500 acres. 
In Pynnar's time, 1618 20, Bryan had made 
progress. His manor was then called Tempo- 
dessell (now Tempo), and he had built a good 
house of lime and stone, but he and all his 
tenants continued the old Irish custom of 
ploughing their horses by the tail Bryan left 
one son named Hugh, who married a lady of 
the principal family of the O'Reillys, and by 
her left a son named Cuconaght Mor Maguire. 
The last named married a daughter of Heber 
Maginis, of Castlewellan. He mortgaged a 
large portion of his estate to raise and support 
a regiment of horse in the service of James II. , 
and was slain fighting gallantly at the battle 
of Aughrim. On the day after the battle one 
of his followers cut off his head and carried it 
reverently to the island of Devenish, where he 
interred it in the family tomb of the Maguires. 
Cuconaght Mor's great grandson, Hugh 
Maguire, of Tempo, is described as one of the 



1» 

finest men, both in bodily proportion tad 
mental power, in the Ions line of hla dann- 
Oolla anoeetors. He had to part, however, 
with the remainder of the family estate, and 
hla sons were eventually obliged to works* 
oommon Bailors — another illustration of the 
truth of Dean Swift's statement, that the 
representatives of the old Irish nobility were to 
be found, after the plantations, amongst the 
humblest inhabitants of the land. The Tempo 
estate is now owned, we believe, by a eon of the 
late Sir James Emerson Tennent. 

The continuance of the barbarous practice 
of ploughing by the tail was greatly owing to 
the discreditable conduct of the Government. 
The following extract from a report by Com* 
missioned appointed to investigate the matter 
is instructive :— " The barbarous use of Plough- 
ing with Garrons tyed by the Tails was re- 
strained by the Council here [in Ireland], After- 
wards the same was permitted, and a mulct im- 
posed of 10s for every short plough, which for- 
feiture, In Anno 1612, was granted to Sir Wil- 
liam Udale, whose patent is still in force. And 
where it was directed that the Patentee should 
be compounded with, and the same taken into 
your Majesty's owne hands, we find nothing 
done in that kinde ; but by a letter from the 
Lords of the Councell In England, your Majesty 
requires the Deputy to give warrant to the 
Patentee to levy the penalties as before ; by 
which meanee this barbarous custome of 
ploughing with horses tyed by the tailee Is still 
continued in many places, for restraint whereof 
we finde no law or statute here in force. And 
the oountrie hath renewed their complaints 
that this annual execution of 10s for every 
short plough hath, in many places, impover- 
ished the countrie; and, by colour thereof, 
from some have been taken and extorted money 
for their harrowee, as we are informed ; and of 
some of less ability composition made at less 
rates than the penaltie of 10s appointed, as 
was direotlie proved ; so that the use of this 



174 

patent toads more to a private gaine than to a 
Reformaeion ; in regard whereof, and the due 
consideration of the now scarcity cf come, and 
the povertie of this people, we conceive It fitt 
that short ploughs should be tollerated till the 
first of Aprile and no longer ; that in the mean- 
time men may famish themselves with such 
ploughs as are in use in England, or learn to 
use their short ploughs, setting their garrons 
three or four horses affront, which is free from 
unseemliness and fitter for some mountainous 
and hoggish grounds than the long plough, as 
is now begun and practised in the barony of 
Olankie [Clonkee], in the Countie of Cavan, 
which we rather advise, because we have re- 
ceived oredible informacion that the Earle of 
Antrim, in the Countie of Antrim, where he 
hath divers baronies, hath banished that bar- 
barous custome by holdinge all the tenants to 
the fashion of English ploughing ; and Sir 
George Hamilton hath already reformed his 
tenants, and so others. And your Majesty's 
aime appearinge by all the Acta to tend re- 
formaeion of the abuse, and to remove the bar- 
barous practice, we offer to your Majesty's con • 
sideracion whether It were not fitt that a Pro- 
clamation bee published, inhibiting all your 
subjects hereafter the first day of Aprile next, 
from plowing with garrons or bullock tyed by 
the tailee upon pain of your high displeasure, 
and suoh as shall offend to be bounde to their 
good behaviours till they reforme." It is re- 
markable with what tenacity the Irish, in some 
districts, clung to this method of ploughing — 
and under the impression, too, that it was more 
humane than the English method ! It appears, 
however, that the real object of the several 
orders in Council against the practice was not 
to abolish it, but to raise money on fines for 
permission to continue it. Sir Charles Corn- 
wallis, writing in October, 1621, to Lord 
Northampton on the subject of an earlier com* 
mission, says— "Your Lordship will under- 
stand by their labours what great sums of 



175 

money have been drawn out of the rar 
commisserabion of the hinder parte of "these 
poor Irish garrons." 

Only iorty-five natives in the County Fer- 
managh got small grants in the baronies of 
Glenawley and Tyrkennedy. Several of these 
represented noble Irish families, and the others 
belonged to the rank of gentry, being styled 
" gentlemen" in their several grants from the 
Crown. The great majority of them were 
Maguires, with a sprinkling of MaoHughes, 
O'Corcorans, Mulronys, and O'Elanaghans. 

In Blenerhasset's Tract on the Ulster planta- 
tion, which has been already quoted, the author 
strenuously urged all Englishmen who wished 
to better their worldly circumstances, or in- 
crease their sources of enjoyment, to come to 
Ulster without delay. His rhapsodies, although 
contemptible, are somewhat curious, as ex- 
hibiting the tone and style of expression by 
which the undertakers generally sought to 
make known their aims in Ulster, and espe- 
cially to recommend the whole movement as 
affording a splendid opportunity for the ac- 
cumulation of wealth to those who zealously 
embarked therein. " Art thou a tradesman," 
he exclaims, '* a smith, a weaver, a mason, or a 
carpenter ? Go thither, thou shalt be there in 
estimation, and quickly enriched by thy en- 
deavours. Art thou a husbandman whose 
worth is not past ten or twenty pounds ? Go 
thither, those new manormakers [undertakers] 
will make thee a copyholder ; thou shalt whistle 
sweetly, and feed thy whole family, if they be 
six, for sixpence the day. Art thou a gentle- 
man that takeet pleasure in the hunt ? The 
fox, the woolfe, and woodkerne do expect thy 
coming ; and the comely, well oabbased [well- 
fed] stag will furnish thy feast with a full 
dish ; there thou shalt have elbow-room, the 
eagle and the earne, and all sorts of high-flying 
fowls do attend thee. Art thou a minister of 
God's Word ? Make speed, the harvest is 
great, but the labourers be few ; thou shalt 



m 

there see the poor, ignorant, untaught people 
worship stones and sticks; thou, by carrying 
millions to heaven, mayest be made an 
archangel, and have, whilst thou doet live, 
of worldly respects what not. So Ulster, which 
hath been hitherto the receptacle and very den of 
rebels and devouring creatures, shall far excel 
Monster, and the civilest part of all that coun- 
try; and peradventure in civility and sincere reli- 
gion equal even fair England herself, with a 
Christian and comfortable society of neighbour- 
hood ; and so they, at least 300,000 souls, be- 
sides children [in all Ireland— but what of 
the millions to be carried by the ministers to 
heaven ?], may come unto the true know- 
ledge of God, and by faith in Jesus Christ may 
be made free from everlasting damnation. So 
the King's Majesty shall be disburdened of a 
very great charge out of the Exchequer, the 
country safely secured unto the Crown, and 
we his Majesty's subjects enriched by our en- 
deavours, which God of His unspeakable 
mercy grant, for His dear Son Jesus Christ, 
His sake. Amen. Fair England, thy 
flourishing sister, brave Hibernia, commendeth 
unto thy due consideration her youngest 
daughter, depopulated Ulster, not doubting 
how the long continuance of lamentable wars 
bave razed and utterly defaced whatsoever was 
beautiful in her to behold, and has so bereaved 
all her royalties, goodly ornaments, and well- 
beseeming tyres, as that there remaineth but 
only the majesty of her naked personage, 
whioh even in that plight is such as whosoever 
shall seek and search all Europe's ' best bowers 
shall not) find many that may make with her 
comparison 1 Behold the admirable worth of 
her worthiness 1 Even now she gives the 
world to understand, by testimonial known 
unto all men that know her, that if thou wilt 
now butaseist her with means to erect her ruins, 
she will nourish thee with much dainty pro- 
vision, and so furnish thee, as thou shalt not 
need to send to thy neighbour kingdoms 



177 

for corn, nor to the Netherlands for fine Hol- 
land ; she will, In requital for thy kindness, 
provide those things, with some others sneh ae 
thy heart most desireth. Art thou oyer- charged 
with much people ? Ulster will embrace that, 
thy overplus, in her amorous, sweet arms ; she 
will place them, as it were, by Euphrates, and 
feed them with better ambrosia than ever 
Jupiter himself knew." 

