The History of Sligo: Town and County - Vol. I

By Terrence O’Rorke

This classic and well-loved history of Sligo was first published in 1889. The present edition has been reformatted using a pleasing modern searchable text, retaining the original illustrations. Also, new notes have been added.
Its author, the Rev. Archdeacon Terrence O’Rorke, was born and bred in Sligo, This important history is, of course, a product of his times and situation, however, it remains a work of fascination for anyone with connections to Sligo’s past and its people, and - because of the importance of the events played out in that county – an important reference for anyone interested in the history of Ireland.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clachan Publishing
• Release date: Oct 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781909906235

Book preview

The History of Sligo: Town and County - Vol. I

The History of Sligo: Town and County: Vol. I

The History of Sligo: Town and County: Vol. I

By Terrence O’Rorke,

first published in 1889.

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Clachan Publishing

3 Drumavoley Park, Ballycastle, BT54 6PE,

County Antrim.

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Email; [e-mail]

Website: http://clachanpublishing-com.

ISBN— 978-1-909906-23-5

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This edition published 2014

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Original edition DUBLIN:

James Duffy and Co., Ltd.,.

14 & 15 Wellington Quay. 1889.

Source edition published 1890.

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Copyright © of annotated edition, Clachan 2014

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This book is sold under the condition that it is not sold, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or in otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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3 Drumavoley Park, Ballycastle, BT54 6PE,

County Antrim,

Content

Content

ILLUSTRATIONS

Editorial

PREFACE

CHAPTER I

THE DISTRICT OF SLIGO

Sligo made a separate county—Previously a part of the old county Roscommon—Areas comprised in the county: Tirerrill Corran and Leyney Coolavin Tireragh Carbury—The Erne the northern limit of the county in the 16th century—County irregular in outline; the Coast line—Mountain system—Geological formation of the ranges The Benbulben group—Minerals—Arigna mining companies—Silver and lead mines—Surface of the land—Woods and trees—Multiplication of birds—Pheasants and eagles—Rabbits and deer—Lakes and rivers—The Moy, and the Sligeach or Sligo—The Uncion, or Arrow, and the Owenmore—Lineage of the people—Invasions and immigrations—Consanguinity of present population.

CHAPTER II.

BARONY OF CARBURY.

Migration of the Carbrians to the district of Sligo—Chiefs of Carbury—Aongus Bronbachall and Bishop Bronus—Chiefs of Carbury continued—Belong to Carbury Sligo, and not to Carbury Teffia, as O'Donovan thinks—O'Donovan's high-handedness—Carbury subject to the Kings of Connaught—Rivalry of the O'Connors and the Cinel Connell.

CHAPTER III

THE TOWN OF SLIGO

Beauty of the environs of Sligo—Mountain scenery; Benbulben—The stretch from Knocklane to Dromahair—Carlyle upon the scenery of Sligo—Town of Sligo comparatively modern—Proofs and illustrations—Allusion to the river Sligo in Colgan's Vita Tripartita—Battle of Sligo, and the Carrowmore cromlechs—Writer's views on the battle—The battle-field—Route from the north to Connaught Situation of Grinder, mentioned in the poem on the battle Fearsats or strand passes—Shallowness of Sligo river—The cromlechs and circles of Carrowmore Dr. Petrie's and Mr. Roger C. Walker's views—Two different accounts of Battle of Sligo; Eoghan BelKnocknarea—meaning of name—O'Donovan's and Ven. Charles O'Connor's opinions—Writer's opinion—Confirmation of—Everything makes for writer's view—Firbolg and Tuatha de Danaan theory utterly improbable—Sir James Ferguson on the Carrowmore Circles—Objections to writer's views answered—No proof of alleged cremation—New view confidently submitted to criticism—Ptolemy's episemos polis of Nagnata—This shadowy city unworthy of serious thought.

CHAPTER IV

THE FITZGERALDS AND SLIGO

No indication of a town in Sligo before the 12th century—Signs of population show themselves in the 13th century—River Sligeach, or Sligo; its shelliness—Puerilities on the subject—Maurice Fitzgerald the true founder of Sligo—He builds the castle—O'Donnell tries to take the castle, but fails—Battle of the Rosses; single combat between Fitzgerald and O'Donnell—Deaths of Fitzgerald and O'Donnell—Sligo in the conflict between the Fitzgeralds and De Burgos—Fitzgeralds and De Burgos reconciled—Fitzgerald and Clarus MacMailin, Archdeacon of Elphin—Foundation of the abbey or convent—Date of foundation; the Marquis of Kildare's mistake—Advantages enjoyed by the convent—Population of town English at this time—A view of the town as it looked under the Fitzgeralds—Sligo then a garrison rather than an ordinary town.

CHAPTER V

THE O'CONNORS AND SLIGO

The O'Connors come to the front—Battle of Magh Diughbha, or Crich Carbury—After the battle the O'Connors reside in Castletown—The battle of Crich Carbury disastrous to the O'Connors—Funeral of Donnell O'Connor—Wealth of the O'Connors—The time becomes favourable to them—Divisions in the O'Donnell family—High and commanding qualities of the O'Connors – Hugh O'Donnell's wife a furious Amazon—Cathal O'Connor single handed against all Connaught—Cathal's sons—Cathal Oge O'Connor's exploits—Four Masters unfair to Cathal Oge -note—Family feuds of the O'Donnells—Cathal Oge dies in Sligo of the Plague, or Black Death—Bridge of Ballysadare built by Cathal Oge—Heroism of Donnell O'Connor—An ugly blot on his memory—An able and valiant chief—O'Donnell burns Sligo—The town had greatly improved under the O'Connors—Time when the O'Connors became masters of Sligo—Cathal Oge moves from Castletown to Sligo—Proofs of this—Brian and Owen O'Connor—Dissensions in the O'Connor family The O'Donnells thrive on the disunion of the O'Connors—Capture of Sligo Castle in 1370—The castle the occasion of contention—Castle taken—O'Donnell pursues the O'Connors to Belladrehid—Teige Oge O'Connor's new style and title—Manus O'Donnell takes the castle—The English play again the leading part in Sligo—Their policy—Sir Henry Sydney and Donnell O'Connor—Sydney takes O'Connor to England—Donnell O'Connor submits to Elizabeth—Royal letter in his favour—Sir Donnell evades engagements—Sir Donnell and Sir Nicholas Malby—Sir Donnell a match for the Queen and her Councillors—Had nothing heroic about him—Career of his brother Owen—Owen O'Connor and Bishop O'Hart—Sir Donnell's morality—Status of the O'Connor Sligo family—Perrott's Compositions with Sligo chiefs—Sir Donogh O'Connor—Sir Richard Bingham's efforts against—Commission to inquire concerning Sir Donogh O'Connor's claims—Celebration of marriages in those days—Hugh Roe O'Donnell and Sir Donogh—Rory O'Donnell and Sir Donogh—Submission of Sir Donogh to Mountjoy—Lady Desmond, Sir Donogh's wife—Lady Desmond's children—Her son at Kilmallock—Daniel O'Connor succeeds Sir Donogh—Sir Charles O'Connor—Sir Charles's brother, Donogh O'Connor—Teige O'Connor hanged in Boyle—Lady Desmond brought little luck to the O'Connors.

