Strabane Barony during the Ulster Plantation 1607-1641

Robert John (Bob) Hunter was born in rural Meath in 1938 and was educated at Wesley College and Trinity College, Dublin. After graduation in 1960, he began research on the Ulster Plantation in the counties of Armagh and Cavan, 1608–41. This interest in the Plantation, and early modern Irish history generally, was to dominate his life.

In 1963 he was appointed Assistant Lecturer in History at Magee College, thus beginning an association with the city of Derry that was to continue for the rest of his life. The creation of what was to become the University of Ulster also saw him teaching regularly in Coleraine.

Through his meticulous research, he developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of his subject, traversing such themes as the development of towns, the role of the English planters, the history of trade and migration and the intellectual and cultural life of Ulster more generally.

Though his untimely death in 2007 was to cut short his ambitions for further writing, he was nevertheless to leave behind more than thirty articles, essays, reviews, etc., which were the result of painstaking study conducted with a careful eye for detail and relevance.

Map of Scotland c. 1607, Scotia Regnum by William Hole, courtesy of the R.J. Hunter Collection

Strabane Barony

during the

Ulster Plantation

1607–1641

Published in association with the R.J. Hunter Committee. The Committee works to acknowledge the contribution R.J. Hunter made to the study of our past by making more widely known the results of his research, as well as giving limited support to others engaged in associated endeavours.

COVER DESIGN:
Bodley map for Strabane barony of 1609 and John Speed’s map of Ulster c. 1616, both courtesy of the Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich Memorial Library and Archive; ruin of Mountcastle, near Dunnamanagh, courtesy of William Roulston. Cover design by David Graham

First published in this format 2011
by Ulster Historical Foundation,
49 Malone Road, Belfast BT9 6RY
www.ancestryireland.com
www.booksireland.org.uk

Except as otherwise permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means with the prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of a licence issued by The Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publisher.

Maps and Illustrations

Allocation of lands to English and Scottish undertakers in the Plantation scheme of 1610

Submission of Turlough Luineach O’Neill before Lord Deputy Sidney (from Derricke’s The Image of Irelande)

The Place of Paisley: Scottish home of the Hamiltons, Earls of Abercorn

Foreword

FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AGO MY ANCESTOR James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Abercorn, stepped off a boat from Scotland to begin a new life in Ireland. That he should have left the comforts of a life in Scotland and all the privileges that went with his position shows something of the power of persuasion possessed by his king, James VI and I, as well as perhaps something of his own sense of adventure. He made his home at Strabane and four centuries later my family still lives in this area. This book tells his story and that of many others in this fascinating period of our history.

It was my pleasure to meet R.J. ‘Bob’ Hunter on more than one occasion and I was struck by his passion for history and his enthusiasm for communicating it to others. He had an inquisitive mind for all things relating to the Ulster Plantation and enjoyed excursions to early seventeenth-century castles as much as delving into the archives and exploring the documentation of the time.

I commend this book as an excellent example of the way in which a professional historian and his students can successfully work together to produce a high-quality publication. All of us can learn something from it as we look back from the vantage point of 2011 on events that changed our province forever.

Preface

THIS PROJECT DEVELOPED OUT OF AN EVENING COURSE conducted by me in Strabane under the auspices of the extra-mural department of Magee University College on the Plantation in Ulster as a whole. Afterwards, in the winters 1969–70 to 1971–2, a small group was assembled, meeting in the Abercorn Arms hotel, to make a study of the plantation in the Strabane area which we hoped would be adequate for reproduction and local sale. Since the plantation was organised on a regional basis, the barony of Strabane – allocated to Scots – formed a coherent unit of investigation. It was my function (however casually fulfilled) to attempt to provide some guidance in the use of source materials and to get together by transcript and photocopy relevant extracts from unpublished sources.

We were fortunate to secure the co-operation of Mr K.W. Nicholls of University College, Cork who provided us at a very early stage with a most valuable section on the Gaelic back ground of the Strabane region. Equally, Professor M. Perceval-Maxwell of McGill University, Montreal generously provided material on the Scottish background to plantation and on the Scottish ‘undertakers’ who received grants of estates in Strabane barony, prior to the publication of his own book in 1973.

Apart from their contributions and my own chapter on the town of Strabane and some additional material, the finished production is essentially the work of the Strabane Local History Group.

The contributions were written mainly during the period 1970–74. The group became disrupted in the mid 1970s and credit for much of the editorial work and the drive towards completion must go to Mr Michael Cox whose very fine maps, finished in 1978, deserve particular scrutiny. Regrettably, pressure of space has precluded footnotes, but the principal sources used are listed in the bibliography.

At the end of each section or chapter the initials of each contributor are given as follows:

I am very happy to record our gratitude, in the first instance, to Professor E. Rhodes, former Head of Extra-Mural Studies, Magee University College, who initially promoted the project and now to Professor A. Rogers of the Institute of Continuing Education at Magee who has been most helpful in every way in facilitating its publication. The group wishes also to acknowledge the assistance and advice of the staffs of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and of the then Tyrone County Library. We are particularly indebted to the Duke of Abercorn, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and The Board of Trinity College, Dublin for permission to reproduce the manuscripts which form the illustrations.