We have next concluding references to affairs 
in Fermanagh and Londonderry in the follow- 
ing terms :— " The County of Fermanagh, 
MackGueres country, rejoice; many under- 
takers, all Incorporated in mind as one, with 
their followers there, seek and desire to settle 
themselves. Woe to the woolfe and the wood- 
kerne ! The islands In Loughearne shall have 
habitations, a fortified corporation, market 
towns, and many new erected manors shall now 
so beautify her desolation that her inaccessible 
woods, with spaces tractable, shall no longer 
nourish devourers, but, by the sweet society of 
loving neighbourhood, shall entertain hu- 
manity even In the best fashion. Go on, 
worthy gentlemen, fear not; the God of 
Heaven will assist and protect you, the rather 
for that simply of yourselves you do desire to 
perform so honourable an action. And they, 
the successors of high renowned Lud, will 
there re-edify a new Troy. Their [the London 
Corporation's] spacious coffers have the receipts 
of England's treasures; and the continual 
resplendency of .his Majesty's presence does so 
illustrate their super-exceeding good, that all, 
whatsoever by may be thought of, or by 
policy of man devised, so much absolutely have 
they [the Londoners] from thence, therefore 
they will not capitulate [surrender] the fresh 
and flourishing County of Ooleraine, with the ex- 
ceeding beauty of the Band [Baon]. They have 
O'Kanes country, and whatsoever Ireland's 
Eden can afford, and therefore, even in respect 
of their own reputation, they of themselves 
will perform this the most honourable action 



178 

that ever they attempted. [At fint the Lou- 
doners dreaded the release and return of 
O'Cahan to hie estates, until he was sent 
from Dublin to the Tower In London ] There- 
fore, let Goleraine rejoice, for the heart of 
England, London herself, will, no doubt, make 
her more beautiful than many, and furnish 
Loughfoyle with a goodly fleet. O powerful 
England, if thou wilt extend thy bounty to 
others less able to perform such designs, then 
they also will undertake the other counties, so 
as within three years their endeavours shall 
bring thee and thine altogether out of doubt, ' 
ever hereafter to be charged with any taxation 
for her [Ulster's] defence ; for certainly she 
shall shortly be able rather to lend than to 
borrow aid. Let not, then, these kind under- 
takers want any kind of kindness. Little do 
many of thy [England's] inhabitants care to 
spend a pound or two at a merry meeting, and 
presently it is forgotten. Let every man of 
worth give but his crown to this honourable in- 
tention and merry meeting, and it shall remain 
as a crown of glory to everlasting posterity, 
and free every one of them peradventure from 
the expense of many pounds. And this trophy, 
of all thy triumphs the most renowned, ob- 
tained with the lives of many thousands of thy 
soldiers— as everywhere dispersed . skulls of 
slain men do there at this present manifestly 
declare— if it be now neglected, thy next neigh- 
hours, and those of thy princes and people far 
remote, will suppose thee very poor both in 
power and policy. And thus, fair England, 
having laid before thy amiable eyes how 
Ulster, now naked, may be decked and richly 
adorned, and thyself certainly disburdened of 
much : I refer the effecting thereof to the Kingfe 
most excellent Majesty, who hath power to 
command, and will no doubt provide for 
Ulster's prosperity." 



179 

THE COUNTY OF CAVAN. 



In former timet the whole region now com- 
prising the counties of Cavan and Leitrlm con- 
stituted one great) territory , and was Known ae 
Breifne, or Brennie. It was ooenpied by two 
powerful but distinct tribes or elans — the 
O'Reillys and O'Rourkes. The eastern section, 
now Cavan, was held by the O'Reillys, and was 
known as Brennie O'Reilly ; whilst the western 
portion, being the country of the O'Rourkes, 
was known as Brennie O'Rourke. The 
O'Reillys, anciently the O'Raghallaigh, de- 
scended from an early Ulster chieftain of the 
O'Neills, and were popularly designated as "of 
the red arms" and as "of the rough in- 
cursions," because of their fierce methods of 
warfare. EastBreifne, or Cayan, originally 
belonged to the province of Connaught, but so 
soon as the English were able to establish their 
government north of the Pale, they found that 
Cavan could be more effectively managed if 
annexed to Ulster. When the Lord Deputy 
Sussex* in 1562, reported to the Council in 
London on the state of Connaught, he referred 
to East Breifne as follows:—" O'Raillie's 
country is taken to be within Connaught, but 
because it lieth fitter for another government 
[Ulster], and bordereth upon the English Pale, 
I leave it out of the government of Connaught." 
And left out of the western province Cavan 
thenceforth was, being considered ever since as 
one of the counties of Ulster. It contains 
301,000 Irish acres, or 433,573 acres English 
measure. It is now divided into eight baronies, 
viz.:— TuUaghagh, [in the north-west; Lower 
Loughtee, in the north ; Tullaghgarvey, in the 
north oast ; Clonkee, in the east ; Castlerahen, 
in the south-east ; Clonmahon, in the south ; 



ISO 

Tullyhunco, in the west ; and Upper Lough- 
tee, in the centre, 

In 1606 Chichester sent the following account 
of affairs in Cavan to the Council :— " The 
Gavan is a spacious and large county, very 
populous, and the people hardy and warlike. 
The chief of them are the O'Realyes, of 
which surname there are seTeral septs, 
most of them cross and opposite one to 
another. By the division and separation 
among themselves, the whole county, which 
heretofore made their dependency upon 
the chief of the sept, may, with the 
more facility and assurance, be divided 
into parcels, and disposed to several free- 
holders, who, depending immediately upon the 
King, will not fear or obey their neighbours 
[their former legitimate chiefs or headmen] 
unless some one or two be made so powerful 
as to overtop and sway down the rest ; and 
therefore care must be taken in the settlement of 
this country that the greatest part of the people 
have their dependency immediately on the 
King, and as little on the Irish Lords as may be 
without apparent hindrance to the plantation 
and settlement of the country. We must note 
that there are many freeholders as they pretend 
who will expect a good portion of the barony of 
Loughtee, besides that which is intended for the 
town, the Castle of Cloughouter, and Belturbet ; 
whereby it may be conceived that the head of 
the house will be left in a meaner state than one 
of the inferior freeholders, if other care be not 
taken for him ; and therefore a consideration 
must be had upon the division how he may be 
relieved by allotting some portions of land unto 
him, outjof the other baronies, or by reserving unto 
him some chief rents from the freeholders, the 
rather because his father was slain in the 
late Queen's service, and because he was 
'descended by the mother from the house of 
Ormonde." 

The "head of the house,' the then representa- 
tive chief of the O'ReUlys, about whom Chi- 



m 

chaster thus appears to have had a little 
becoming anxiety, wm young Mulmorie oar 
Myle* O'Reilly, whose father had fallen aft the 
battle of the Yellow Ford, on the Bleckwater, 
fighting for the Government, and whose grand- 
father, Sir John^ O'Reilly, had Bnrrendered hie 
claim* m territorial chieftain, on condition that 
he and his heirs were to hold four baronies of 
the county. But Chichester's scruples soon 
vanished before the requirements of the coming 
plantation, and he discovered a much more con- 
genial method of arrangement than this 
condition implied. " In this county," he ex- 
plains, " there is a poor town bearing the name 
of Oavan, seated betwixt many small hills, but 
the barony in which it stands is named Lough- 
tee, and the best in t the eonntie, being one of 
the four designed to Sir John O'Realley, and 
the fittest to be reserved in his Majesty's sole 
disposition for bringing it to a civil county." 
In his "Notes of Remembrances" Chichester 
thus further expatiates on thepurposes to whioh 
the lands of Loughtee— the best barony In the 
county— ought to be applied :— "The principal 
to be oared for Is the town of Cavan, which 
ought to be made a corporation, and about a 
thousand acres of land laid unto it out of the 
barony of Loughtee. The castle there to be 
likewise reservedjto the King, and the like allot- 
ment of land to be made for the maintenance 
thereof, and the same to be passed or given to 
some honest, trusty, and powerful man who 
shall be able with some small help from the 
King to rebuild the castle and to stock and 
manure the land, whose residence there 
will greatly avail the settlement of that country. 
Belturbet is likewise by situation a fit place to 
be strengthened with a ward or other resi- 
dence of civil people and well affected subjects, 
by reason it lies on the head of Lough Berne. 
It has now but a small portion of land belong- 
ing to it, and therefore some more should be 
annexed thereunto and disposed upon some 
honest and wellafiected man at aforesaid* who, 



182 

for a time, must) be enabled by a ward or other 
help from his Majesty to manure and plant the 
same. Cloughonter also is a piece to be re- 
served and regarded for. From thence there 
Is a passage by water to Belturbet, and from 
Beltarbet to Belecke, near Ballyshannon ; and 
therefore a like portion of land to be reserved 
as that of Beltarbet. The rest of the barony 
[of Loughtee] may be disposed in demesne, the 
ohiefry to young Mulmorie O'Relye, the grand- 
child of Sir John O'Relye." 