CHAPTER VI

SLIGO IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Seventeenth century the most eventful in the history of Sligo—English and Scotch displacing the old Irish—Insurrection of 1641—Movements in Sligo—Massacre in the gaol—Explanation of the tragedy—The chiefs had no part in it—Savagery of Sir Frederick Hamilton—His principles—Irruption into Sligo—Burning of Sligo—Sir Frederick impervious to religious feeling—His treatment of Protestants—Sir Charles Coote captures Sligo—Ormonde blames the Confederates Sir R. Stewart Governor of the town.

CHAPTER VII

CONFEDERATE EFFORTS TO RECOVER SLIGO

Archbishop of Tuam tries to recover Sligo—Is defeated and slain—Lord Taaffe tries to recover the body—The Archbishop regarded as a martyr—Extraordinary career of Father Feenaghty—Tries to cure the sick with Dr. Queely's relics—Not certain that he possessed the genuine relics—The place of Dr. Queely's death hitherto unidentified—Most probably he fell in Cleveragh—Owen Roe O'Neill and Sligo—Sligo a thorn in the sides of Royalists and Confederates; recovered by Lord Clanrickarde—Disaffection and divisions among the Parliamentarians—Four independent armies, with different views—Sir Charles Coote summons Sir Garrett Moore to surrender Sligo—Sligo surrenders—Sufferings of Catholics—New Englanders invited to Sligo—County Sligo granted to the Cromwellians—Different classes of Cromwellians.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CROMWELLIAN SETTLEMENT OF SLIGO

A Commission to sett out the lands of Tireragh and Carbury—The Cromwellians a garrison—Cantoned through the county—They boycott the Irish—Spirit of Cromwellians—Disappearance of Cromwellian families—They erect a new fort in Sligo—People in the dark as to origin of this fort—Sir Albert Conyngham's report upon it—The Cromwellians keep a grip of their lands—Others claim their possessions—The O'Connor Sligo estate—Granted to the Earl of Strafford and Thomas Radcliff—The sons of the grantees—The estate divided—Particulars of the division—Money payments—Schedules annexed to the deed—Benjamin Burton Documents regarding the O'Connor Sligo estate—Report of the Solicitor-General—Clauses in the Acts of Settlement and Explanation—The name of O'Connor Sligo drops out of view—Peter O'Connor and nephews descendants of the old O'Connors Sligo—Character of Mr. O'Connor—A patriot of the best type—Other descendants of the old O'Connor stock.

CHAPTER IX

JACOBITES AND WILLIAMITES

Persecution in Sligo—Jeremy Jones at the bottom of it—Duke of Ormonde and Jeremy Jones—Movements of the Williamites—Sarsfield falls back on Sligo—Circumstances of Sarsfield's quitting Sligo—Sarsfield retakes the town—St- Sauveur and the Stone Fort—Henry Luttrell in Sligo—His tragic death—Sir Teige O’Regan made Governor of Sligo—Sir Albert Conyngham slain—Sir Teague and Lord Granard.

CHAPTER X

THE TREATMENT OF CATHOLICS

State of the country after the surrender of Limerick—Registration of the Clergy—Letters between Dublin Castle and the magistrates of Sligo—Courts of inquiry about nonjuring priests—Depositions of 28th Oct-—Depositions of 4th Nov-—Priests harboured in Morgan M'Carrick's house—Depositions of Owen Devanny, Matthew Fahy, and Bryan Hart—Depositions of Peter Kelly and Patrick Devanny—Depositions of Teige M'Donnagh and Bryan M'Donnagh—Depositions of William Bourke, Doonamurray—Depositions of Cormack M'Glone and Paul Cunigham, Drynaghan—Depositions of William Ward and Hugh Gallagher, Farrinacarny—Facts to be gathered from these Depositions—Magistrates apply for military aid—Letter of John De Butt, Provost of Sligo—Brigadier-General Owen Wynne examines witnesses—Jeremy Fury, discoverer under Anne's Penal Acts; Laurence Bettridge—Anecdote of the Nugents.

CHAPTER XI

THE ABBEY

The Abbey burned down in 1441—Local aid towards its restoration—Apostolic Letters of Pope John XXIII—Prior M'Donogh and Pierce O’Timony, chief local benefactors—The Abbey a singularly beautiful structure—Gabriel Beranger's description of it—Two sides of square nearly gone—Cloisters of great beauty—Sketch taken in 1776—Ambulatory, Pulpit, and Garth—Original portion and restored parts—Convent dedicated to Holy Cross—Curious epitaph—Sir Donogh O'Connor's Monument—Resembles the Earl of Cork's in St. Patrick's, Dublin—Lady Desmond buried with Sir Donogh—The Abbey cemetery, the chief one of the county—Distinguished persons interred therein—Records of the Abbey very meagre—Irish Provincials belonging to Abbey; Thadeus O'Devanny—He secures a convent at Louvain for the Irish Dominicans—Provincial Daniel O'Crean—Another Daniel O'Crean, Provincial; Sir Charles Coote—Provincial John O’Hart—Father O'Hart and Father Peter Walsh—Father O'Hart and popular education—Provincial Ambrose O'Connor—Ambrose O'Connor classed among Dominican writers—Dominicans fly from the Abbey during the scenes of the Popish Plot—Extreme distress of the Conventuals—Obliged to sell their chalices—A dishonest debtor—Prior pays debts with the proceeds of the chalices—Holy Cross bell—Priors of Holy Cross—Prior Andrew O'Crean—Prior O'Crean a special favourite in Sligo—He erects a market cross—Is buried in the Abbey—Fathers Dominick and Felix O'Connor—Father Felix, Prior of the Dominican Convent of Louvain—Dies in Sligo gaol, a victim of the Shaftesbury Plot—Priors M'Donogh, O'Connor (Michael) and Nellus—Very Rev. Dr. Goodman, Provincial and Prior—His eloquence—Builds the fine Church of Holy Cross—Father Boylan places a tablet over his grave—Conflict of claims to the mortuary offerings of the Abbey—A Board of Works restoration of Abbey desirable—Obstacles in the way imaginary—Abbey, the only historical structure now in Sligo—Advantages of restoration—The New Cemetery—Its monuments—Epitaphs—Father Casey's poetic epitaphs—Quaint epitaph in Templeboy graveyard.