Map showing allocation of lands to English and Scottish undertakers in the Plantation scheme of 1610

Introduction

DURING ELIZABETH’S REIGN THE POPULATION of England outgrew the resources of the country. Colonisation became one of the principal means by which this pressure was reduced. The New World was a long way off, whilst Ireland offered opportunities much closer to home. Only the area around Dublin – the Pale – was controlled directly. A plan to colonise Munster was embarked upon with mixed results. Ulster was still the main stronghold of Gaelic Ireland with the two families, O’Neill and O’Donnell, owning or controlling over half the province (the present counties of Tyrone, Londonderry and Donegal). In the east of Ulster the English had developed associations with the principal families and there had been forts around the coast since Norman times.

At the end of the 16th century the policy of ‘divide and rule’ was established. This in effect saw the setting up of forts on the Foyle continuing towards Ballyshannon, so attempting to divide the O’Neills (Tyrone) from the O’Donnells (Donegal). Forts were established at Greencastle (a Norman site), Culmore, Derry, Dunalong and Lifford. Alliances were made with some of the minor Gaelic leaders such as Niall Garbh O’Donnell at Castlefinn. At the same time the Elizabethan policy to ‘convert’ Ireland to Protestantism had been directed towards west Ulster by James I (VI of Scotland) after he ascended the English throne in 1603.

The appointment of George Montgomery as Bishop of Derry, Raphoe and Clogher followed in 1605. He started to claim upwards of half Hugh O’Neill’s and Rory O’Donnell’s lands for the Church. The Earl of Tyrone had also fallen out with his principal vassal in the north – Sir Donnell O’Cahan. This led to a summons by the King in 1607 to O’Neill to go to London.

Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone (d. 1616)

Suspecting that he would be imprisoned, O’Neill together with O’Donnell and upwards of sixty relatives and servants sailed to exile on the Continent. This left Gaelic Ulster leaderless and presented the opportunity for another colonisation scheme – the Plantation of Ulster.

Strabane barony at the end of the 16th century

Our survey starts well before the Plantation. Some idea of the events taking place during the ten years preceding the Flight of the Earls can be obtained from various sources, and it is important to keep in mind that there had been constant interchange of people and ideas between western Scotland and Ulster for many centuries.

Geographical background

The barony of Strabane was one of the four divisions of County Tyrone which was established in 1585; west Ulster being that part of Ireland last to be ‘shired’ on the English pattern for administrative purposes. It was an area of about 400 square miles, diamond-shaped with diagonal distances of 25 miles. Like all old administrative areas its boundaries are clearly defined natural features. On the west and south we find, in turn, the rivers Foyle, Finn, Fairywater (Poe Water), Strule, Camowen and Drumnakilly. To the north and east we find the Sperrin Mountains and their foothills often connected by large expanses of high moorland. The location map shows the main geographical features of the area. Above 500 feet (150 m) we usually find uncultivated or afforested bog land. The whole area has been subject to the affect of glacial activity. Most of the lower land is covered by glacial deposits of sand, gravel and clays offering differing controls to cultivation. The higher land was covered by woodlands and bogs which before the action of man would have covered well over 90% of the barony. As there is evidence of man’s occupation in the area going back over 5,000 years, the landscape has been moulded by this continuous settlement, which as population increased gradually altered to that seen by us today.

The Sperrins near Goles, Badoney parish

With varying cycles of climate change it is considered by climatologists that for the early 17th century the seasons (in the British Isles) were cooler with wetter winters than today. Occasional references to extreme conditions at that time were noted in the Calendar of State Papers. One entry for 25 March 1601 states that the ‘rivers (are) in high flood, not fordable due to heavy snows now melting’. This type of weather, when linked to the fact that systematic drainage of land was unknown, would have added to the difficulties where cultivation and travelling were concerned. The controls through geographic factors would therefore be far more in evidence than today.

This geographical control on both location of settlement and of routes is very evident in Strabane barony. All the church sites and the towns of Strabane and Newtownstewart are near to or on a river bank. Both towns controlled crossing points of rivers – Strabane opposite to Lifford (known at that time as ‘Liffer’ or ‘The Liffer’) where at the time of drought and/or at low tide (the Foyle system is tidal to a point one mile above the confluence with the Finn and Mourne) the Foyle could have been forded, as was the Strule at Newtownstewart. Early routeways followed the rivers and streams or kept to non boggy land through more settled areas. Most of these have continued in use down to the present time, although it is impossible to say which of the present roads, no doubt as tracks for horses, existed in the early part of the 17th century. There are occasional references to routes on old maps but they are too imprecise to be used authoritatively.

An Irish chieftain feasting (from Derricke’s The Image of Irelande)

Settlements before the Plantation in Ulster were few. There would have been small groups of ‘cabins’ nearby the castles, churches and abbeys. The native Irish mostly lived within their family groupings – clachans. Their extent can be gauged by the spread of the ‘balliboes’ (named settlements), but with their division by the 17th century due to an increase in population and the pressure on land there had been a movement of population into inhospitable areas. Strabane had a settlement of modest size by 1600. When Agnes Campbell came from the Western Isles to marry Turlough Luineach O’Neill in 1569 she brought 1,000 men with her with the result that 60/80 families of Scottish descent were to be found at Strabane at the end of the century. By 1600 the English had built a series of forts along the Foyle. These included Culmore, Derry, Dunalong and Lifford, with less important ones at Castlefinn and near Newtownstewart under the jurisdiction of the principal Irish families professing or offering support to the English.

Caricature of Turlough Luineach O’Neill

The rivers were the main routes of communication. We learn that in the first decade of the 17th century, ships of 200 tons sailed up to Dunalong whilst ‘barks’