When the Commissioners of Plantation, how- 
ever, soon afterwards got to work in the County 
of Cavan nothing more was heard even 
of this small ohiefry for the youthful and 
helpless Myles O'Reilly, and eventually 
he had to rest and be thankful for a 
" proportion" of the confiscated lands on the 
same conditions imposed on all other under- 
takers—even " although his mother was from 
the house of Ormonde. 11 The Commissioners 
appointed to mark off the several proportions 
commenced here with the barony or precinct of 
Loughtee, wherein they found the scenery very 
beautiful owing to Its proximity to Lough Erne. 
As Davys had a special eye for the beautiful in 
nature he got a proportion here also in the 
choicest soil, but as he had a special eye also to 
business, he sold his share of the spoil In 
Loughtee, even before he had the trouble or 
delay of getting out his patent. The arable 
lands in this barony were only found to amount 
to 12,600 acres, although it contains 96,000 
statute acres, and is divided into Upper and 
Lower Loughtee. The upper portion includes 
part of the present parishes of Crosserlough, 
Denn, Killlnkere, Kilmore, Laragh, and Urney, 
with the whole of the parishes of Annagcliff, 
Oastleterra, and Lavey. Its towns and villages 
are Cavan, Ballyhaise, Butler's Bridge, and 
Stradone. Lower Loughtee is bisected from 
end to end by the River Erne— from the foot of 
Loughouter to the head of Upper Lough Erne. 
It oomtains part of the parishes of Annagh, 



188 

Tomregan, and Urney, with the whole perish 
ofDrumlaae. The 12,500arable acres of this vast 
territory were marked off Into eleven proportions 
and distributed amongst six undertakers. 
What remained consisted of ohuroh lands, a 
grant for a school, and a grant for a corporate 
town. With these exceptions the whole vast 
residue was thrown In gratuitously to the seve- 
ral "proportions 1 ' as unprofitable lands, so that 
the planters had here also ample room for ex- 



The names of these fortunate planters were 
Sir Richard Waldron, Knight; John Fishe, 
Esq.; Sir Stephen Butler, Knight; Sir Hugh 
WyrraU, Knight; Sir Nicholas Lusher, Knight; 
John Tailor, gent.; and William Snow, gent. 
Oarew reported progress here also at the end of 
their first yearof occupancy:— Sir John Davys, 
Knight, 2,000 acres, made over his propor- 
tion to Mr. Richard Waldron, who passed the 
same to Mr. RignoldHorne, who sold his estate 
to Sir Nicholas Lusher, knight ; nothing done. 
John Fishe, 2,000 acres ; came over in the sum- 
mer, took possession, went back again and left 
his deputy here, and returned with his wife and 
family about May last [1611] ; brought with 
him artificers and servants of all sorts, thirty- 
three, or thereabout ; two English teams of 
horses, with English carts, continually em- 
ployed drawing materials ; oaks felled, and 
carpenters employed In thewoods of Fermanagh, 
felling more ; arms of all sorts for thirty-five 
men ; a barrel of powder, with match and lead 
proportionable. Sir Hugh Wyrrall, or Worral, 
knight, 1,500 acres; was here In the summer, took 
possession and returned into England ; lady 
and family came over about the 20th July last. 
Twenty artificers and servants resident, most 
of whom lived there all last winter, has built a 
falre house at Bealturberte, after the English 
manner, and dwelling houses with a smith's 
forge. Between Sir Hugh Worral and Mr. 
Stephen Butler were built, at Bealturberte, 
five boats of several burthens; one of them will 



IS* 

darry twelvts off fourtoou tons* Timber pre- 
pared for building; anna of all aorta for tea 
men, and burnt by miaohanoe In a house, ae 
maoh as would have furnished twelve more. 
John Tailor, 1,600 acrea ; came over in the 
summer of 1610. took possession, and remained 
most part of the following winter ; went into 
England about Shrovetide last, leaving his 
deputy with some seven or eight tenants ; came 
back about May last with provisions, but went 
back again; a timber house, with a chimney 
finished, where he means to erect his dwelling- 
house. William Snow, 1,500 acres; never 
came, nor any for him ; passed over his pro- 
portion to William Lusher, son of Sir Nicholas 
Lusher ; nothing done. Since our return from 
the North [to Dublin] William Lusher, who 
bought William Snowe's proportion, eame over 
with hie father, took out warranta of possession, 
and is gone down to his land." 

Carew has no report of Sir Nicholas Lusher 
or Sir Stephen Butler, as these undertakers 
had probably purchased their lands from other 
patentees after Carew's inspection. They were 
noticed, however, with the others, by Pytmarin 
1618-1620. Tailor, or Taylor, above-mentioned, 
had the honour of receiving a communication 
from the Deputy himself, respecting the aite on 
which he was specially required to erect his re- 
sidence as a planter. This letter from Chiches- 
ter is dated Oct. 5, 1611, and is as follows :— 
" I require you to erect your principal habita- 
tion for the present, whether castle or stone 
house, as you are specially bound, on no Other 
place but at Bally haies— • parcel of land as- 
signed to you as an undertaker within the 
County of Cavan — which we understand to be 
a place of principal advantage for strength and 
defence of yourself, and other undertakers upon 
all your precinct. For the more special site 
we will you to be further advised by Captain 
Hugh Culme, constable of the King's Castle of 
Cloughouter, and high sheriff of that county." 
Taylor had probably insisted on building at 
some more convenient but less strategic point. 



185 

IL 

The original plantation landlord* thus placed 
In Loughtee are generally worthy of aome 
further notice. 1. Richard Waldron (after- 
wards knighted), who purchased hi* lands in 
this barony from Sir John Davys, was son of a 
John Waldron, one of three notorious dis- 
coverers'who became rich by the plunder of native 
landowners during the time of Qceen Elizabeth's 
ruthless dealings % with Ireland and the Irish. 
The other two worthies with John Waldron 
were George Sexton, afterwards Esoheator- 
General in Ulster, and Robert Dixon, one of his 
assistants. These harpies were in the habit of 
picking up their prey over a wide field compre- 
hending the Counties of Waterford, Wexford, 
Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Louth, and Galway, 
and no fewer than twenty two native gentle* 
men were awfully plucked — plucked almost to 
death by the depredations of this trio of " dis- 
coverers, " who were able to find fatal flaws in 
their title-deeds. Richard, the son of John 
Waldron, muet have been thus in a good position 
to undertake lands and to become a knight. He 
died in 1623, and his lands were soon after- 
wards scattered amongst many owners. 2. 
John Fishe, Esq., came from Bedford, and re- 
presented himself as worth £300 a year. He 
was an energetic planter, and was created a 
knight as a reward for his liberal expenditure 
in helping forward the plantation cause on his 
own immediate property. This honour induced 
him probably to aspire after another, and by a 
method, too, which also was supposed to help 
onward the grand movement — for he soon after- 
wards got himself dubbed a baronet for the 
payment of more than £1,000, the proceeds in 
such cases being ostensibly employed in raising 
and supporting a standing army in Ulster to pro- 
tect the settlers from their Irish enemies, where- 
as, in reality, the money thus supplied found its 
way In due course, and without unnecessary 
delay, into the King's private purse. Sir John 



186 

Fishe died in March, 1623, and wis succeeded 
by his boo, Sir Edward Fiahe, who was a popu- 
lar landlord, and who. in imitation of his 
father, accepted or admitted many of the Irian 
at tenants. 3. Sir Stephen Butler came to 
Cavan from Bedfordshire, and stated that he 
there owned an estate of come value. His 
energetio operations at the head of Upper 
Lough Erne soon secured for him the honour of 
knighthood. He and all his ancestors were 
English, although he bore a surname which has 
long eiaoe become almost exceptionally Irish. 
He was not in any way or degree related to the 
numerous tribe or clan whioh has produced so 
many distinguished Earls and Dukes of 
Ormonde. Sir Stephen Butler was founder 
of the family represented by the Earls of Lanes- 
borough, his lady being Mary, a daughter of 
Gervatje Brindsley, of Brindsley, in Notting- 
hamshire. He died in 1631, leaving a son, 
James Batler, then ten years of age, in care of 
three trustees — namely, Sir Robert Dillon, Sir 
Charles Coote, and Lady Mary Butler, his wife. 
His son James died in 1640, and a younger son 
Stephen, then eleven years old, Buoceeded as 
next heir. Lady Butler was living in 1638. 4. 
Sir Nicholas Lusher came from a place called 
Sbooland, in Surrey, but he forfeited his lands 
in Cavan by neglecting or declining to take 
the oath of supremacy which all planters were 
required to take, and also for letting his 
lands to persons who also neglected or 
refuted t3 do so. 5. Sir Hugh Worrell came 
from Enfield, in the County of Middlesex, but 
there has been already a brief notice of him in 
connection with his lands in the barony of Clon* 
kelly, County of Fermanagh. 6. John Tailor, 
or Taylor, came from Cambridgeshire, and was 
the very first of the planters who was put into 
possession of lands in Ulster. The Commission 
for the removal of the natives had commenced 
its dreadful work first in the County of Cavan, 
and was opposed by wretched multitudes headed 
by their brehons or lawyers, who wanted to dis- 