CHAPTER XII

THE CHURCH OF ST. JOHN

A later church than those of Killaspugbrone and Killinacowen—The style gives no indication of its age—Rectory of Sligo between the Two Bridges—St. John's Church a foundation of Sir Roger Jones—Sir Roger's social standing—His monument—Churches in the rectory before Sir Roger's—Miler Magrath granted the Rectory Intes Duos Ponyes—A tergiversator like Talleyrand—King James on Miler's malpractices—Other State Church ministers—Catholic Church without freedom of action—Usurpers of Church property—Congenial work for the Usurpers—Sligo chiefs made Royal Wards—Except Thadeus O'Hara all remain true to the old religion—Succession of Protestant incumbents in St. John's—Rev. Eubule Ormsby—Curates of St. John's—Rev. Messrs. Armstrong and Montgomery—Strandhill Protestant Church.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BOROUGH OF SLIGO

Sligo created a borough in 1613—Names of burgesses—James the Second's burgesses—Device of Corporation seal—Sir Francis Leyster—Insignia of the Corporation—Alderman Colleary and the Mayoral chain—The Wynnes and the Corporation—Sligo gentry and the Council—Duties of the Council—The Council and elections—The town of Sligo small and shabby—Thomas Corkran gives an impetus to building—The streets and the scavenging staff—Nuisances in the streets—Public passes to the river—The bridge at the end of Thomas Street—Regulation of the market—Catholics, the helots of Sligo—Orthodoxy of the Council—Mr. Sexton and the Freedom of the Borough—Meetings of the Old and the New Council—Market people—Marketing in the streets—The goods exhibited—Convivialities of the time—Friendly relations of Catholics and Protestants—Change of relations—Dr. Petrie's opinion of Sligo people.

CHAPTER XIV

THE HARBOUR OF SLIGO

Sligo Bay—Hollinshed's estimate of the port—Intercourse between Sligo and the Continent—The quays of Sligo—Pier of Ballast quay—Nature deepening the bay—Efficiency of Harbour Commissioners—Merchants of Sligo—Merchandize—Butter merchants and market inspector—Sligo fisheries—Salmon fishery—Enhanced price of fish.

CHAPTER XV

STIRRING OCCURRENCES

The Volunteer movement—Meetings and Resolutions of Volunteers—Spirit of the Volunteers—Parliamentary elections—County elections—Wynne and Ormsby election—Incidents of the contest—King and Perceval election—Pasquin on the subject—Loss of life—Origin of the Clearance system—Battle of Carricknagat or Collooney—Tactics of the leaders—Bartholomew Teeling and Colonel Vereker—Heroism of Teeling—Suffering Loyalists—Interesting inquiry at Sligo Smuggling—Invasion of Cholera—Violence of the disease—Terrors of the situation—The Doctors and the Clergy—Right Rev Dr. Burke—Cases and deaths.

CHAPTER XVI

STREETS AND HOUSES

Look of the town as viewed from the Albert Road—Nomenclature of the streets modern—Explanation of the names—Public buildings; the Cathedral—Court-houses—Magisterial proceedings—Manor and Coroner's courts—Barony Constables—Barny McKeon and Tom M ----—The Royal Irish Constabulary—Their concord and brotherhood—The Town-hall—Free library and reading room—Private bankers—Mullen, Black Ballantyne, and McCreery—Thomas McGowan, an interesting banker—Sligo National Bank shareholders—The Infirmary; Dr- McDowel and staff—The Fever hospital—The Famine of 1822—and the hospital Statistics of fever cases—Lunatic Asylum – Dr. Petit and staff Principles of management—Private houses—Water supply—Miss Colleary turns on the water—Hotels of the town—Handicrafts—Emigration – Messrs. Patrick and Peter O'Connor—Messrs. M'Neill and Sons' establishment—Messrs. O'Connor and Cullen's saw mills.

CHAPTER XVII

COOLERRA

Extent of the district—Its soil and surface—As seen from Rosses Point—Knocknarea—Misgan Meave—Prospect from Knocknarea—The Glen—The Granges—Cairns Hill—Nature of the Cairns—Writer's view on—Ecclesiastical divisions of Coolerra—Dependence of the Sligo district on Tireragh—A relic of Killaspugbrone church-—Dr. Petrie on the age of the church—Kilmacowen church; its patrons—The Cistercians of Boyle and Kilmacowen—Serious error of O'Donovan and his copyists—Captain John Baxter—Coolerra and the Ormsbys—Temple Bree—recte, Tempul na brugh—Parish Priest of Kilmacowen and Killaspugbrone—Curious old chapel of Kilmacowen.

CHAPTER XVIII

PARISH OF CALRY

The name of Calry—Mistake of O'Donovan—Beauty of the district and of the views from it—Hazelwood—Hazelwood house and demesne—Fine views from—Lough Gill—Archaeological and ecclesiastical memorials—Lake sometimes dangerous—Variations of depth—O'Connors, Creans, and Wynnes successive owners—The Wynne family as landlords and country gentlemen—Different estimates of—Brave act of present representative of the family—The Ormsbys—Willowbrook House—Burglary at Willowbrook—Illicit distillation in – Mrs. Ormsby Gore—A cadet of the Willowbrook family—Castledargan Ormsbys—The Parkes of Dunally—Sir William Parke—Dunally of Coolerra and Dunally of Calry—The Parkes not followers of Strafford as supposed—The Deerpark—Remarkable cashel—Druid's Altar—A singular monument—Opinions as to its nature—Perhaps the sepulchre of Eoghan Bel Aenachs or Fairs—Church theory of the Druid's altar—Writer would connect it with games; the district famous for games—Age of the structure—The Grianan of Calry—Mr. O'Connor and Major Wood-Martin's opinion—Writer's opinion—Description of Greenan Hill.

CHAPTER XIX

PARISH OF DRUMCLIFF

THE ROSSES, DRUMCLIFF, AND CASTLETOWN

The Rosses—Rosses Point as a watering place—Interior of the tract—Separation of the Rosses from Magherow—Saints Patrick and Columba in the Rosses—Cattle cures—Striping of the Rosses—The place improving under the Middletons—Drumcliffe name of—Glencar, charms of—The Waterfall and Sruth-an-ailan-ard Drumcliffe river and Inis-na-lainne—Inis-na-lainne identified—Major Wood-Martin's History would confound it with Inismurray—Writer's view—Glendallan, meaning of—Saints of Glencar or Glendallan—Saint Columba founder of Drumcliffe church—Importance of the place exaggerated—Proofs connecting Saint Columba with the church – Dr. Lanigan's opinion improbable—Annals of the monastery—Families of O'Beollain and O'Coineoil—Drumcliff particularly flourishing in the 13th century—Remains of the monastery—Castletown, a most interesting spot—The cradle of the O'Connors Sligo—Origin of the name Castletown—It is the Caisleu Conor of the Four Masters—Its populousness—Ravaged by Sir Frederick Hamilton—Lands of, pass to the Gores and the Parkes—Qualities of the soil—People comfortable—Botany of Benbulben—Geology of—Fantastic Boar hunt—Professor Hull on the formation of Benbulben.