187 

ohm several bunking questions with Chichester, 
•ren at the eleventh boor. Bat Davys ex* 
plains, or rather affirms, in a letter to Salis- 
bury of Sept. $4, 1610, how nioely Chichester 
■at aside the poor people's despairing efforts to 
retain their homes :—" How belt, my Lord De- 
puty so mixed threats with entreaty, preci- 
buuquemincM regcUUer addti, as that they pro- 
mised to give way to the undertakers, if the 
sheriff, by warrant from his Lordship and the 
Commissioners, put them in possession. Where- 
upon, his Lordship and the Commissioners 
signed a warrant to the Sheriff to give posses- 
sion to one Taylor, an English undertaker, who 
was then arrived and present in the camp, 
which warrant was executed without resistance, 
and thereupon distribution being made to the 
better sort of natives, of several portions of 
land in the baronies assigned to them, they not 
unwillingly accepted of several tickets contain- 
ing the quantities of land allotted to every 
particular person. The eyes of all the inhabit- 
ants of Ulster were turned upon this County of 
Oavan, and, therefore, when they saw the diffi- 
culty of the business overcome here, their 
minds were the better prepared to submit 
themselves to the course prescribed by his 
Majesty for the plantation." So from one 
oounty to another these Commissioners, by 
order of James L, went on with their work of 
sowing the dragon's teeth throughout Ulster, 
which have often bitten so fiercely since, and 
are not likely to decay or become harmless for 
some considerable time yet. 

From Loughtee the Commissioners of Survey, 
followed by the Commissioners appointed to 
mark off the land in proportions, passed into 
the adjoining barony of Tullyhunco, then 
Tuliochonoo. This barony contains the whole 
parishes of Kildallon, Killeshandra, and 
Sorabby. Its town and villages are Kille- 
shandra, Arvagh, and Sorabby. By far the 
greater part of the water area of the barony is 
comprised in parte of the two loughs, Gawna and 



188 

Onghtor. Exclusive, however, of this water 
•raft, the barony contains 39,000 acree, in which 
the Commissioners could only find 6,000 acres 
arable; this was distributed amongst five 
Scottish planters, with the exception of a very 
small parcel of Church lands, whilst all the vast 
remainder was thrown in gratuitously with the 
five arable p roportions. The names of the five 
planters in Tally hanoo were Sir Alex. Hamilton, 
knight, of Endervioke, in Scotland ; Sir 
Clande Hamilton, knight, son of the above- 
named Alexander; Alexander Aohmootie, 
Suit. ; John Achmootie, gent. ; and John 
rowne, of Gorgiemill, gent. Of the two 
Hamiltons, lather and son, Carew made the 
following report in 1611:— "Sir Alexander 
Hamilton, knight, 2,000 acres, in the County 
of Cavan ; has not appeared ; his son 
Clande took possession, and brought 
two tenants, three servants, and six arti- 
ficers ; is in hand with building a mill ; trees 
felled ; hath a minister, but not yet allowed by 
the Bishop ; has raised stones, and hath com- 
petent arms in readiness. Besides, there are 
arrived upon that proportion since oar return 
[to Dublin] from the Nortih, as we are informed, 
twelve tenants and artificers, who intend to 
reside there, and build upon the same." The 
minister brought over by Sir Alexander 
amongst his other treasures was, no doubt, a 
Presbyterian, between whom and the Bishop 
there may have been some sort of compromise 
before the Scotchman could be permitted " to 
wag his head" in any pulpit throughout the 
diocese. These compromises, then occasionally 
occurring in Ulster, led soon afterwards to 
frightful wailings and gnashings of teeth be- 
tween the two parties. Of the two brothers 
Achmootie, who were servants in the Royal 
household, Carew reports as fellows : — " John 
and Alexander Aftchmothy, 1,000 acres apiece ; 
have not appeared ; James Cralge is their 
deputy for five .years, who has brought over 
four artificers of divers sorts, with their wives 



18* 

uid families, and two servants ; stone ralaad 
for building a mill ; trees felled ; a walled house 
with a smith's forge » built; four horses and 
mares upon the ground ; with competent arms. " 
Garew's report of John Browne was "that in 
1611 he had sent an agent, who took possession, 
set the lands to the Irish, returned to Sootland, 
and had performed nothing." 

We meet with Hamiltons here among the 
planters* as so often elsewhere throughout this 
province, but how the Hamiltons of Endervioke 
were related to the Aberoorns we eannot say ; 
the former, however, probably belonged to an 
older family than that settled at Baronscourt, 
1. Sir Alex. Hamilton obtained grants in 
Tullyhuneo of the two proportions named 
Clonkine and Carrotubber, both of which lay 
between Lough Gawna and the head of Lough- 
outer. His second son, Sir Claude Hamilton, 
Sot one proportion also, but he died before his 
bther, leaving one son, afterwards well known 
as Sir Francis Hamilton, who succeeded his 
grandfather in the ownership of the two pro- 
portions held by him. In 1618-20 Pynnar found 
Jane Hamilton, the widow of Sir Claude, in 
possession of this property, which she held in 
trust for her son. Sir Claude, the son of Sir 
Alexander, had sold his proportion of Clonyn in 
1611 to John Hamilton, of Corronery, or Hans- 
borough, in the County of Cavan. John Hamil- 
ton sold it in turn to William Ladder, of Bel- 
haven, in Scotland ; and, on the death of the 
latter in 1618, it was purchased by Sir Alex. 
Hamilton, whose heir and grandson, Sir Francis 
Hamilton, had thus restored to him what had 
been sold by his father, Sir Claude. Jane 
Hamilton, the wife of Sir Claude and mother 
of Sir Francis, remarried with Sir Arthur 
Forbes, of Granard. 2. The two brothers 
Achmoobie, like almost all the other numerous 
servants of the King who got shares of the 
Ulster land spoil, very soon sold their " propor- 
tions" of Drumheada and Hilagh to James 
Cralge, their own deputy. Alexander sold his 



1M 

lands oa the 14th August, 1610, and John (mly 
two days afterwards. Craig, the purchaser, 
mod distinguished himself as a sort of 
plantation hero, and, having been also a king's 
servant, he was forthwith knighted, and 
encouraged by all means to remain in Ulster. 
He was soon in a position to purchase other 
large properties in Carat, and: he, with his 
wife, Dame Mary, lived in lordly state at their 
grand resideBoe of Gastleoraige. The bordering 
lands of Sir James Craig and Sir Francis 
Hamilton became for a time debatable ground 
on whioh these knights waged a fierce con- 
troversy on the question of mearings. 3. John 
Browne was another king's servant, although, 
unlike most others of his class, he appears to 
have had a Scottish home worthy of being 
named^if nothing more ; he hailed from a place 
oalled Qorgiemill. He soon disposed of his 
"proportion" oalled Carrodoaan, and the 
Commissioners, or rather Chichester, had a 
king's letter, dated April 13, 1613, requiring 
him to " accept a surrender from John Browne, 
of the manor of Carrodonen, in Cavan County, 
and to make a grant of the same to Archibald 
Acheson of Edinburgh, for ever, with the 
advowson of the church of the Manor." 
Browne afterwards obtained a lucrative grant 
from the tolls of the several Ferries in Ulster. 
Archibald Acheson, the purchaser of Browne's 
proportion in Tullyhunco, bought up several 
similar properties, as already mentioned in the 
County of Armagh. He originally belonged to a 
place called Qooseford or Quisefoord, in the 
County of Haddington. He held in succession 
the several high positions in Scotland of 
Solicitor- General, Senator of the College of 
Justice, and Joint Secretary of State., "He 
kept a large and elegant mansion in the Can- 
nongate of Edinburgh, which still remains, 
presenting over the doorway a crest exhibiting 
the figure of a cock mounted on a trumpet, 
with the motto Vigilantibua, and the date, 
1638. Over two upper windows are the letters 