ILLUSTRATIONS

STONE CIRCLE AND CROMLECH OF CARROWMORE

KNOCKNAREA

SLIGO ABBEY, WITH SPECIMEN OF CLOISTER

SIR DONOGH O'CONNOR'S MONUMENT, SLIGO ABBEY

ST JOHN'S CHURCH IN

SIR ROGER JONES'S MONUMENT

OLD AND NEW SEALS OF CORPORATION

PLAN OF THE DEERPARK CASHEL

DRUIDS' ALTAR AND TRILTTHONS

****

MAP OF THE TOWN OF SLIGO

MAP OF THE FEARSATS OR STRAND PASSES

MAP OF THE CARROWMORE CIRCLES AND CROMLECHS

Editorial

A Sligo man by birth, Terence O'Rorke (b. 1819) was both born and had his early education in Collooney. On leaving school he determined to become a Roman Catholic priest and studied in Maynooth College where he was ordained in 1847.

With an aptitude for scholarship, he pursued post-graduate work in Maynooth and was appointed Professor of Theology in the Irish College in Paris.

However, he did not remain there long as pastoral needs in Ireland were urgent, and he was shortly transferred to the position of Parish Priest of Collooney when the position fell vacant on the appointment of Dean Durcan as bishop of Achonry.

He took up this position in 1853, and was to spend most of the rest of his life in Sligo.

Fr. O'Rorke was a very active Parish Priest both pastorally and administratively, and saw to the completion of the church tower. Furthermore, he continued to follow his own scholarly interests, especially in the then uncharted area of local history.

In 1878 he published his history of the parish, The History and Antiquities and Present State of the Parishes of Ballysadare and Kilvarnet. He followed this with his two-volume History of Sligo County in 1889.

In writing these works he was very aware of the particular difficulties of a local historian in Ireland compared to the task of the local historian in England or Scotland where there was generally an abundance of local annals, official records, family papers, diocesan archives and a multitude of similar sourse material. However, in Ireland fires, family discontinuities and church suppression had hugely depleted the resources for the community historian, making archives at national level and in London all important.

Archdeacon O'Rorke is buried in the south transept of the Church of the Assumption. The only other person buried in the church is Father Dominic O'Connor C.C. who died of the Famine fever in 1848.

The present text has been derived from the Internet Archive, yet, we realise that the reader expects a much higher standard of presentation and accuracy from a book than does one who browses the web. We have therefore gone to great lengths to enhance and modernise the text to meet the highest standards of accuracy and scholarship.

The scanned text has been carefully proofread to ensure it is accurate and accessible. We have endeavoured to eliminate scanning errors. Some spellings have been modernised and standardised, however the original itself is not always consistent, a fact that probably reflects variable spellings in the source materials. We have done a little to standardize punctuation but characteristic features of the author’s style have been preserved.

We cannot take responsibility for errors that appeared in the original, and of course, the writer’s knowledge and views reflect what was known at the time of writing. However, we do have to take responsibility for any errors that may have resulted from scanning and formatting.

All original footnotes have been retained, and are unmarked. To make the text more accessible to the modern reader, additional footnotes have been added and these are marked as such. Any text in square brackets [..] has been added by Clachan editors. In addition, a comprehensive index has been created. These enhancements, we feel, make this edition worthy of the original.

Seán O’Halloran, BA, MA, EdD., Editor, November 2013

Acknowledgement

We are pleased to acknowedge and thank Internet Archive and Google books for making a scanned version of the book available on the web, and that the present text has been derived from:

https://openlibrary.org

PREFACE

I HAVE tried to embody, in the following pages, the secular, the religious, the social, and, in some measure, the natural history of Sligo. I have spared no pains to collect and verify the facts which belong to the subject under each of these aspects. Knowing the great want of an original and authentic history of the county, and aiming at the supply of the desideratum, I have taken nothing at second-hand, but have gone in all cases for myself to the sources.

Though disposed at first to rely, more or less implicitly, on John O'Donovan[1] and the Ordnance Survey letter-writers[2], I had not proceeded far when, finding them generally unsafe, and frequently misleading guides, it became necessary to trust them, like others, only in proportion to the weight of the evidence which they bring to the support of their opinions. After demurring to the authority of O'Donovan, as to the matter in hand, it is almost superfluous to add that I set little store by his echoists and copyists—epithets which may with justice be applied to those who have written about Sligo since his day.

In saying so much of O'Donovan, there is no wish to question his right to rank, as he commonly does, as our leading modern authority on the topography of Ireland; and if I make bold to differ from him rather often, I do so without questioning the exceptional weight of his opinions in relation to those parts of Ireland, which he had opportunities of studying, an advantage which he never enjoyed in regard to Sligo.

As these pages are meant to be a record of facts, the reader will be little troubled with legends and the prehistoric ages. It might be well for history, and particularly for Irish history, if there were no such word as pre-historic, the expression is so often employed as a cover for ignorance or indolence. Once the theory is set up that certain things are pre-historic, the student, instead of exhausting patiently and laboriously all the means within his reach, finds it more convenient, on meeting with troublesome difficulties, to fall back on this theory, and to class the object of his search as falling under it, little minding that what is pre-historic for him may be well within the province of history for a more intelligent or a more painstaking inquirer. The Round Towers were pre-historic for all the world till Dr. Petrie demonstrated their origin and uses.

It is the opposite presumption, namely, that all the remains of antiquity have their place in history if one could only find it out, that should hold the field. This principle would soon lead to valuable results. With such a rule and stimulus for inquirers, we should very probably have long since learned all about various County Sligo antiquities, which are now commonly consigned to the limbo of pre-historic times, as, for example, the circles and cromlechs of Carrowmore, the remains at Moytura, and that pre-historic relic, par excellence, the Druids' Altar of Calry Deerpark.

And the suggested method would have another precious result. It would stop or curtail the lucubrations[3] of some modern antiquaries who, as if they saw better in the dark than in the light, have little or nothing to tell while dealing with historic time, but positively luxuriate in description and detail once they enter on the fancied region of the pre-historic, where, they take it, no one can follow and check them.

Legends may have their use in the proper place, but history is hardly that place. The more esteemed, recent historians have acted on this principle. John Hill Burton, who is commonly spoken of as the latest and best historian of Scotland, shows, as has been observed by some of his critics, the frankest contempt for Scottish legend, and Dr. Momsen, in his Romische Geschichte, not only ignores the legends of the first book of Livy, but ridicules the principle which induces antiquaries especially to inquire into what is neither capable of being known or worth the knowing to inquire who was Hercules' mother, as the Emperor Tiberius is said to have done. While eschewing legends I have not thought it right to act in the same way in regard to antiquities. Taken in a wider and better sense than that implied in Momsen's sneer, antiquities comprehend the remains, as well material as moral, of ancient times; so that, in regard to the County Sligo, they comprise its raths, cairns, cromlechs, giants' graves, fortresses, old castles, religious houses; the names and associations of its rivers, lakes, hills, mountains, islands, and wells; and the religion, morals, manners, customs, and pastimes of its inhabitants. As much that belongs to these subjects is capable of being known and worth the knowing, I have studied them carefully; nor, it is hoped, without success, both with respect to themselves and to other matters, as it was in following up clues met with, while investigating them, I came upon the facts and arguments which support the many novel views now put forward in regard to the history both of the town and the county.