ltl 

S. A. A. and D. M. H. In large capitals, the 
initials of Sir Archibald Acheron, and hia wife, 
Dame Margaret Hamilton. Sir Archibald died 
at Letterkenny, County Donegal, in 1634. He 
left two tons, viz , Patriok, who succeeded 
him, and George, third baronet, and owner of 
the Irish estates." The following notice of Sir 
Archibald and his family was written after hia 
death by Sir John Scott of Scotstarvet :— " Sir 
Archibald Aoheson, of Glenceirney, conjunct* 
Secretary with the Barl of Stirling, enjoyed 
the place bnt few years, and had no land in 
Scotland, but some four hundred pounds ster- 
ling in Ireland of the Barl of Tyrone's lands. 
His eldest son was of great expectation, having 
married a rich heiress in England. He died 
the first year after their marriage, without 
issue. Of his second wife, Sir William 
Hamilton's daughter, he had but one son, 
George; but his mother turned Papist after 
Sir Archibald's death, and said she had 
ventured her soul for an Aoheson. He died of a 
pestilential fever ; and it is thought that his 
son George ahall get nothing of that estate, it 
being all destroyed by war in the late [1641 J 
troubles." Sir John Soott was mistaken in 
supposing that Sir George Aoheson would 
then lose the family property in Ulster. 
His representatives, now Earls of Goeford, 
continue to enjoy their broad lands in the 
counties of Armagh and Gavan at the present 
day. The Earl now [1876] in possession has 
offered the Cavan estate in Tullyhunoo for 



in. 

Ajteb the barony of Tullyhunoo comes that of 
Clonkee, following the order of the Plantation 
Commissioners, who wrote its name Clanchy. 
The surveyors of 1609 only found 6,000 acres of 
arable land here, although Olonkee contains 



193 

64,877 statute mnb. This barony comprises 
the whole parishes of Rnookbridge and Shir- 
oook, with part of the parishes of Bailieborongh, 
Dramgoon, Ennikeen, and Moybologne. Its 
towns are Bailieborongh and Kingscouft, and 
its only village is Shiroock. Glonkee 1s situated 
in the extreme eastern portion of the County of 
Cavan. Its surface is varied by many lakes, 
and by a mountain range which runs through 
the greater portion of the barony, and which 
shnts out its plantation lands from others 
that had been appropriated afterwards for a 
oorporate town, a free school, and probably to 
endow a fort. The 6,000 acres arable were 
marked off into four proportions, and all the 
immense remainder of the precinct or barony, 
being considered " unprofitable," was thrown 
in gratuitously with these four proportions. 
Thus the fortunate planters here, as elsewhere 
generally throughout the six counties, were 
given ample room and great encouragement 
to augment and improve their estates. These 
four proportions fell by lot to the following 
four Scotchmen, viz.:— Esmy Stuart, Lord 
Aubigny, William Baillie, Esq.; John Rale- 
stone, gent.; and William Downbarr, or 
Dunbar, gent. Although the above-named 
were the original patentees, we shall see that 
they were, with one exception, soon displaced 
or superseded by gentlemen bearing the very 
common but respectable surname of Hamilton. 
The Hamiltons, in fact, of high and low degree, 
came literally " as a flood" into Ulster. 

Of the four undertakers in Clonkee, Sir 
George Carew reported, after their first 
year's occupancy, as follows : — " The Lord 
Obigny, 3,000 acres in the County of Cavan ; 
appeared not ; nor any for him ; nothing done ; 
the natives still remaining. William Downbarr, 
William Baylye, and John Rollestone [or 
Ralston], 1,000 acres apiece; the like"— i.e., 
nothing done. 1. Lord Aubigny was second 
son of Esme Stuart, the first Duke of Len- 
nox, and younger brother of Ludovic, the 



193 

second Duke. On the death of the latter In 
February, 1623 24, he succeeded as third 
Dnke, bat he only enjoyed the title a few 
months before his death. He married 
Katherine, only daughter and heir of Gervase. 
Lord Olifton, of Leighton Bromswold, by 
whom he left a numerous family. This lady 
afterwards married the second Earl of 
Abercorn, and was granted the right of 
retaining her rank as Duchess of Lennox. 
Lord Aublgny got grants of the two 
proportions of Kinneigh and Gashell, 
but he did not long retain possession of 
these lands, as it appears by inquisition 
that he sold them to Sir James Hamilton, 
afterwards Lord Clandeboy. 2. It is not 
known from what place in Scotland William 
Baillie came, but he proved a good planter on 
his proportion called Tonneragie, or Tandra- 
gee, and he has left his name on a well-known 
town, indeed the prinolpal town of the barony. 
There is good evidence that he had made much 
progress in the interval between the date of 
Pynnar's inspection, 1618 20, and the holding 
of an inquieition at Castle-Aubigny, in 1629. 
It was then found that " Since the graunte of 
the«aid premises there is built upon the pole 
of land called Kilcolhie, alias Bailiborrowe, by 
the said William Baillie and his assigns, one 
bawne of lyme and stone, and within the said 
bawne one oastell, or fair capital mansion 
house, built likewise of stone and lyme. The 
houses are all vaulted belowe, with a staircase 
and flankers for the defence of the same." The 
inquisition also informs us of the names of his 
leaseholders ; they were John Steivinson, John 
Baillie, James Teate, David Barbour, Gilbert 
Guthbertson, John Hamilton, William Bae, 
and Walter Millar. In 1629, he got a re-grant 
of all his premises, which were created into a 
manor called Bailiburrowe. 3. John Raleston 
was another dependent of some sort on the 
King, but it is not known to what place in Scot- 
land he belonged. He soon sold his proportion . 



194 

of Kilologhan to John Hamilton, who had been 
In possession sinee 1613. The inquisition at 
Castle -Aubigny, above quoted, informs us 
that " John Hamilton had erected upon the 
lande called Oorronerey, alias Hansborrowe, a 
bawne of lyme and atone, twenty foote square, 
and also another building forty foote long and 
twenty broade within the walla." It is curious 
to observe the great discrepancy between the 
statement in Pynnar'e survey and that of the 
inquisition taken ten years later. Pynnar 
evidently has told what was intended by 
Hamilton in the matter of buildings, and we 
learn from the inquisition that his intentions 
were very far from being carried out— at least 
during the time betwoen 1619 and 1629. The 
inquisition tells us also the names of Hamil- 
ton's leaseholders, viz :— Alex. Davyson, Alex. 
Anderson, John Wyllie, John Muegrave, John 
and Patrick Finlay, Robert Taillor, John 
Deanee, and Oliver Udney. Hamilton got 
a re-grant of all his lands in 1629, which were 
erected into a manor, to be called the manor of 
Ooronerry, alias Hansborough. 4. William 
Downbarr was another servant or dependent on 
the King, whose Scottish home is not men- 
tioned, although he appears not to have left it 
longer than was required to eome and take 
possession of bis Ulster estate of 1,000 acres, 
known as Dromuok. This he soon sold to Wil- 
liam Hamilton, a younger brother of Sir James 
Hamilton, Lord Glandeboy, who had purchased 
the adjoining lands of Lord Aubigny, as above- 
mentioned. Lord Clandeboy had made a con- 
tract with a Dublin grain merchant to Bupply 
him from his estate in Clonkee, through the 
agency of his brother William, but the trans- 
action does not appear to have resulted satis- 
factorily. In July, 1619, Lord Olandeboy 
wrote to his brother, and the following extract 
from his letter plainly enough indicates the 
dissatisfaction of the writer :—" William,— i 
have written lately to you by Patrick Shawe, 
but in good troth not so much as I thinke. I 



19* 

will write no more than theft If there be 
not a greater oare had things will 
fall out that you and I both wfll be sorry for 
it; it being strange that of about fourteen 
hundred pounds sterling, and more, all pay- 
able before or at this May day, besides sundry 
casualties not accounted, I hare not hitherto 
received one ponny." This William Hamilton 
generally resided at Ballymeaghan, now Bally- 
macban, near Belfast, and was interred in 
Holywood. He was ancestor of Lord Bangor 
in the peerage of Ireland. 