For I give a new and, it is believed, the true account of the rise of the town of Sligo; as also of some of its chief buildings, the origin of which has remained up to the present unknown: for instance, the Church of St. John, which is always referred, but erroneously, to pre-Reformation times; the stone fort, which stood on the site of the new Town Hall, without anyone being able to tell how or when it got there; and the so-called castles, which figure prominently in the Depositions of 1641, but which no one has attempted to trace further back. If the reader think it strange that these matters, which do not seem to be very recondite, should have lain so long in the dark, he will be still more surprised to find that the device on the arms of the town, which everybody in Sligo might be expected to understand, has been hitherto a mystery, and is now for the first time explained aright.

In reference to the rural districts of the county, I claim to have been equally fortunate in identifying historical places, which had eluded all previous efforts to identify them; such as, to name here only a few, Bun Lainne, misplaced by all our writers off the coast of Carbury; Rath Ard Creeve, ticketed by our antiquaries and historians as obsolete; Ath Angaile, of which O'Donovan, in one of the Ordnance Survey letters (Sept. 4th, 1836), writes to Mr. P. O'Keefe: "Do you find a place in the barony of Corran called At Angaile? By referring to the annals of Corran you will learn that it was the name of a castle. I have been on the look out for it these five years without success, and if you do not succeed in discovering it, I shall give it up as lost;" the Dumecha nepotum Ailello of Tirechan's Annotations in the Book of Armagh, supposed erroneously by commentators on Colgan and the Book of Armagh to be Shankhil], near Elphin; Aenach Tiroilella, referred to by the Four Masters under 1397, and mistaken by O'Donovan for Heapstown; Srah an ferain, mentioned in the same passage of the Four Masters as connected with Aenach Tiroilella; the Grianan of Calry; regarded formerly as the most beautiful spot in the province, but confounded recently with a very common-place little hill near the chapel of Calry; Claragh, the locality in which the Most Reverend Malachy O'Queely was slain by the Parliamentarians; the graveyard in which the kings and princes, who fell in the sanguinary battle of Ceis Corran in 971, were laid to rest; the Church of Bishop Lugid, in which the great Saint Kevin of Glendalough was ordained, and which the Saint's biographers, as well foreign as native, have all failed to find out; and many other places, equally unknown, though perhaps equally interesting.

And what most people will consider a matter of greater importance than the rectification of mistakes about local antiquities, I refute certain grave errors, advanced and popularized by two of the most eminent Irish archaeologists, Venerable Charles O'Conor and John O'Donovan, regarding the religious state of Ireland in the remote past, as I show that the reason on which the former founds his notions respecting Moon worship in the country is an idle fancy, and that the facts, from which O'Donovan tries to deduce the practice of Druidical worship among our ancestors, so late as the sixth century, are misunderstood by him, though if rightly understood, they lend themselves to no such conclusion.

As to the new view of the Carrowmore circles and cromlechs, and the suggested solution of the problem which they present, and at which O'Donovan, Petrie, Lord Dunraven, Sir James Ferguson, and a host of others, have tried the hand, the explanation now offered, if found to be the true one, of which there need be little doubt, must have an important bearing on megalithic remains in other parts of the country, and even in other countries; for if it be once admitted that the rude stone monuments of Carrowmore date from the sixth century of our era, antiquaries will have, what has been hitherto wanting, a term of comparison by which to judge analogous erections elsewhere.

The low date will appear to many an insuperable objection to the view now put forward. Two thousand four hundred and one years is a vast deduction from the age even of Irish antiquities, long-lived as they are supposed to be. Formidable, however, as looks the interval between A.M. 3330 and A.D. 537, there is no occasion to be frightened at it, as it is probably more imaginary than real. Modern archaeologists are fast abandoning General Vallancey and his school of antiquaries, with their antediluvian Irish history, their proofs of Celtic antiquities drawn from the Hindoo Puranas, and their Indo-Scythian monuments of Ireland, such as the so-called temple of Vishnu at Killeshandra in the County Cavan, and the temple of another pagan deity in Inismurray, in our own county, this latter being, according to the General, exactly similar to one in the island of Elephanta, called by the Gentoos, Mahoody! All this is now laughed at; and it is to be feared that a great deal of what still passes for Irish history deserves no better fate, being just as unsubstantial as the Inismurray Mahoody.

Exaggeration has been the besetting sin of our historians, and this not only to the detriment of Irish history, but to the injury of the people's minds, by filling them with a credulity in regard to historical matters, which has been, and still is, in some cases, ready to swallow all kinds of impossibilities. In particular, everything has been so enormously antedated that, to approximate to correct times, one may strike off from traditional dates thousands of years with as little compunction as the bards and seanachies felt in piling them on. Instead of the science and arts and arms which those imaginative writers and their modern follower, Sylvester O'Halloran, love to dilate on as flourishing in pre-Christian times, intelligent students of our national history are now coming to admit, with Strabo, Pomponius Mela, Tacitus, Julius Solinus, Camden, Ware, Sir James Ferguson, and notably Father Innes in his exhaustive Critical Essay on the Ancient Inhabitants of the Northern Parts of Britain or Scotland, that Ireland in those times was utterly unlettered and barbarous. If the opinions of the learned progress for some time further in the same direction, the outcome before long will probably be, to bring all or nearly all the existing antiquities of the county within the Christian era.

Fuller treatment would confirm the conclusions arrived at regarding the Carrowmore and other ancient monuments, but greater detail was impracticable in a book which is not a monograph on Sligo antiquities, or on any other single department of Sligo history, but a survey of the entire field, presented in a connected narrative—a narrative, too, which aims, within its limits, at completeness, and which, while furnishing special information for the student, contains a good deal to interest the general reader.

While giving antiquities ample room and verge enough, they were not allowed to encroach overmuch on space, which could be better occupied with the more recent and vital facts of our history. These facts, too little known, though full of interest, are given at considerable length. Such are, in regard to secular history, the rise, the rule, and the decline of our chief Celtic families the O'Connors Sligo, the O'Haras, the O'Garas, the MacDonoghs of Tirerrill and Corran, and the O’Dowds and Sweeneys, or MacSweeneys, of Tireragh. To the O'Connors Sligo alone are devoted more than a hundred pages, by no means an undue proportion, considering the preeminent place they occupied in the county from the beginning of the fourteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century; and as to the other families no one will grudge the space assigned them on finding that they produced men, some of whom, as, for instance, Brian MacDonogh of Collooney, and Counsellor Terence MacDonogh of Creevagh, deserve to live for ever in the grateful remembrance of their countrymen.

After the subjection and disappearance of the Celtic chiefs, their lands were parcelled out to Anglo-Irish, English, Welsh, and Scotch grantees the Taafes, Cootes, Coopers, Ormsbys, Joneses, Gores, Parkes, Straffords, and Radcliffs; of all of whom, memoirs, more or less detailed, are given; and as most of those families came in with Cromwell, or made common cause with Cromwell on his arrival, the occasion naturally arose of describing the Cromwellian settlement as it took form in the county, and of noting the principles and doings of the settlers and their descendants.