From Olonkee the Commissioners passed into 
the adjoining barony of Tullyhaw, then written 
Tullaghagh, where they found only 9,000 acres 
arable, although itcontains 00,701 statute acres. 
This barony comprises part of the present 
parishes of Drumreilly, Kinawley, and Tom* 
regan, with the whole of the parishes of Killi- 
nagh and Templeport. The principal villages 
are Swadlinbar, Bally eon nell, and Bawnboy. 
Its 9,000 acres arable were marked off into 
eight proportions, and distributed by lot 
amongst seven servitors, excepting portions re* 
served for other plantation purposes, such as 
small grants to a school and to a fort. The 
names of the servitors located in this barony 
were— Sir George and Sir Richard Graham, 
then written Greame and Grimes; Hugh Gnlme 
and Walter Talbott, Eeqs. ; William Parsons, 
Esq.; Nicholas Pynnnar, Esq.; and Thomas 
Johnee, gent. 1. The two Grahams were sons 
of Sir George Graham, a well-known servitor 
in Ireland, who came from the Scottish Border, 
and Boon established a claim on the Govern- 
ment by the value and extent of hid services. 
His two sons inherited his unscrupulous dash 
and courage, distinguishing themselves during 
the war against the Northern Earls. Towards 
the close of the reign of James L, Sir Richard 
Graham and his son William were actively 
engaged with the connivance and cooperation 
of Sir William Parsons In the lawless and cruel 
plunder of .two gentleman named O'Byrne, of 



196 

the County Wicklow. This case, m described 
by the Protestant historian^Carte, presented 
" saeh a scene of iniquity and cruelty that it is 
eoarce to be paralleled in any age or ooantry." 
The story occupies four folio pages in Carte's 
" Life of the Duke of Ormonde." 2. Hugh 
Online and Walter Talbott were both distin- 
guished servitors or soldiers of fortune— one 
English and the other Irish. Captain Culme, 
afterwards Sir Hugh Cultne, was son of Hugh 
Oulme, of Chamston and Cannonsleigh, in 
Devonshire. He (Sir Hugh) was Constable of 
Loughonter Castle, and also held the appoint- 
ment of Provost- Marshall for the Cavan County 
and certain surrounding districts. Talbott was 
greatly recognised and recommended by Chi- 
chester ; he died in 1625. 3. Nicholas Pynnar, 
Ecq., was known as the author of a survey of 
the Ulster plantations in the years 16181620 
4. Wiliam Parsons got a proportion here 
called Larga, although he had been previously 
gorged wioh accumulations of property in land. 
This proportion was known as the Manor of 
Pinner and Paraontowne, and was composed of 
several parcels of concealed lands. On this 
account Parson was not bound to build on it, 
so his rents from it were profits without any 
outlay. 

The Commissioners next commenced proceed 
iogs in the barony of Clonmahon, where 
fcervitors and natives were to be located as in 
the precinct or barony of Clonkee. Clonmahon 
contains 54,346 acres, and comprises the whole 
of the parishes of Ballintemple, Drumlonan, 
and B ally mach ugh, with part of the parishes of 
Crosserliii;h, Denn, Kilbride, and Kilmore. 
The beaurjiful Lough Sheelin is almost the one 
attractive feature in this region. The baronial 
map of 1609 represents the surface as a network 
of woods and bogs, and the Commissioners 
could only find about 7,000 acres of arable land 
therein. This quantity was marked off into 
six proportions and allotted to four servitors. 
Their names were Sir Oliver Lambert, Knight ; 



197 

Joseph Jones, gent ; John Huston, gent. ; and 
Anthony Atkinson, gent. 1. Sir Oliver 
Lambert came to Ireland in 1581 ; he was 
grandson of Richard Lambert, grocer, 
merchant adventurer, alderman, and sheriff of 
London. He is said to have belonged to the 
Lambertini family, and that his ancestor Ralph 
de Lambert came to England with William the 
Conqueror. However this may be, it is certain 
that Sir Oliver advanced rapidly in the service 
here — so rapidly, indeed, that in 1601 he was 
appointed Governor of Connaught. That) un- 
happy province he thoroughly revolutionised, 
so far as seizing much of its lands and expel- 
ling the rightful owners oould be described as 
doing so. The several inquisitions taken afoer 
his death revealed the prodigious amount of 
territory he had clutched, not only in Cavan, but 
in at least a dozen other counties in Ireland. 2. 
Joseph Johnes or Jones was one of the 
numerous and hungry swarm of adventurers 
bearing this surname who invaded Ireland from 
Wales early in the seventeenth oentury. 
Descendants of Joseph Jones rose into repute 
and respectability at Headfort, in the adjoining 
County of Leitrim, and not very distant from 
the manor of Tooullen, which was allotted to 
him as a servitor in the barony of Clonmahon. 
In this Leitrim family the Christian name 
Theophilus prevailed, which would lead to the 
conclusion that it was a brand of the same 
stock from which came the famous, or rather 
infamous, Bishop Jones, who acted as Crom- 
well's scoutmaster in Ireland, and who had a 
younger brother named Theophilus. 3. John 
Russon— probably a mistake for John Russell — 
as this servitor's name is written by Pynnar. 
He got 500 acres, which he sold to Archibald 
Moore, another servitor, and on which the 
latter in Pynnar's report is said to have built 
a bawne of sodds, with an Irish house inside. 
4. Anthony Atkinson was probably a brother 
of Roger Atkinson, also a servitor, who got a 
"proportion" in Fermanagh. A lieutenant 



1M 

Anthony Atkinson settled at a place called 
Kiltobret, King's County, about the year 1603, 
and, from intermarriages in his family with 
families in the County of Cavan, we are die* 
posed to believe that he was the undertaker 
here mentioned in Clonmahon. One of his re* 
preventatives married a daughter of Robert 
Saunderson, Oloverhill, County of Cavan ; 
another married a granddaughter of 
Sir Francis Hamilton, of KiQeehandra, 
same county ; and a third married a 
daughter of Sir Robert Newcomen, who 
owned an estate in the escheated lands of the 
adjoining County of Tyrone. Branches of this 
Atkinson family are seated at Cangort, in King's 
County, and Ashley Park, in the County of 
Tipperary. 



IV. 

From Clonmahon the Commissioners passed 
into the adjoining barony of Castlerahen— - a 
name now written CaetleRahan. This precinct 
also, like the three others in Cayan allotted to 
servitors and natives, was exceptionally bleak 
and uninteresting as a general rule, although 
it contained pleasant corners to be occupied by 
servitors. On the map of 1609 " Lo^h Rawre," 
now Lough Ramor, is represented as having 
nine islands, some of which appear very email. 
On one island there were the ruins of a church, 
and on the southern shore of the lough there 
were, according to the map, the remains of a 
oastle or fortress. The surface generally ap- 
pears then to have been rather profusely sup- 
plied with marshes, bleak-looking little hills, 
and bogs. Hardly a tree appears on the whole 
expanse of about 70,000 acres. The ruins of 
" CaslanRahan " are marked on the map as 
near the base of the "Slew M'Kaffry Moun- 
tains,' 1 on the borders of Munster. This 
barony comprises the whole of the present 



i9a 

parishes of Cattle Rahan, Lurgan, Mullough, 
and Munterooanaght, with parti of the parishes 
of Bailiebotough, Orosserlogh, Peon, EJllinere, 
and Leughan. It oontalns the towns of Bally- 
jamesduif and Virginia ; and the villages of 
Kilualook and Unllagh. 

The surveyors only fonnd 9,000 acres arable 
in Castle- Rahan, which quantity was marked 
off into six proportions and distributed amongst 
five planters of the servitor class. All the vast 
remainder of over 60,00) acres (except a trifling 
amount divided amongst some natives) was 
thrown in gratuitously with the six propor- 
tions. The following are the names of the 
servitors to which these proportions were al- 
lotted, viz. :— Sir Joan Elliot, knight; John 
Ridgeway, Esq. ; Sir William Taaffe, knight; 
Roger Garth, gent. ; and Sir Edmund Fetti- 
place, knight. Of these servitors Oarew re- 
ports in 1611 :— "Sir William Tathe ITaaffe], 
knight, 1,000 acres, as servitor ao Castle 
Rame, has taken possession, but nothing done. 
Sir Edmund Fetiplace has taken possession, 
nothing else done. Lieut. Garth, 500 acres as 
servitor, has taken possession, but nothing 
dose. Captain John Ridgeway, 1,000 acres ; 
120 great oaks have been brought from Fer- 
managh, thirty miles from him, and more 
ready framed, being 280 garrons' loads from 
Bealturberte ; has made a watercourse for a 
mill in a stony and rooky ground, whioh cost 
him £25, as he says; has agreed for 500 
barrels of lime in Meath, to be brought him 
upon demand ; has removed five Irish houses 
near his castle, and built two other Irish houses 
on the great island [in Lough Ramor] ; has an 
English millwright, smith, and farrier, with 
their wives and families, and necessary tools ; 
and an English and Irish house carpenter, with 
their wives and families ; two or three other 
families of several trades ; and has oontraoted 
at Bealturberte for a boat for use on Lough 
Rawre " [Ramor]. 