In regard to religious history: an account is given of the propagation over the county of the Christian religion first, by St. Patrick, St. Columba, St. Finian of Clonard, and other saints; next, by the primitive religious houses; and, later, by the larger, and more regular monasteries, notably those of Boyle and the islands of Loch Ce. In this connection an effort is made to ascertain the means of support possessed by monasteries and churches; and, coming down to more modern times, some light is shed on the State religion in the seventeenth century by examining the character and qualifications for office of those who served its ministry in the county.

As to social history: while the reader will be able to gather for himself, as he goes along, fair notions of the life led in the county at different periods, he will be helped more directly to correct ideas on the subject in the last chapter, which is specially designed to illustrate social conditions, and which, with this object, is arranged under the headings, Religion, Education, Dwellings, Tillage, Morals, The Bucks, Duelling, Local Worthies or Men of Mark, Sligo Newspapers, Roads, Music and Dancing, Holy Wells, Wakes, Popular Sports, The Seanachie, Contrasts, and Retrospect.

The account that is given of local antiquities follows the historical rather than the antiquarian method. The antiquary proceeds by examining the old world object in itself, studying its characteristics, comparing it with other objects of a similar kind, and thus, with the aid of comparison and induction, trying to determine its character and the purpose it was intended to serve. Such inquiries, however, in order to arrive at a trustworthy conclusion, must be exhaustive, and involve too dry and complicated a process for a general history like the present, being suited only for a special treatise. The historian, on the other hand, instead of considering the piece of antiquity in itself, and trying to make it tell its own story, relies rather on external evidence, and examines records to see whether they can cast any light on the object in question. It is in this way the Carrowmore circles and cromlechs are here treated. Thinking that an effort to gather from the dimensions in detail of each and all these structures, the personal circumstances of their builders was about as bootless as one to find out from the shape and sizes of a collection of hats, the history of the hatters, I have troubled myself comparatively little with mere measurements, but, turning away from the objects themselves, have sought their history rather in the annals and other old writings of the country.

For the sake of clearness in the narrative, the baronies are taken one after the other, instead of being carried on abreast; Carbury, as containing the county town, coming first, and receiving fuller treatment than the rest. As the districts, which came in the course of time, and under English law, to be incorporated in the county as baronies, were long unconnected and had separate histories, they could not, with any regard to perspicuity, be handled simultaneously as one whole; for the constant passing and repassing from one barony to another, which would then become necessary in order to maintain some degree of chronological sequence in the relation of events, must inevitably beget confusion. Such a process would only bring together a number of heterogeneous facts without affinity or connection of subject, or other principle of unity the operation resembling not a little that of making concrete, where measures of the different materials intended for the compound are tossed one over the other into the same heap, with the result that the original ingredients soon cease to be either separable or discernible. It might seem invidious to refer to an instance, for which, perhaps, one should not have far to go, of this confused and confusing manner of composing local history; but an example of the method attempted in these pages may be found in Dr. Charles Smith's well known and highly prized county histories, and more especially in that of Kerry, on which Macaulay bestows this extraordinary praise: I do not know that I have ever met with a better book of the kind and of the size. The materials of this book are drawn for the most part from manuscripts, very little in it being taken from printed books, and nothing at all without independent inquiry. In treating of Sligo, and, indeed, of many other Irish localities, a writer finds his situation very different from what it would be, if he were dealing with places in England or Scotland or the principal countries of the Continent. In the latter cases he would generally have local annals, official records, family papers, memoires pour servir, and other such documents, to draw on for the facts of secular history; and, for those of ecclesiastical history, diocesan archives, registers of religious houses, chartularies, synodical acts, reports of episcopal visitations, and a hundred other like aids; but as to Sligo, if we name the meagre records of the Corporation, the Clerk of the Crown's books, and a few pages regarding the banishment of the Dominicans in 1698, written by Father Pat McDonough, the Prior of Holy Cross at that disastrous period, we exhaust the local manuscript sources of Sligo history.

The destruction by fire in 1416 of the O'Curneen manuscripts of Church Island, Loughgill, occupied, as a matter of course, with the annals of Sligo and Leitrim; the disappearance, in some way not explained, of the records of the Connaught Presidency, which must have contained much of the official history of Sligo in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and the burning, some sixty or seventy years back, by a servant, of a mass of valuable documents belonging to Holy Cross Convent, Sligo, which the stupid man took to be so much waste paper, are a loss to the history of the town and county which it would be hard to exaggerate. Among the Convent papers was, most probably, the Register, which Archdall, in his Monasticon, article, Cloonymeeghan, tells us existed in Sligo in his day. In the absence of these local helps the inquirer into Sligo history must betake himself to the British Museum, the Public Record Office, the Royal Irish Academy, Trinity College, and similar repositories; and, not finding in such places any connected, narratives of Sligo transactions, he has to wade through oceans of irrelevant matter to fish up here and there the facts that bear upon his subject. All this costs much time and labour; but of course it is only on that condition anything of value or interest can be put together.

I have derived hardly any benefit from local traditions. Indeed, the opinions of the present inhabitants of Sligo regarding the antiquities or remote events of the neighbourhood are worth nothing. Whatever may be said of popular ideas on such a subject, as they exist in other parts of Ireland, where there has been no general disturbance of the Celtic population, they are untrustworthy in and round Sligo, owing to repeated removals of the native inhabitants and the substitution of English and Scotch—in their stead these changes destroying the continuity of local opinions.

In proof of this untrustworthiness, let me refer to two or three of the most popular and most firmly believed traditions connected with the town: One is, that the old building which stood on the site of the present Town Hall was an erection of the O'Connors, and that it got the name of Lady O'Connor's Chair, by which it was popularly known, from a Lady O'Connor, who used to seat herself upon it when she wished to have a good view of the harbour; another is, that the tower, which figures in the arms of the town, represents the round tower of Drumcliff, and signifies that Drumcliff preceded Sligo as the chief town of Lower Connaught; and a third may be stated in the words of the Rev. John Wesley, as they are found in his Journal under date of A.B/19 May, 1778; —

I now received an intelligible account of the famous massacre at Sligo. A little before the Revolution, one Mr. Morris, a popish gentleman, invited all the chief Protestants to an entertainment, at the close of which, on a signal given, the men he had prepared fell upon them, and left not one of them alive. As soon as King William prevailed he quitted Sligo. But returning thither about twenty years after, supposing no one then knew him, he was discovered and used according to his deserts.

Such are the most accredited beliefs of Sligo people and others regarding the past; and one may get a good idea of the value to be set on local views when one learns that these accounts, positive and circumstantial though they be, are one and all mere myths, without a particle of fact to rest on. Where a man of John Wesley's ability, and experience, and honesty, is led into error, it behoves others to be on their guard.

No county in Ireland has better claims to careful and painstaking treatment at the hand of writers than Sligo, for, in the whole island, there is no district that contains in a greater degree the elements which give interest to a locality scenery, antiquities, and association with important events. It would be easy, if need were, to bring forward a long catena of first-class authorities in proof of this statement; and, as it is, it may be useful to quote a few of them, if only to show tourists and other strangers the exceptional interest of all kinds possessed by the county:

Altogether, writes Dr. Petrie in a letter dated Rathcarrick, August 16th, 1837, this district I might say county is equally interesting to the geologist, the antiquary, and the lover of the picturesque. County Sligo, says the eminent artist and antiquary, Mr. Wakeman, in an address to the Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland, is one of the most interesting localities in the British Isles, containing, as it does, a complete and unbroken series of monuments of all kinds military, ecclesiastical, and domestic from the earliest period known to British history down to the sixteenth century. The town of Sligo, writes Fraser in his admirable Hand-Book for Ireland, is rather romantically situated. Perhaps no town in the kingdom enjoys a more diversified or more picturesque vicinage. The environs of Sligo, says the Gazetteer of Ireland, possess great diversity of character, most of the elements of first-rate landscape, several styles of scenic power and beauty, and a large aggregate amount of loveliness, brilliance, and magnificence. County Sligo, observes Seaton F. Milligan, in a Lecture read before the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society, in the Museum, Belfast, on the 1st February, 1887, is classic Irish soil. Its ancient history, if recorded by another Walter Scott, would lend a charm and an. interest to it, equal to any in Europe. It affords a field of study to the botanist, the painter, and the antiquarian.

Not to carry those references too far, I will cite only one more: John O'Donovan came to Sligo in 1836 to investigate and describe its antiquities for the Ordnance Survey Department, but finding preparations, which should have been made by others, incomplete, he begged Sir Thomas Larcom, the head of the department, to excuse him from going on at the time with the work, pleading the need of delay in these remarkable words: I think it a pity to spoil so amazingly interesting a county by working in the dark. What, quite as much as these statements, proves the exceptional natural advantages of the county is the fact, that the highest English officials have often tried to acquire for themselves or their families as much of it as they could. Sir William Fitzwilliam procured for his brother, Brian Fitzwilliam, from Elizabeth, a grant of the Abbey of Ballysadare and all its possessions; Sir Richard Bingham plied English statesmen with repeated applications for the rich mensal lands of Ballymote Castle; Sir Charles Coote managed, under the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, to put his brother Richard, afterwards Lord Collooney, in possession of vast stretches of the county, which have since passed by purchase to the Coopers of Markrea; and Lord Strafford, Charles the First's Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Sir George Radcliffe, Stafford's relative and colleague in office, contrived, in some way that history has not sufficiently explained, to secure for their sons the great O'Connor Sligo estate, comprising the whole barony of Carbury, with large tracts and chiefries in each of the other baronies.

One will search in vain in any other part of Ireland for a district that can boast of such an array of witnesses to its merits, each witness, too, an expert in the matter on which he testifies. If some counties can compare with Sligo in particular points; if, for example, Wicklow and Antrim can rival it in picturesqueness; Kerry and Donegal though this is hardly the case in monuments of primitive times; the counties on the south and south-east coasts, in stirring events, mediaeval and modern; not one of them all, strong as the assertion may seem, can compare with it in the combination of these and the other attributes which impart to a region the interest which enlarges the mind and stirs the heart.

A Sligo man should be encouraged to investigate and study the past of the country by the great example of those county men who have preceded him in the pursuit. It is hardly going too far to say, that no county in Ireland has rendered such service as Sligo in this respect; for if you put away what was done by the MacFirbises of Tireragh from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century; by Tomultagh MacDonogh, Solomon O'Droma, and Manus O'Duigenan in compiling the Book of Ballymote; and by Ferral O'Gara, to whom Brother Michael O'Clery gives all the credit of the Annals of the Four Masters, you dry up, by the fact, the principal sources of ancient Irish history.

The invasion and usurpation of the Cromwellians, in the middle of the seventeenth century, put a stop to these studies in the County Sligo, so that nothing was done in them by any one from that period down to 1836, when members of the Ordnance Survey staff wrote the Sligo Letters (letters of no great value in themselves), and nothing at all, by a native of the county, down to 1878, when the writer published the History of Ballysad are and Kilvarnet, a volume which, notwithstanding its limited scope and many imperfections, had the effect of turning people's thoughts to our local history.

In accordance with the usages of literary courtesy, though in opposition to his own ungenerous practice of ignoring other people's labours, it is right to mention here Major (now Colonel) Wood-Martin's History of Sligo, as a local contribution to the history of the county; but having performed this act of duty, and while acknowledging, besides, that the Colonel, aided by his talented collaborateur, Mr. Jones, has done some good work for the neighbourhood by exploring, measuring, and mapping the rude stone monuments of Carrowmore and other places, it must in justice be added, however reluctantly, that the History of Sligo altogether fails to justify its title. It is the strong sense of this fact that has led to the present effort. I waited long to see would some more competent hand take up the subject, but finding none moving, I felt a call, in the absence of others, to make what attempt I could to clear away some of the fog in which the History in question has left our amazingly interesting county. There is still work enough in the field for other labourers; and if what is now written should be superseded by something more worthy of the subject, nobody would be more pleased than the writer with the result. It is a case in which personal considerations should count for little with a Sligo man, when weighed in the balance against the fair fame of his county.

There may be people who will not like to find so many notes in the volumes. To some readers a page charged largely with references, whatever trouble it may have cost the writer, serves only to repel. For this reason the greater part of the quotations would have been omitted if that could be done consistently with the requirements of the case. Being, however, the first to traverse most of the ground gone over, and differing much as to the remainder, from those who had preceded me, I could not expect to have my witness accepted in such circumstances without corroboration from other quarters; and as many of the proofs adduced are drawn from manuscripts hitherto unpublished, and still inaccessible to ninety-nine out of a hundred readers, it became necessary, that people might be able to judge for themselves, to be precise in references, and, in many cases, to set under the eye the ipsissima verba[4] of the authorities. This may mar the look of the pages, but it must add in value much more than it takes away in appearance.

Treating of a county in which sectarian and party feelings have run perhaps higher than in any other county of Ireland, and in which people must still tread on the ignes suppositos cineri doloso[5], one may be allowed a reference to oneself, which in other circumstances would be justly condemned as egotistic; and, in this connection, I make bold to say, that I am as free, in what I write, from sectarian, party, or personal bias, as John Locke's new-born infant, with the mind clear as a sheet of white paper from impressions of any kind. If then anything here recorded bear hard on individuals or a class, it is from no ill will towards the one or the other, but solely from the obligation, which a writer on historical matters lies under, of telling the truth, irrespective of party or person, of creed or class. With private life I meddle never; but when instances of oppression or one-sidedness show themselves publicly in society, I would not be prevented from noticing and stigmatizing them, even though a friend should come in consequence to be counted the oppressor or the partisan.

Society must prevail over the individual, and truth over friendship Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis arnica veritas[6]. It becomes now my pleasing duty, in concluding these remarks, to make my grateful acknowledgments to Colonel Cooper for obliging me with the use of his valuable MSS. relating to Sligo; and to my clerical friends through the county for the information kindly furnished regarding their respective parishes.