These gentlemen crowded as much as pos- 



200 

siblearound the shores of Lough Ramor, for there 
lay almost all the good lands in the barony. 1. 
Sir John Billot was a distinguished English 
lawyer, and if, in this dividing of the Ulster 
land spoil* he appears to have got a small pro- 
portion, at least in Castle- Rehan, he had a 
large share in the work of hunting it out. In 
a " Briefe" abstract of all the extraordinary 
payments in the year ending September, 1608, 
there is the following item :— " Baron Elliot, 
for his charges and pains sustained in finding 
sundry indictments against the fugitive Earls, 
£20." In a list of "allowances made by way 
of ooncordatam" during the year ending April 
14, 1609, there is the following entry:— <* Sir 
John Elliot, one of the Barons of the Court, by 
two concordatums, 676." On a list containing 
the names of " Judges and Law Officers, with 
their fees," Elliot's fee is £66 13b 4d; his robes, 
£13 6s 8d. 2. John Ridgeway was a younger 
brother of Sir Thomas and of George Ridge- 
way, already mentioned in connection with the 
barony of Clogher, in Tyrone. He was classed 
'* among those servitors who were not in pay, 
but willing to undertake," and it might have 
been truly added that such were not merely 
" willing" but quite anxious to become under- 
takers. Although he had made good progress 
as a planter during the first year of his occu- 
pancy, he sold his lands in Castle- Rahan to 
Captain Hugh Culme, of whom we have already 
heard as an undertaker in a neighbouring 
barony. Sir Hugh Culme was related to 
Chichester by his mother, who was a daughter 
of Richard Fortesoue, of Fileigh, in Devon- 
shire. Culme was Constable of Loughouter 
Castle, and afterwards occupied it as a private 
residence. He died in 1630, and by his wife, 
who remarried with Colonel Jones, he left a 
large family of sons and daughters, one of 
his daughters married John Edgeworth, of 
Cranelagh, in Longford ; and another daughter 
married George Bradshaw, of Bradshaw, in 
Derbyshire. Sir Hugh Oulme's proportion, 



201 

called Logh-Bammar, wm ereotod into a manor* 
known at the Manor of Chichester, and, when 
obtaining these lands, he engaged to build a 
town called Virginia, for which he was allowed 
350 acres. " Upon this," says Pynnar, " he 
hath built 8 timber houses, and put in them 8 
English tenants; of whieh town there is a 
minister which keepeth school, and is a very 
good preacher." It does not appear why Sir Hugh 
Culme selected the name Virginia for his little 
town, bnt it has remained in use ever since. 
Virginia stands on the nor bh -eastern shore of 
Lough Bamor, and belongs to the Headfort 
estate, the lords of which, in their generations, 
had the place duly oared for, and made attrac- 
tive. The inn at Virginia was once spoken of 
as being the best on the whole line of road from 
Enniskillen to Dublin. The " good preacher," 
who settled there for a time, was Benjamin 
Gulme, a brother of Sir Hugh. In 1615 this 
clergyman was appointed prebend of St. Mala- 
hide ; in 1616, rector of Bafahmore ; and in 
1619, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, 3. 4. 5. 
Sir William Taaffe, Boger Garth, and Sir 
Edmund Fettiplace severally sold out their pro- 
portions to Sir Thomas Ashe. 

Tullaghgarvey, the only remaining barony 
of County Cavan to be mentioned, was allotted, 
like the three preceding ones, to servitors and 
natives, for certain special reasons. It con- 
tained several good positions for def enoe, should 
tumults have happened to arise, and these posi- 
tions, with their adjoining lands, the best in the 
barony, were given to the servitors. The re- 
maining lands of Tullaghgarvey were the most 
barren, perhaps, in the whole County of Cavan, 
and were, therefore, considered quite good 
enough for such natives throughout the county 
as had got small patches of freehold. The 
barony in general retains, even at the present 
day, its former bleak aspect and comparatively 
barren soil. But the homes of the servitors in 
its eastern corner around Cootebill, and in its 
western corner around Castle Saunderson, and 



in the ploasaot valley of the Annate*, were 
attractive enough aa contrasted with the sur* 
rounding end intervening sterility. The barony 
contains ebont 60,000 acres, exclusive of the 
water surface, and comprises part of the 
parishes of Annagh, Drumgoon, and Laragh, 
with the whole of the parishes of Drung and 
Klldrumsherdon. 

The Commissioners of Surrey could only find 
7,500 arable acres In Tullaghgarvey, which 
quantity was marked off into seven proportions, 
and distributed, with slight exceptions, 
amongst five servitors, whose names were Sir 
Thomas Ashe, Knight; John Ashe, gent.; 
Archibald Moore, and Brent, gents.; Riohard 
Tyrrell, Esq.; and Mnlmorie, or Myles, 
O'Reilly, who obtained a portion of his own 
lands, but only on plantation conditions, i. 
Sir Thomas and John Ashe were brothers, and 
the sons of Thomas Ashe by his wife Mary, a 
daughter of Nicholas Bailey, of St. John's 
Abbey, County of Meath. Thomas, the elder 
son, was knighted by Sir George Catew in 
1603, and he was also substantially rewarded 
for bis services in the war against the Northern 
Earls. With other good things Sir Thomas 
Ashe obtained the wardship of an Irish gentle- 
man's heir named O'Oarroll, but he found that 
business becoming troublesome, and therefore 
disposed of it soon, and on as good t&rms for 
himself as possible. The following reference to 
this transaction by Chiohester in January 
1609*10 is instructive as explanatory of the 
means employed through the agency of " dis- 
coverers" to ruin native landowners :— " Patrick 
Crosbye [a discoverer] tells me that the Lord 
Treasurer had some speech with him about Ely 
O Carroll, alias O'Carrolt's country, which I 
have made shire ground, and laid to the King's 
County. It is a pretty piece of land, and 
Crosbye says he can bring it into the King's- 
hands by overthrowing [discovering flaws in] 
the patent thereof made to Sir William 
O'OanrolL The pretending heir is an infant, 



whose wardship was given to Sir Thorn** Ashe 
before my time. There has ever been strife 
and ooatention between the house of Ormonde 
and the lords of that country [Ely O'Carroll], 
touching the bounds and meares, and much 
blood spilt on either side, and now I am told 
that Sir Thomas Ashe has sold over the ward 
[O'Carroll's son and heir] to the Viscount 
Butler, notwithstanding my advioe to him 
not to deal therewith, and to Sir Thomas 
Ashe not to sell it to him ; for I doubted 
the seqael as I still do, but still I wish 
well to the Viscount, who is an honest 
gentleman. But I would not have his power 
end liberty increased on that side of the 
country bordering upon Tipperary ; and, there- 
fore, if Crosbye can bring the country to the 
Crown he deserves a good recompense. For 
this service he deserves one* half of the country 
[Ely O'Carroll] in fee farm, at £50 English. " 
This was Chichester's practical way of settling 
matters against the natives, and by this polioy 
Crosby and such villains as he soon became 
rich and high in rank, whilst Sir William 
O'Carroll and such native landlords as he very 
quickly sunk into beggary and ruin. ' 2. 
Archibald and Brent Moore came from Bennen- 
dan, in the County <of Kent, as had also come 
the Moores of Drogheda. John, the repre- 
sentative of the family at the close of the 
sixteenth century, married Margaret, the 
daughter and heir of John Brent, by whom he 
had six sons. The second son, Sir Edward 
Moore, of Mellifont, was ancestor of theJEarls of 
Drogheda ; the fourth son, Sir Thomas Moore, 
of Croghan, was ancestor of the Earls of Char- 
leville ; and thesixbh sou, Colonel Brent Moore, 
was an undertaker of lands in the plantation of . 
Longford. He probably dwelt on hie Longford 
estate, as his name does not afterwards appear 
in any Ulster inquisition yet printed. Of these 
two brothers who got shares in the plantation 
spoils, Archibald was probably the elder, for 
lie had become well known as a servitor ; 



whilst Brent, although a soldier, does not 
appear to have been included in any of the 
several olasses into which Ulster servitors were 
divided. 3. Mnlmorie O'Reilly, the youthful 
representative o! the whole clan or sept of 
O'Reilly, did not live long after getting his 
plantation grant from the Government. His 
mother, who was a niece of the Earl of 
Ormonde, retired with her son, then only a boy, 
to their proportion of Ballinoairge, the name 
also of an old castle built there many centuries 
previously by one of his ancestors. Although 
Pynnar speaks of him as if he had been alive in 
1618, it was found by an inquisition at Bel- 
bur bet in 1622 that he', had died in February, 1617, 
His trustees, appointed in 1612, were Walter 
Talbott,of Ballaconelly, ta the County of Cavan ; 
Thomas Brady, of Drogheda, merchant ; and 
Arthur M'Gra, of Ballinoairge. Other native 
gentlemen who got somewhat liberal grants are 
reported by Sir George Carew as follows :— 
"Hugh M'Shane O'Reilly removed to his 
portion and is building a mill. Melmore 
M'Philip O'Reilly removed and is building a 
house. Connor Shane Roe M'Brady removed 
to his proportion. Melmore M'Hugh Conelagh 
O'Reilly is dwelling on the land he had before, 
and given him on the last division. M'Kyernan 
removed to his proportion, and is about build- 
ing a house. Brian M'Owen removed to hie 
proportion. Philip M'Tirlagh Brady is about 
to remove. Magauran had his own land given 
to him on this division. Rest of the natives 
that had lands assigned to them in Cavan not 
yet removed. In the case of these influential 
natives, the great and most Important point 
with the Government was their voluntarily, and 
without force, removing. The humbler classes, 
it was hoped, would thus the sooner disappear 
before the coming settlers. Only fifty five 
natives in the County of Cavan obtained small 
grants from the Crown in the three several 
baronies already mentioned. Several of these, 
as in the counties preceding, represented noble 



805 

Irish families, whilst the remaining grantees 
belonged to the native gentry elan. Their 
surnames moat common amongst this lot of 
native grantees were O'Reilly, Magauran, 
O'Brady, and Maokernan. 