---

[1] John O'Donovan (Seán Ó Donnabháin, 1806 –1861), from County Kilkenny, worked in the Ordnance Survey under George Petrie. His edition of The Annals of the Four Masters, has been called the fount and origin from which most of Ireland's subsequent historical commentaries have been derived, [Clachan ed.].-

[2] The Ordnance Survey Letters contain the correspondence between fieldworkers and the Ordnance Survey Office in Dublin during the compilation of the first Irish Ordnance Survey Maps, [Clachan ed.].

[3] A lengthy piece of learned writing, [Clachan ed.].

[4] Latin for the very words, a legal term referring to an authority that a writer or speaker is quoting, [Clachan ed.]

[Unless otherwise indicated, as above, all footnotes are as in original [Clachan ed.]].

[5] A quotation from Horace You are treading on fire overlaid by treacherous ashes, [Clachan ed.].

[6] Plato is my friend, so is Socrates, but truth is a friend I prize above both

CHAPTER I

THE DISTRICT OF SLIGO

THE district of Sligo was formed into a separate county in the sixteenth century, at the time when the other existing counties of Connaught were constituted. About the middle of the thirteenth century, if not somewhat earlier, the province was divided into two counties—the county of Connaught and the county of Roscommon[7]—the former lying to the south, and the latter to the north, of a line which stretched from the Shannon to the Atlantic Ocean; and that this line was only ill-defined would appear from Harris's Hibernica[8] where we find the sheriff of Connaught and the sheriff of Roscommon maintaining, each that a certain specified district called Athruim O Many, belonged to his own county. The county of Connaught comprised the present counties of Clare, Galway, and Mayo; while the County of Roscommon took in the existing counties of Roscommon, Sligo, Leitrim, and Cavan, as well as the part of Donegal that lies between the Drowes and the Erne. Ware shows by abundant proofs, taken from the records of the country, that this dual arrangement continued in force down to the year 1565; and there is other evidence, which escaped his notice, that it lasted still longer; for we find Christopher Bodkin, the Archbishop of Tuam, signing, as Queen's Commissioner in Civil Causes, an injunction addressed to the sheriff of the county of Connaught", on the 2nd of October, 1567.[9]

Cox in his Hibernia Anglicana leans to the belief that the second division of Connaught into shire land into the shires of Clare, Roscommon, Galway, Sligo, Mayo, and Leitrim was effected by Thomas, Earl of Sussex, who was Lord Lieutenant from 1559 to 1565;[10] a more common opinion, held too by Sir James Ware,[11] is, that it was the work of Sir Henry Sidney, who entered on the office of Lord Deputy in 1565; while others, including O'Flaherty in his Ogygia, ascribe the change to Sir John Perrott, who became Lord Deputy in 1584 the fact apparently being, that Lord Sussex originated the project, that Sir Henry Sydney executed it substantially, and that Sir John Perrott confirmed and completed it by his famous Compositions with the Connaught chieftains.[12]

Before the formation of the county Sligo, the areas, now comprised in it, were known as the countries or territories of Tirerrill, Corran, Leyney, Coolavin, Tireragh, and Carbury; names which now designate the baronies of the county. It will not be out of place to examine here for a moment what land these districts anciently contained as territories, and what they now contain as baronies; and, taking them in the order in which they lie in the preceding sentence, it would appear, in the first place, that Tirerrill has undergone little change in the coarse of time as to its contents. It was said of old to extend from the Yellow River of St. Patrick's Mountain to Tir Tuathail or Kilronan—ab amne flavo Montis Sancti Patricii ad frontem de Tir Tuathail—and these are the present limits of the barony; for the Yellow River of St. Patrick's Mountain, though not now known popularly by that name, can be no other than the stream which falls from the slopes of Slieve Gamh, and which, at its junction with the Owenmore, near Annaghmore, forms the western limit of Tirerrill. The mountain of Slieve Gamh was called St. Patrick's Mountain after St. Patrick, as he laboured much on it, raised churches on its slopes, and left his name to some of its wells, as, for instance, those of Dromard and Tullaghan. It is stated in an inquisition taken at Sligo on the 25th July, 1607,[13] that twenty quarters of the barony of Tirerrill were incorporated with the county Leitrim at the time of Perrott's Compositions, but with this exception Tirrerill, recte Tiroillill the land of Oilill is now in extent what it was in the early part of the sixteenth century, and what, most probably, it was before that time, and ever since it received its present name from Oilill, the son of Eochy Moighmedhoin and Mongfmna.

On the other hand, Corran was much more extensive, as a territory, than it is, as a barony; for the country called Corann, says O'Flaherty,[14] formerly comprehended Galenga in the county of Mayo, Lugny and Corann, in the county of Sligo; and Ware observes on the same point: Coranna, a Territory, anciently comprehending Galenga (now the Barony of Galen, in the county of Mayo), Lugnia (now the Barony of Leny), in the county of Sligoe), and Coranna (now the Barony of Corrann), in the same county.[15] The contraction of the district is proved too by the old annals of the country; for places which now lie far outside the barony, belonged in ancient times to the territory, as Kilcoleman-Finn, now in Mayo, but of old in Corran,[16] and Cunghill, now in Leyney, but in Corran in the eleventh century.[17]

Leyney too has had its variations of extent. At first, when Cormac Galeng, the ancestor of the O'Haras and O'Garas, got possession of it, in the third century, the district of Corann or Coranna received the new name of Leyney or Luighne, in honour of Luigh, the son of this Cormac, and continued to retain the name, as an alias one, for several centuries. During this period places which certainly lay within the ancient territory of Coranna, as already defined, were said to be in Leyney. Under the year 1225 we read in the Four Masters that Hugh O'Conor and the English pursued the sons of Roderic that night to Meelick, and for three nights afterwards continued plundering Leyney in all directions; this plainly implying that Meelick and the neighbourhood of Meelick formed part of Leyney at the time. And under the year 1253 we are told by the same authority that a monastery for Dominicans was founded at Ath-Leathan (Ballylahan), in Leyney; and though John O'Donovan, in a note to this entry, ventures to affirm, that, the Four Masters are wrong in placing this in the territory of Leyney, for it is certainly in the ancient territory of Gailenga, O'Gara's original country, still it is certain that it is O'Donovan himself who is tripping, and not the Four Masters; for not only in the Four Masters, but in all our old authorities, the diocese of Achonry, which included then, as it does now, the district of Galen, is styled the diocese of Leyney, and the bishops of Achonry, the bishops of Leyney[18] nay, this very writer admits as much in another place; for, in a note in the Book of Rights,[19] he lays it down that the territory of Leyney and the territory of Achonry diocese are exactly identical.

Coolavin is not so old a denomination of territory as Tirerrill, Corran, or Leyney, and therefore the region, designated by it, has not been so liable to vary in extent. The ancient name of the district was Greagraidhe; but Coolavin did not, and does not, include as much land as Greagraidhe; for a considerable tract in the north of the present county Roscommon belonged to the latter district.[20] In other respects Coolavin has gained rather than lost, for