Note. — The adjoining County of Monaghan 
was one of the three not included in the planta- 
tion, because, as in the cases of Antrim and 
Down, it had been settled after a fashion some 
years before. The story of its settlement, how- 
ever, may be soon told, for the means employed 
in perpetrating the same were peculiarly sharp 
and simple. On the dismissal and attainder of 
Sir John Perrot, Chichester's father-in-law, 
Dublin Castle was occupied for the third time, 
or turn, by Sir William Fitzwilliam, who was, 
perhaps, the basest of the many base Lord De- 
puties inflicted on Ireland, for he never 
scrupled any meanness or atrooity which as- 
sisted in filling his own pockets. Fitzwilliam 
was originally sent to this country to lend a 
hand in the management of the Crown pro- 
perty, which was then enormous, and whilst 
thus employed he had become a thorough ex- 
pert in the art or science of public plunder. At 
all events, his " intimate knowledge of Ire- 
land " induced Elizabeth to appoint him to the 
office of Lord Deputy, in the year 1559 ; and, 
unfortunately for hapless Ireland, Fitzwilliam 
took to liking her so devotedly, that he in- 
trigued and cajoled to any amount, until he 
got himself appointed a second, and even a 
third time. In this instance we have a speci- 
ally good illustration of the Queen's well re- 
cognised policy of sending her vultures to Ire- 
land whilst she let fly her eagles at Spain. 
Amongst Fitzwilliam's congenial exploits dur- 
ing his long and fatal connection with this 
country was bis settlement of Monaghan, by 



tlw murder of its chiefs and the dietriMi en of 
th« clansmen's lands principally to his own 
flagitious agents and assistants. Of these men 
(among whom Sir Henry Bagnall figured 
prominently) we have the following account 
from Captain Thomas Lee, an English gentle- 
man and a faithful servitor in Ireland for the 
space of twenty years : -" His [JTitzwiUiam's] 
greedy desire at that time, in respect of his 
own gain, made him esteem the baser sort of 
servitors, whom he made captains and officers 
in the Irish countries, who, with their great 
troops of base rascals, behaved themselves so 
disorderly as made the whole country to rise 
in an uproar and drive them out, which 
example, given by those bad and lewd fellows, 
to the ill disposed Irishry, hath embolden them 
ever since to stand in no fear or subjection." 

On the death of Ross Maclf ahon, the terri- 
torial Lord of Monaghan, there appeared likely 
to arise feuds among the olansmen as to his 
successor ; but, irrespective of the clansmen's 
opinions or wishes on the subject, Fibzwilliam 
appointed Hugh Roe* a younger brother of the 
deceased, as The MacMahon. The successful 
candidate was able to offer larger bribes to the 
Lord Deputy than any of the others, and actu- 
ally handed over to Fitzwilliam eight hundred 
head of cattle— five hundred for himself, and 
one hundred and fifty each for his wife and son. 
But MaoMahon's lands were wanted as well as 
his cattle— so a ready pretext for his destruc- 
tion soon turned up. Hugh Roe, on being 
regularly recognised as The MacMahon, pro- 
ceeded to enforce the payment of certain rente* 
according to the forms prescribed by the Celtic 
law in such cases — for as yet the English law 
had not been regularly introduced, and was 
not therefore available. Yet, in appealing to 
the old Irish law, MacMahon's act was inter- 
preted as a contravention of the prerogative Of 
the Crown— as, in fact, a case oi high, treason. 
He was forthwith summoned to Dublin, 
in an apparently friendly spirit, and 



on going there was seized and soon i 
executed without having hadany time or means 
to provide lor bin defence. This tragedy was 
rendered the move impressive and appalling by 
the fact that Fkzwilliam sent back hie victim 
to Moaaghao alive, and had him hanged at the 
entrance to his [MacMahon'eJ own castle. The 
latter had attempted too freely and publicly to 
make capital out of bis bribes fo the whole 
Fitzwilliam party in Dublin Castle, thus bring- 
ing upon himself the swifter destruction. His 
toul murder, and the subsequent distribution 
oi most of his estates amongst FitzwilUam's 
emissaries, are detailed In the following terms 
in the well-known " Statement of Grievances," 
laid before Elisabeth by two most respectable 
members of the MaoMahon family : — "First, 
Hugh Roe, named The MaoMahon by Sir 
William Fitzwilliam, and so confirmed and 
allowed to succeed, on ooming in to the State 
[going to Dublin] on the word of a nobleman, 
and on the word of Henry Moore, of Mellifont, 
was afterwards most unjustly and most 
treacherously executed at his own house of 
Monaghan. The allowance of succession was 
granted to him, the said Hugh Roe, purposely 
to draw an interest unto him and his heirs, 
contrary to the custom of the country, and then 
by his execution to draw the country into her 
Majesty's hands, as the sequel showeth. After 
his execution a garrison was placed in 
Monaghan, the name [title] of The MaoMahon 
extinguished, and the county divided by Fitz- 
william between Sir Henry Bagnall, Baron 
Elliott, Mr. Solicitor Wilbraham, Captain 
Henshaw, Captain Wallis, the Parson 
0*Connelan, Hugh Strowbridge, Thomas Ashe, 
Charles Fleming, and divers other strangers ; 
and so the native country people for the most 
part disinherited, and some of those that had 
portions allotted to them were afteiwards mur- 
dered—namely, Patrick MaoMahon coming on 
sale conduct to the Parson O'Connelan, than 
nation of peace and chief man in authority , warn 



20& 

k 

intercepted by an ambush laid by the said 
Parson and Captain Wallis, and there slain." 
The divers strangers who got large portions 
of the lands in Monaghan, bat who are not 
named in the foregoing document, were Roger 
Garlon, of Strabannan, in the County of 
Loath ; Thomas Clinton, of Dowdstown, in the 
County of Loath ; William Garvey, son to the 
Lord Primate; and Gerald Dillon, of Ard- 
braocan. 

Whilst the whole country was aflame, and 
taking counsel to avenge this and other 
aggressions equally foal and oppressive, Fits' 
william returned to England in triumph and 
hardened with enormous spoils* Although he 
was nominally arraigned for his crimes, the 
Lords of the Council in London took good care 
that he should be held not only scatheless, but 
that he should receive distinguished honours 
for having drawn Monaghan •'into her Majesty's 
hands." Fitz William's oonduot was thus 
thoroughly oondoned, and his " monstrous and 
apparent untruths"— as Captain Lee termed his 
statements before the Council in London — were 
It accepted as great and most gratifying 
political intelligence from Ireland. And the 
grand culprit himself knew well how to justify 
his oonduot in the murder of MaoMahon. He 
was silent about the bribes he had received 
from Hugh Roe, and defended himself solely 
on the grounds of his loyal devotedness to the 
best interests of the Crown! The following is 
his explanation to the old tyrant Burghley, 
President of the Council, in March, 1589 :— 
" As I never benefited myself by MacMabon's 
admission [to the headship of his clan], so do 
I mean to oonvert his fall wholly to the profit 
of her Majesty and the good of the State, not 
regarding mine own private. I speak it as in 
the presenoe of God, by whom I hope to be 
saved." No English ohronioler, as far as 
we know, not even Camden, has ventured to 
defend this business, wnioh was indeed the 
principal cause of the seven years' frightful war 



209 

against the Northern Lords; and which 
remains, and will ever remain, one of the many 
Indelible stains on the Baglish rule in Ireland. 
And) as a ghastly memento in Monaghan of 
Vitzwilliam's horrible crime, it may be men- 
tioned, in conotasion, that the walls of Mae- 
Mahon's castle still remain and the oak tree 
on which he was hanged is yet alive. It stands 
on one side of the ancient avenue* and only a 
few perches from the rains of the castle. 



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